We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations, wish to express extreme concern about the role envisaged for tree plantations in helping industrialized countries meet their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Sixth Conference of the Parties, in November 2000 in the Hague, will likely determine the content of the so-called Clean Development Mechanism, which could allow many Northern countries to meet their emissions reductions targets by implementing projects in the South.

Trading carbon sequestered in tree plantations for carbon resulting from burning of fossil fuels cannot justify postponing deep reductions in CO2 emissions in industrialized countries. First, the trade would perpetuate and exacerbate existing inequalities between rich and poor nations and between rich and poor within particular nations. Second, the trade would increase the area of industrial tree plantations, which are already posing severe social and ecological problems worldwide. Third, the claim of quantifiable "climate neutrality" on which this trade rests has a highly questionable scientific basis and sanctions external political interference in the policymaking of the countries of the South.

For a century and a half industrial societies have been moving carbon from underground reserves of coal and oil into the air. Today about 175 billion more tons of carbon are circulating in the atmosphere in the form of CO2 than before the industrial revolution, the great bulk having come from the North. At least six billion tons are being added every year. Just over 122 corporations account for 80 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions.

The transfer of carbon from fossil fuels to the atmosphere cannot go on indefinitely. Some 4,000 billion tonnes of carbon in fossil fuels are still under the earth's surface -- more than ten times the amount of carbon stored in forests. According to current scientific consensus, adding as little as few hundred billion tons of this to the air would result in climate change unprecedented in human history, bringing extreme storms, droughts and floods, disrupting agriculture, increasing pest infestations, drowning islands and coastlines and creating millions of "climate refugees".

Climate change will affect the poor most severely. When Hurricane Mitch ravaged Central America it generated hundreds of thousands of environmental refugees. Many small island states may eventually disappear under the sea. In the US it is the poor who are most affected by pollution from oil companies, power utilities and automobiles. Climate change will also severely affect the forests and agriculture that are the sole means for livelihood for millions of people.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, under which industrialized countries pledge to reduce emissions by 2010 by an average of 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels, does not go remotely far enough to stave off these dangers. Even if the Protocol were ratified and fully implemented, it is estimated, it would not be able to moderate an expected warming trend of 1.4o C. by 2050 by more than around 0.05o C.

Yet instead of strengthening the Protocol in ways that would reduce the use of fossil fuels, some governments are advocating the creation of plantations-based carbon sinks and stores in order to justify lesser reductions in fossil fuel use. Under the Clean Development Mechanism, such projects could be created in the South to "compensate" for industrial emissions in the North.

We are in no doubt about the role of forest conservation in maintaining a livable climate. We are strongly in favor of maintaining and restoring diverse forest ecosystems under local control. We also support the equitable distribution of wealth and common property North and South. But measures to maintain carbon reservoirs both below and above ground must be carefully distinguished from the carbon-trading plantation schemes now being mooted under the Kyoto Protocol. These are based on false premises and are likely to be counterproductive. We oppose the inclusion of plantations as "sinks" in the Clean Development Mechanism for four main reasons:

- Using "sinks" to help Northern countries meet their Kyoto Protocol emissions reductions targets cannot promote a livable climate since those targets are themselves insufficient to do so.

- Trading emissions for tree carbon would intensify regressive redistribution of world resources.

Licensing the burning of fossil fuels by financing tree plantations to "absorb" carbon dioxide would expand the ecological and social footprint of the rich, making existing social inequalities worse. Citizens of a Northern country which use (say) 20 times more per capita of the atmosphere for CO2 dumping than citizens of a Southern country would be entitled, under the rationale of carbon trading, to use 20 times more tree plantation land in order to compensate. This land would be taken disproportionately from poorer people in the South, where real estate is cheaper and tree growth rates faster. In addition, a carbon-trading system would put Southern countries at a disadvantage when they begin making emissions cuts, since the easiest cuts would have already been purchased and credited to Northern countries. It has often been pointed out that the North owes the South an immense "carbon debt" for its historical overuse of global carbon-cycling mechanisms. Far from abiding by the "polluter pays" principle, using trees to "compensate" for emissions would only increase this resource debt.

Such schemes would also sanction and deepen inequalities within both Southern and Northern countries. For example, corporations that buy carbon-dioxide emission rights in the North by sponsoring carbon "offset" plantations in the South would be allowed to go on releasing, along with CO2, many other pollutants that pose local health risks. Corporations site a disproportionate number of such factories in poor communities of color.

- Large-scale industrial tree plantations are a threat to communities and ecosystems the world over.

Millions of hectares of new plantation land would have to be taken over in any attempt to counteract even a small fraction of industrial emissions. Experience with large-scale tree plantations indicates that such "offset" projects would usurp needed agricultural lands, replace valuable native ecosystems, worsen inequity in land ownership, increase poverty, lead to evictions of local peoples, and undermine local stewardship practices needed for forest conservation. In Chile, Indonesia, the Nordic countries and elsewhere, tree plantations have destroyed natural forests, while in South Africa, Argentina and Uruguay they have replaced other valuable ecosystems such as grasslands. In countries such as Brazil, Thailand and Chile tree plantations are at the root of serious land conflicts among local communities, landowners, corporations and the state. Nearly everywhere they have led to loss of water resources and biodiversity. Inherent in industrial plantation forestry models and exhaustively documented by the World Rainforest Movement and others over many years, these deleterious effects of plantations would only be accentuated if genetically modified trees were employed.

-Using tree plantation projects to "compensate" for the climatic effects of carbon-dioxide emissions is scientifically incoherent and sanctions external political interference in the social policies of host countries.

A market in "carbon offsets" presupposes a notion of "climate neutrality" or "climate equivalence". In order for a plantation "offset" project to be tradable for a given amount of industrial emissions, a single determinate number would need to be calculated to represent the amount of carbon sequestered or stored as a result of the project over and above what would have been sequestered or stored in its absence.

Deriving such a number involves quantifying two types of project effect. Both would influence the net amount of carbon sequestered or stored.

One type of effect is physical. Unlike underground oil or coal, carbon stored in live or dead trees can quickly reenter the atmosphere at any time. Fires, whether human-set or not, are unavoidable features of both forests and plantations, and rates of decay difficult to anticipate. As CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere rise, moreover, heightened rates of respiration could turn forests and plantations alike into net sources of CO2 emissions, while diebacks and fires due to localized climate change are bound to increase. In addition, plantations typically reduce the capacity of soils to store carbon, both inside and (through increased erosion) outside project areas. Vulnerable, dynamic and unpredictable, plantations, unlike underground reserves of oil and coal, are insecure storage places for carbon. These considerations alone indicate that no equivalence between industrial emissions and trees can be established of the type which would be necessary for the establishment of a "carbon offset" plantation market.

The second type of effect is social, and would exert an equally important influence on the amount of carbon sequestered or stored. Carbon "offset" projects could, among other things:

*Displace communities in the immediate neighborhood, which could lead to the project's destruction or cancellation or forest clearance and CO2 releases elsewhere.

*Undermine existing technologies or social networks preventing climatically-destabilizing forms of industrial land clearance and loss of local knowledge of sustainable agricultural or forest-conservation practices.

*Reduce investor interest in energy conservation or renewables.

*Displace timber operations to other locations and influence wood and land prices and thus incentives for logging.

*Change consumer demand, landfill legislation and other social factors influencing how quickly plantation products, including paper and furniture, were converted to carbon dioxide.

*Siphon funding away from existing forms of carbon protection.

*Provide incentives to degrade forests or other lands outside project boundaries in order to attract new money for carbon projects.

Such social effects are impossible to quantify. It is not even possible, in fact, to determine a single social outcome for any given project, which would be a prerequisite for both quantification and a "carbon trade". First, predicting the extent of the social effects of a plantation project would be impossible. These effects, moreover, are not a matter for prediction, but for democratic decision. Many different "atmospheric outcomes" of a single project are possible, depending on what policies are adopted. For example, people evicted by a plantation "offset" project are likely to behave in different ways toward forests in their region depending on their land rights, which in turn depends on national policy. To assign a single number to their behavior would be to prejudge which policy will be in effect. It could even be said implicitly to support that policy. Second, continuous monitoring of the extent of all social effects of a plantation project would be impracticable and vastly uneconomical (involving, among other things, close attention to the actions of thousands of rural people in the vicinity of the project as well as to the psychology of investors in renewables in distant cities). Third, controlling the behavior of all people affected by an "offset" project in such a way that the effect of their actions on atmospheric carbon became precisely calculable over the many decades during which a project's carbon would have to be sequestered would also be impossible. The attempt to do so, moreover, would be politically unacceptable.

By the same token, it is impossible to compare quantitatively the atmospheric effects of a plantation with "what would have happened without it". What would have happened without any particular project depends on many variables, some of them influenced by policy choices and political action which economists, biologists, foresters or climate scientists are not entitled to prejudge. Yet without such prejudgments, a carbon "commodity" is impossible.

In sum, the climatic effects of a plantation "offset" project cannot be calculated simply by (say) comparing the amount of carbon stored in local vegetation and soils before and after the project and by monitoring changes in vegetation outside the project site. Deeper issues are involved that cannot be resolved through "learning by doing".

We, the undersigned NGOs, strongly support national and international efforts to address climate change, especially through energy conservation, consumption reduction, more equitable resource use, and equitable development and sharing of renewable sources of energy. We hold that a widespread trade in tree plantation "offsets", through the Clean Development Mechanism and other means, would block or undercut these necessary and urgent measures, which constitute a rare opportunity to move on from dominant and failed patterns of development. We urge governments not to include plantations as carbon sinks in the Clean Development Mechanism and to address industrial emissions separately from tree plantations. A livable climate can be assured only by a commitment to tackling the root causes of global warming. (San Francisco, May 2000)

Our intrinsic relation with Mother Earth obliges us to oppose the inclusion of sinks in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) because it reduces our sacred land and territories to mere carbon sequestration which is contrary to our cosmovision and philosophy of life. Sinks in the CDM would constitute a worldwide strategy for expropriating our lands and territories and violating our fundamental rights that would culminate in a new form of colonialism. Sinks in the CDM would not help to reduce GHG emissions, rather it would provide industrialized countries with a ploy to avoid reducing their emissions at source.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established by the Kyoto Protocol offers both negative and positive possibilities. The CDM will not be a solution to global warming if it diffuses or obfuscates the responsibility of industrialized countries to reduce their GHG. It must not be used to allow Annex I countries to continue poisoning the environment. Sinks in the CDM pose the threat of invasion and loss of our land and territories by establishing new regimes for protected areas and privatization. We emphatically oppose the inclusion of sinks, plantations, nuclear power, megahydroelectric and coal. Furthermore, we oppose the development of a carbon market that would broaden the scope of globalization. However, we do support the Positive List including the development of alternative energies that foster sustainable development.

Indigenous Peoples demand that the principles of transparency, prior informed consultation and consent, independent third party verification and monitoring, benefit sharing, risk reduction, appeals mechanism and compensation be guaranteed. Furthermore, we emphasize the need for these principles to be applied in culturally and linguistically appropriate manners.

The full text can be accessed in our Climate Change section at: http://www.wrm.org.uy (Bulletin October, 2000)

Members of the Global Forest Coalition and other NGOs and IPOs that gathered in Lyon in September 2000 prepared a statement explaining the reasons for opposing to carbon sinks in the Clean Development Mechanism. Here there are some of the reasons:

1. Sinks are neither long term nor short term solution to mitigating climate change. The lack of verifiable ways of estimating the ability of forests and other ecosystems to 'compensate' for industrial emissions means that the inclusion of sinks in the CDM would destroy the Kyoto Protocol.

2. Including sinks in the CDM would lead to Annex 1 countries receiving credits for forest conservation, restoration, reforestation and tree plantation establishment while the rights and interests of indigenous and other local communities which have been inhabiting and protecting these forests for centuries are neglected.

3. Including sinks in the CDM as a way of meeting the commitments of governments would reinforce existing inequalities. The climate crisis is due to the industrial societies using more than their fair share of the world's carbon cycling capacity to gain more than a fair share of the world's resources. This problem will not be solved by abdicating them a right to take over other people's lands and seas for so-called carbon sequestration and storage.

4. Sinks in the CDM would constitute a worldwide strategy for expropriating Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' lands, seas and territories and violating their fundamental rights.

5. Including sinks in the CDM would provide a huge incentive, on top of existing subsidies, for the establishment of Northern-driven, large scale, environmentally and socially destructive monoculture tree plantations. These plantations are already proving disastrous for peoples and their environments all over the world. Moreover, carbon plantations will result in little revenue for host countries, provide an obstacle for their present and future sustainable development while awarding Annex 1 countries huge sums in terms of carbon credit.

6. Including sinks in the CDM would not address the underlying causes of forest loss. Nor would it create macro-economic conditions making forest conservation and restoration possible. Such conditions include debt reduction, sustainable consumption and production patterns, revision of Structural Adjustment Programmes, strict regulation of international private investment flows and ensuring equitable relationships between North and South.

The full text can be accessed in our Climate Change section at: http://www.wrm.org.uy (Bulletin October, 2000)

The following are some quotes from indigenous peoples' representatives at Lyon, which --in sharp contrast with government delegates-- address the true issues at stake, in a climate change process which has until now ignored indigenous peoples (the Forum of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change also issued in Lyon a declaration, which is available in our Climate Change section at: http://www.wrm.org.uy):

"Developed country proposals to buy the right to continue polluting the atmosphere by planting more trees makes a farce of the climate change negotiations," said Héctor Huertas, an indigenous leader from Panama.

Clark Peteru from Samoa warned: "Not only are indigenous peoples on small island states on the brink of losing their lands to sea level rise, but indigenous peoples throughout the world, particularly forest-dwellers, are in danger of losing their lands and livelihoods to proposals to plant thousands of hectares of trees to act as gigantic carbon sponges. Mature forests will be cut down to make way for more rapid growing tree species and agricultural land will be transformed into tree plantations."

"The proposal stinks, it gives the impression of doing something when the net effect is to make the problem worse. It allows industrial countries to continue polluting the atmosphere, and throws the social cost on marginalised populations" explained Raymond de Chavez of the Philippines. "It also establishes a market in carbon emissions which will benefit only developed countries. Profits will be made even as countries disappear under water or entire populations lose their lands. It's obscene," Chavez said.

"What is needed is a fundamental change in philosophy regarding our relationship to the earth. Only then will developed countries get serious and honour their pledges, already quite small, to reduce their carbon emissions rather than fiddle as the earth burns," concluded Antonio Jacanamijoy of Colombia. (Bulletin October, 2000)

'Carbon sinks' reduce CO2 not by cutting emissions but by soaking it up: Grow a big forest and get rid of tons of carbon bound in the trees. But this CO2 could anytime be released again if the trees are burnt or cut down. Even worse, naturally grown forests, rich in biodiversity, might be replaced by monoculture plantations, which appear to be more effective in soaking up CO2.

However, planting trees rather than reducing emissions from fossil fuels will not save the global climate. For one thing, it is scientifically proven that the biosphere cannot store all the carbon we could release, which is currently underground in the form of oil, gas and coal ("saturation"). Also, there are huge uncertainties and accounting problems involved with the use of sinks to meet the targets. And if, as science indicates, forests globally will become sources of greenhouse gases rather than sinks --how can we be sure that a forest project will actually reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the long run?

Planting trees is also not necessarily environmentally friendly: a monoculture plantation soaks up much more carbon than an old-growth forest but might destroy biodiversity. In the long term, we cannot rely on trees and soil to soak up carbon, but we must stop burning fossil fuels.

The full text can be accessed at: http://www.foeeurope.org/dike/avoid.htm (Bulletin October, 2000)

The following declaration, endorsed by an international group of concerned organizations from the South and the North for COP6, stresses the need for an effective and fair agreement to protect the global climate and among other issues, expresses that:

- cuts in emissions can and should be made by industrialised countries as agreed in Rio in 1992

- cutting emissions will bring about the innovation needed for sustainable development in North and South

- no citizen has a right to pollute more than any other

- past, current and future emissions from industrialised countries have, do and will exceed for an unknown period their fair share by far and that this is unfair.

We therefore call on the Governments of the world to correct this inequity by implementing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol so that:

- mechanisms are developed whereby those who emit above their fair share provide adequate resources to developing countries vulnerable to the impacts of climate change for both disaster preparedness and disaster relief and rehabilitation

- the overwhelming majority of emission reductions are made in the high per capita polluting countries (domestic action first)

- other environmental and social problems are prevented by a clear focus of the Protocol’s flexible mechanisms on renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

The full text can be accessed in our Climate Change section at: http://www.wrm.org.uy (Bulletin October, 2000)

With just five weeks to go before climate negotiators flock to The Hague to hammer out the implementing rules of the Kyoto Protocol, forests are more and more in danger of being reduced to a single commodity --carbon-- to be traded away under the Kyoto Protocol’s so called "Flexible Mechanisms".

Gaining credits for the natural ability of forests and soils to temporarily fix carbon, instead of addressing greenhouse gas emissions at home will mean that the North can continue to get away with using more than its fair share of the world’s natural resources --by claiming (supposedly degraded) lands in the South to make up for it’s exorbitant resource use.

So, the North goes on polluting and people in the South pay --these countries are often hit hardest by severe weather events (remember Hurricane Mitch, the recent flooding in Vietnam?). What’s more, land already under heavy pressure from conflicting uses is now being committed to Northern energy companies searching cheap land for their "carbon offset" projects. Carbon sinks will thus lead to a new form of colonialism, which passes onto the South responsibility for the past decades of inequitable resource use by the North.

Gaining credits to fix carbon instead of addressing greenhouse gas emissions will also delay the inevitable switch towards renewable energy sources.

The full text can be accessed in our Climate Change section at: http://www.wrm.org.uy (Bulletin October, 2000)