Copenhagen forestry deal "more or less agreed"

A draft international agreement on improving forest protection is "more or less agreed", according to the chairman of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) negotiations at the Copenhagen summit.

According to Reuters reports, Philippines negotiator Tony La Vina revealed late yesterday that the talks on how to increase financing and improve verification mechanisms for forestry protection were entering the final straight, offering a rare source of optimism at the increasingly fractious negotiations in the Danish capital.

"I consider this more or less agreed text except in a few places," he said.

Under the draft agreement, REDD projects would effectively be integrated into the carbon market, allowing forest protection schemes to generate income by selling carbon credits.

REDD early action projects are already under way in about 40 countries and the general consensus is that they have proved largely effective at tackling deforestation.

The draft agreement would see developing countries commit to rolling out new mechanisms for accurately measuring, reporting and verifying the success of REDD projects – a move that would allow them to ensure the carbon credits they sell equate to real cuts in emissions.

La Vina said that the draft text had also improved safeguards to better protect the rights of forest communities and ensure that the agreement does not promote the conversion of natural forests into plantations.

However, the draft text does not include an overarching target for reducing rates of deforestation, despite earlier drafts that appeared to contain such a target.

La Vina said that a number of targets were still being discussed and that the final decision was likely to be left to world leaders on Friday.

The forestry negotiations received a further boost yesterday when Australia, France, Japan, Norway, the UK and the US issued a joint statement committing $3.5bn (£2.2bn) in public funds to forest protection projects over the next three years.

The funding is expected to come from the three-year $30bn "fast-track" fund, but could provide a large chunk of the finance needed to roll out the verification and inspection mechanisms necessary to accelerate the development of REDD projects.

The countries said that the new funding represented "an initial investment in developing countries that put forward ambitious REDD+ plans and that achieve forest emission reductions according to their respective capabilities". They added that they "collectively commit to scaling up our finance thereafter" and invited other industrialised nations to pay into the fund.

"Deforestation accounts for almost a fifth of global emissions, and the forests of the rainforest nations provide a global service in soaking up the pollution of the world," said Gordon Brown. "An agreement to slow, halt and eventually reverse deforestation has to be central to the outcome here in Copenhagen. About $25bn over the period of 2010-15 is needed to cut deforestation rates in developing countries by 25 per cent by 2015. Developed countries should provide the majority of this, supporting rainforest countries' own efforts."