The Pew front groups and Gang Green are in Bali this week to lobby for boreal forest carbon credits. Faced with the unpleasant reality that the boreal forest is now likely a net carbon producer due to forest fires and insect outbreaks, all caused by global warming, the Pew are now lobbying to get the carbon stored in peatlands over thousands of years counted as carbon credits in the post-2012 Kyoto Treaty. If successful, this would set the Kyoto carbon emissions baseline back from 1990 to the time of the ice age!
Please Join Us for a Forest Day Side-Event
at the UN Climate Convention COP
Climate Change and the Boreal Forest: Panel and Discussion
Saturday, December 8, 2007
4:00 – 5:30 PM
Ayodya Resort in Nusa Dua, Bali (Jalan Pantai Mengiat)
Room: “Banda”
Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director Canada Program, Natural Resources Defense Council, Moderator
· Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council
Welcome
· Scott Goetz, Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center
Role of Global Boreal Forest in Climate Regulation
· Dave Porter, First Nations Summit in British Columbia
Canadian Aboriginal Communities: on the Climate Frontline
· Tzeporah Berman, Co-Founder, ForestEthics
Boreal Forest Conservation and Bali: Looking Forward
· Chris Henschel, National Manager Conservation and Climate Change, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Leading Off the Discussion: Northern Forests at Bali
· Moderated Discussion
Concern is growing relating to the combined impacts of clear-cut logging in intact forests, oil and gas development and other industrial activities in Canada’s Boreal ecosystems. This panel will address relationship of the fast pace of industrial development to Canada’s international obligation to protect its forest carbon stores and to help human communities and natural ecosystems adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already being felt. The panel will explore the ecological, social and livelihood implications of the Boreal forest, a critical carbon storehouse, as a defense against climate change. A growing number of organizations and scientists are looking at the complex role that Boreal forests have to play in climate change, prevention, mitigation and human and ecological adaptation. This panel includes speakers from the perspective of science, policy, indigenous communities and advocacy to discuss the role of Boreal forests in combating climate change and in moving forward on implementation of the UNFCCC.
For more information: Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, NRDC, sclefkowitz@nrdc.org, 1-646-287-6225
