On Earth Day, 22 April 2013, Oilwatch International put out a statement opposing the inclusion of REDD in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32). Meanwhile, Wildlife Works, a company developing REDD projects in Africa held a “REDD talks” workshop in California, promoting REDD as a carbon trading mechanism.
The positions expressed by Oilwatch and Wildlife Works are at polar extremes in the REDD debate. Oilwatch states that “REDD allows polluters to keep polluting and global warming to get worse.” Wildlife Works tells us that REDD “provides an immediate solution to combatting climate change.”
But as Oilwatch points out, carbon trading allows Shell, one of the most polluting companies on the planet, to buy forest carbon credits and continue burning fossil fuels and emitting pollution. Obviously, this is not a solution to climate change.
California, Don’t let Shell Roast the Planet!
Oilwatch International
Statement on Rejecting California REDD
Earth Day, April 22, 2013Californians are renowned for being environmental savvy so we at Oilwatch International were dismayed to learn that the State of California may let climate criminals like Shell and Chevron off the hook by including a false solution to climate change called REDD in its global warming law.
REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) is a carbon offset scheme whereby polluters use forests and land as supposed sponges for their pollution instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at source.
REDD allows polluters to keep polluting and global warming to get worse. The State of California’s climate change law, AB32, currently includes domestic REDD offsets, and may soon be broadened to also include international REDD offsets from countries like Mexico, Brazil and Nigeria.
We denounce the trading of pollution for forests as the worst kind of protection racket. The State of California has already made a mockery of its efforts to tackle global warming by using carbon trading and offsets. We ask that California not add injury to insult by including REDD as well.
While forest dependent communities suffer from carbon offset projects that grab and exploit their forests as mere carbon sinks, polluters such as Shell are expanding their operations through a scam that is clearly nothing more than trading hot air.
Both Californians and the world are harmed by REDD-type projects. For example, Shell recently purchased 500,000 carbon offsets credits from a forestry project on over 200,000 acres in Michigan that not only will grant Shell’s refinery in Martinez, California permission to pollute and spew carcinogens, but will also push the planet further down the road to catastrophic global warming.
Making forest carbon offsets official policy reproduces the toxic injustice and environmental racism that plagues low-income communities in the global North, while exposing vulnerable communities in the global South to flagrant human rights violations, land grabs, displacement, and destruction of our biocultural heritage.
We speak from Nigeria, where Shell is a climate criminal and infamous for the genocide against the Ogoni People. We speak from Ecuador where Chevron is a climate criminal and trashed the Amazon. We speak from Turtle Island, where our lands and our peoples have been devastated by dirty energy—from coal to fracking to flaring to tarsands. We speak from planet Earth, where fossil fuel civilization has brought the biosphere to the brink of collapse.
Shell’s hot air purchases in the USA and abroad portend great danger to Indigenous Peoples and forest dependent communities across the world. Trading pollution for forests threatens Indigenous Peoples’ rights, resources, territories and very survival.
Carbon trading and REDD in the California encourage dirty energy industries to lock in their polluting systems rather than powering down as climate science demands.
Even the United Nations itself admits that REDD could result in the “lock-up of forests,” “loss of land” and “new risks for the poor.
“ We affirm the declaration of the NO REDD in Africa Network that REDD does not halt deforestation, but rather is emerging as a new form of colonialism, economic subjugation and a driver of land grabs so massive that they may constitute a continent grab.
We stand with the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD and for Life who denounce REDD as potentially the biggest land grab of all time with devastating consequences for Indigenous Peoples in whose lands and territories the majority of forests are found.
We stand with La Via Campesina, the world’s largest peasant farmer movement that rejects REDD and denounces that it may undermine food sovereignty, cause hunger and result in a counter-agrarian reform.
We stand with our sisters of the World March of Women who oppose REDD because they know it could constitute a new form of violence against women.
We affirm the founding principles of Climate Justice Now!, which stipulate that the root causes of global warming must be tackled now and false solutions not tolerated.
We affirm the Cochabamba Accord of the Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change which rejects REDD and demands greenhouse gas reductions at source.
We know California will not be fooled by REDD. Common sense requires that we end fossil fuel addiction, not let corporations such as Chevron and Shell continue to profit while setting the planet ablaze.
We don’t buy the REDD hype, and neither should the State of California. Please, for the good of people and planet, reject REDD in California. The world will thank you.
Ivonne Yanez
Quito, Ecuador
Oilwatch InternationalNnimmo Bassey
Benin City, Nigeria
Oilwatch InternationalSent to:
The Honorable Jerry Brown
Governor of California
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
c/o Clifford Rechtschaffen, Senior AdvisorMary Nichols
California Air Resources Board
1001 I Street, Sacramento, California 95812Copies to:
Ashley Conrad-Saydah
Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy
California Environmental Protection Agency
1001 I Street, Sacramento, California 95812Arsenio Mataka
Subsecretary for Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs
California Environmental Protection Agency
1001 I Street, Sacramento, California 95812La Ronda Bowen
Ombudsman
California Environmental Protection Agency
1001 I Street, Sacramento, California 95812Jason A. Gray
Staff Counsel, California Air Resources Board
1001 I Street, Sacramento, California 95812
Comments following the original post on REDD-Monitor.org are archived here: https://archive.is/VHge7#selection-3581.4-3581.14