Four recent WRM briefings related to climate change

As a contribution for facilitating the involvement of civil society in the protection of the Earth’s climate, the WRM has recently published four briefings related to climate change:

“From REDD to HEDD” (only available in English) reflects on the mechanism currently being discussed at the Convention on Climate Change –REDD- to address carbon emissions from deforestation. The briefing exposes the uselessness of a carbon market-based REDD, which would enable Northern polluters to pretend to “offset” their fossil fuel emissions by helping to avoid deforestation elsewhere. At the same time, the briefing analyses the problems that could stem from a grant mechanism focused on “reducing” deforestation and calls for a totally different approach based on policies and commitments for halting deforestation.
(http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/FSC/WRM_Briefing.pdf)

“Carbon Neutral Magicians” (only available in English) deals with the “offsetting” myth based on the cheating premise that the carbon released from burning fossil fuels –that have not been part of the functioning of the biosphere for millions of years– can in some way be “offset” by other activities such as tree planting. The document explains that fossil fuel carbon cannot be returned to its original storage place and that the more it is extracted, the more the total amount of carbon in the biosphere is increased. Effective climate action needs to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of fossil fuels. The “carbon neutral” game is a way of diverting attention from that very real and pressing issue and is exposed as a fraud.
(http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/briefings/Carbon_neutral.pdf)

“GE tree research. A country by country overview” (only available in English). Genetically engineered (GE) trees have not only been explicitly accepted by the Convention on Climate Change to be used in so-called carbon sink plantations, but they are also perceived as possible sources for the production of ethanol for substituting fossil fuels. In this new briefing, WRM has put together information on all the countries where research on GE trees is being carried out in order to enable people in those countries to engage directly in this issue. 
(http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/GMTrees/Briefing_GM_Trees_by_country.pdf)

“FSC certification of tree plantations needs to be stopped” (also available in Spanish and Portuguese). Certification of tree plantations has been a way of validating the expansion of tree monocultures -including so-called carbon sink plantations- in spite of their negative impacts on nature and communities. In this briefing, WRM provides arguments for the exclusion of industrial tree plantations from FSC certification.
(http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/FSC/WRM_Briefing.pdf)