1. The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change
and National Forest Programs
I-oren B. Ford
Global Climate Advisor
USAID/G/ET.IV/ENR
Paper Presented at the
19th Session of the Forestry Advisor Group
Rome, Italy
29 November - 2 December 1994
This paper represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the U.S. Agency for
International Development or the United States of America

2. The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change
and National Forest Programs
Loren B. Ford
Global Climate Advisor
USAID/G/EIIV/ENR
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) celebrated the
culmination of contentious negotiations among nations regarding the nexus between
environmental management and development at national and global levels. Management of
forests held central stage at Rio, and is addressed in Agenda 2l,the Forest Principles, and the
international treaties opened for signature at UNCED, i.e. the United Nations Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(FCCC).
Foresters believed that this focus on forests would result in significant increases in international
development assistance for forests and political resolve in developing countries to promote
sustainable management of their forests. Furthering these expectations was the pledge by
President Bush to commit $150 million of new international development assistance toward
sustainable forest management under the Forests for the Future Initiative. Unfortunately,
subsequent governmental budget deficits in the United States and other donor countries have
instead resulted in substantial declines in international forestry assistance. Nevertheless, the
international environmental accords reached at Rio promise to bring new sources of funding for
sustainable forest management.
Commitments of Parties to the FCCC
The objective of the FCCC is to stabilize "greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a
level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (UN,
1992). Parties to the convention from developed countries and countries with economies in
transition (the FCCC Annex One countries) have committed to stabilizing their greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions at the 1990 level by the year 2000 and covering for developing countries: (1)
the full incremental cost of reductions in GHG emissions; and (2) the full cost of development
and communication of national plans for minimizing GHG emissions and adapting to the adverse
impacts of climate change. Annex One countries have further committed to assisting developing
countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change to meet the
costs of adaptation to those adverse effects. Finally, developed countries have committed to
reporting on their plans to meet their GHG stabilization commitments within six months of the
convention going into effect (i.e. by 21 September 1994).
The FCCC recognizes that GHG emissions from developing (non-Annex One) countries will
increase as their economies grow. Developing countries are required to report on plans to
minimize new GHG emissions and to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, although
there is no deadline by which they are required to transmit their plans to the FCCC Secretariat.

3. 2
Joint implementation of the FCCC
The FCCC provides that Annex One countries can meet their GHG stabilization commitments
under the convention jointly with other Parties. Under such 'Joint implementation" (JI),
countries could meet their commitment to reduce GHG emissions by funding emissions
reductions in other countries. This allows, for instance, that power companies in developed
countries that already minimize GHG emissions (through efficient electricity generating facilities,
demand side management programs, and integrated resource planning), and for which further
reductions would require costly investments, can achieve greater net GHG emissions reductions
per dollar invested by funding net GHG emissions reductions in developing countries.
Net GHG emissions can be reduced by actually curbing emissions from the energy, industrial,
transportation, forest, and agricultural sectors, or by increasing GHG sequestration in the forest
and agricultural sectors. As significant emitters of GHGs in developed countries seek to
contribute to their national net GHG emissions reductions goals, they are increasingly looking to
JI as a way to obtain greater levels of carbon offsets per dollar than they could through domestic
investments. Substantial new sources of funds might become available to support sustainable
forest management in developing countries through JI under the FCCC.
JI has been a contentious issue at the sessions of the FCCC Intergovernmental Negotiating
Committee (INC), with little consensus even among OECD countries. Some OECD and G-77
countries argue that JI should be permitted only among Annex One countries, while other OECD
countries (such as the United States and others) and some developing countries strongly support
the rights of all willing Parties to the FCCC to negotiate JI projects.
Detractors of JI claim that JI would allow developed countries to meet their GHG emissions
reduction commitments cheaply through investments in developing countries at the same time
that they continue their established policies of over-consumption of fossil fuels, with its
associated contribution to economic growth. They go on to say that the developed countries will
take advantage of the most cost-effective opportunities to reduce emissions and increase
sequestration in developing countries, leaving more costly opportunities for the developing
countries in the likely future when they, too, will be forced to make commitments to reduce net
GHG emissions.
Proponents of JI, whether from developed or developing countries, argue that JI projects will
accelerate the transfer of cost-effective technologies from North to South. JI will also mobilize
the private sector funding necessary for the scale of investment needed so that developing
countries' economic growth is as energy-efficient as possible. Supporters observe that developed
country public utilities are already quite efficient in converting fossil fuels into electricity, and
that greater global benefits will result per dollar invested as a result of JI projects in developing
countries. Furthermore, G-'77 GHG emissions will soon surpass those of the OECD, and
burgeoning developing country populations will expect increasing energy services that must be
provided with the lowest-possible levels of GHG emissions. Finally, efficient energy use is in
the economic self-interest of developing countries, and JI projects that promote sustainable forest

4. 3
management will have many additional benefits beyond maintenance of carbon sinks or carbon
sequestration.
Costa Rica is an example of a country that is well aware of the potential availability of JI funds
and is developing a national JI clearinghouse to coordinate JI investments. On 30 September,
Costa Rican President Jos6 Maria Figueres and U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, Jr. signed a
"statement of Intent for Bilateral Sustainable Development, Cooperation and Joint
Implementation of Measures to Reduce Emissions of Greenhouse Gases Between the Government
of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Costa Rica." Similar
agreements under which JI projects would be developed in the remaining Central American
countries will likely result from the Central American Alliance for Sustainable Development.
FCCC and forestry
In tropical countries, where tree growth rates are often greater than in temperate countries and
land and labor are cheaper, tree planting is a promising activity in which developed countries
could increase carbon sinks (Trexler, 1990). Dixon et al. (1993) analyzed eight forest sector
carbon offset projects, including tree planting, agroforestry, sustainable forest management,
preservation, and urban tree planting, finding costs ranging from $1.00 to $30/ton of carbon
sequestered. They estimated that Worldwide, from 300 to more than 500 million ha of land are
socio-politically available for carbon offsets.
An example of a JI tree planting project currently being implemented is a $8.8 million CARE
tree planting, agroforestry, fire protection, and soil rehabilitation project in Guatemala that
includes a $2 million contribution from a U.S. energy services company, Applied Energy
Systems (AES). Fifty-two million trees are being planted on 1,000 km2 of land to offset 15.5
gigatons (10t' g) of projected carbon dioxide emissions over the 40-year life of a new coal-fired
power plant in Connecticut. Preliminary projections of 18. 1 gigatons of carbon offsets from the
project (Trexler et al., 1989) have been revised upward to 39.0 gigatons through analysis with
World Resources Institute's Land Use Carbon Sequestration (LUCS) model (Faeth et al., 1994),
for a cost of $0.23 per ton of carbon sequestered.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is funding afforestation in Saratov, Russia, to
obtain carbon offsets in a project implemented jointly with the Russian Federal Forest Service,
International Forestry Institute, Saratov Forest Management District, Russian Ministry of
Environmental and Natural Resource Protection, and the Institute for Market Economy.
International Forestry Institute. The purpose of the project is to assess whether afforestation
projects would be appropriate for JI projects, identify barriers to private investment in Russian
forestry and identify how these barriers can be overcome, assist Russian partners in establishing

5. 4
forest plantations to sequester atmospheric carbon, and share information quantifying the
biological, economic, and institutional benefits of tree plantingt.
Sustainable natural forest management can also be promoted using JI funds. Another U.S. coal-
burning power company, New England Electric Systems, has committed to reduce its CO2
emissions by 20 percent by the year 2000 to help the United States Government meet its FCCC
commitment. The company has invested $452,000 to implement a trial with Innoprise
Corporation Sdn Bhd (ICSB) to evaluate the carbon benefits of reduced-impact logging (RIL)
over 3 years on 1,415 ha of ICSB's 1 million-ha concession in Sabah, Malaysia (Panayotou et
al., 1994). The biomass carbon released into the atmosphere through decomposition and burning
of damaged trees and logging slash from traditional logging practices is maintained on the site
with RIL. Traditional logging removes 8-15 trees (about 80 m3), damaging up to 50 percent of
the remaining trees and crushing 40 percent of the site with bulldozers (Putz & Pinard, 1993).
RIL methods include liana cutting, forest mapping, road and skid-trail planning and construction,
directional felling, minimal use of bulldozers, riparian reserves, restoration of landings, and
draining of skid roads following harvest (Pinard, 1994). Additional benefits are protection of
immature trees for the next harvest and reduced impact on site biodiversity. Carbon savings
from RIL are estimated at 36 tons/ha, costing about $135/ha, resulting in a cost of $3.75lton of
carbon offset (Putz & Pinard, 1993).
A third type of forest project that could be supported with JI funding is establishment and
management of protected areas. For example, the same company that supported the Guatemalan
tree-planting project, AES, has contributed $2.2 million toward a $5 million endowment for the
Moises Bertoni Foundation to fund the purchase and management of 63,000 ha of forest that
would otherwise have been logged and converted to agriculture. A critical element of the
project was to persuade the Government of Paraguay to declare the site as the Mbaracayri
Natural Reserve. AES hopes to offset 13 gigatons of CO, that will be produced by a 180 MW
coal-fired power plant by protecting the forest2. The project is being implemented by The
Nature Conservancy under USAID's Parks in Peril Project, which is contributing local currency
toward the Bertoni Foundation endowment. AES is also contributing $3 million of the $3.4
million project being implemented by OXFAM and the Council of Indigenous Groups of the
Amazon Basin (COICA) to support indigenous groups in pursuit of land rights and sustainable
use activities in the eastern Amazon region of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru to offset 18-24
gigatons of carbon to be produced by a new 320 MW coal-fired power plantt. The
OXFAM/COICA project proposes to offset a total of 75 gigatons of carbon at a cost of
$0.06/ton (Faeth et al., 1994).
I Personal communication, Ken Andrasko, Senior Forestry and
Agriculture Analyst, Clirnate Change Division, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.
2 Personal communication, Jeff Hewitt, Senior Analyst,
Greenhouse Offset Group, Applied Energy Systems, Inc., Arlington,
VA.

6. 5
Carbon accounting and credits
If individual companies and countries are to take credit for carbon offsets gained under JI, then
there must be a credible system under which GHG emissions reductions and carbon sequestration
are monitored and registered. There is currently no global system for monitoring, allocating,
and trading carbon credits, and the world market price for carbon offsets is unknown.
President Clinton's Climate Change Action Plan (Clinton & Gore, 1993) proposed the U.S.
Initiative on Joint Implementation (USIJI) to encourage cost-effective projects between U.S.
firms and partners in developing and post-communist countries that would: (1) reduce or
sequester GHG emissions while promoting technology cooperation and sustainable development;
(2) test and evaluate methodologies for measuring, tracking, and verifying costs and benefits; (3)
establish an empirical basis for the formulation of international criteria for joint implementation;
(4) encourage private sector investment and innovation in the development and dissemination of
technologies for reducing or sequestering GHG emissions; and (5) encourage participating
countries to adopt more complete climate action programs, including national inventories,
baselines, policies, and specific commitments.
The deadline for submission of the first round of USUI proposals was 4 November 1994.
Proposals are currently being evaluated, and are roughly divided between the energy and land
use sectors. Proposals will be reviewed by an evaluation panel chaired by the Department of
Fnergy (DOE) and the EPA, with additional panel members from the Agency for International
Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, the Interior, State, and the
Treasury. Applicants whose proposals are accepted into USUI will receive public recognition
and technical assistance for development and implementation of projects.
Section 1605@) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 authorized the U.S. Secretary of Energy to
develop a voluntary program for the public to report achievements in reducing GHGs.
Guidelines for the program were issued by DOE in October 1994 (DOE, 1994). While the
guidelines have been developed principally for domestic GHG reductions, they explicitly permit
registration of carbon offsets carried out by U.S. entities in foreign countries. There is currently
no Federal carbon tax or limit on GHG emissions in the United States, nor a credit system for
GHG emissions reductions. However, should a national carbon tax or emissions cap one day be
enacted, it is expected that carbon offsets registered under the Section 1605(b) guidelines would
be recognized. It is likely that U.S. participants in USUI will register their carbon offsets under
the Section 16050) guidelines.
The Section 1605(b) guidelines include reporting of GHG emissions in the electricity supply,
residential and commercial building, industrial, and transportation sectors, as well as GHG
emissions and carbon sequestration in the forestry and agricultural sectors (DOE, 1994). The
program provides for reporting of a 1987-1990 GHG emissions baseline and annual emissions
reporting in subsequent calendar years. The forestry guidelines cover afforestation, short-
rotation woody biomass energy plantations, agroforestry, reforestation, forest management,
forest preservation, wood products, and urban forestry (DOE, 1994). Net annual release of

7. 6
carbon into the atmosphere from managed forests can be calculated from an inventory of
negative flows from the capture of carbon from the atmosphere and positive flows from
combustion and decay of organic matter and the use of fossil fuels. An alternative to an
inventory of net carbon flows is direct estimation of carbon flow using models of forest growth
and response to forestry practices to predict carbon flows into and out of forest carbon sinks.
Use of Section 1605(b) guidelines to report USUI carbon offsets should provide case studies to
evaluate a range of forest projects--tree planting, RIL, and preservation--which will contribute to
development of international guidelines to be used for monitoring and allocating forest carbon
offsets of JI projects under the FCCC.
National climate action plans
Annex One countries were required to submit their national plans for meeting their FCCC GHG
reduction commitments to the Interim FCCC Secretariat by 2l September 1994. There is no
specific deadline for developing countries to develop and communicate their national climate
action plans to the FCCC Secretariat. Given that these plans will identify funding needs for
curbing GHG emissions and adapting to climate change, it is expected that many developing
countries will be motivated to move forward on their plans to attract donor funding. However,
G-77 reporting to the FCCC is controversial, and little consensus has been found to date.
Developed countries are committed under the FCCC to cover the full cost of climate change
studies needed by developing countries to prepare their national action plans. Country baseline
studies to inventory greenhouse gas emissions, assess vulnerability, and evaluate response
options to mitigate and adapt to climate change can also be funded by the Global Environment
Facility (GEF).
The U.S. announced the $25,000,000 two-year U.S. Country Studies Program (CSP) at the 5th
INC session for the FCCC in February 1992. The CSP is an interagency program that provides
financial and technical assistance to help developing countries and countries with economies in
transition conduct climate change studies. The CSP's primary objectives are to: (l) enhance the
capabilities of countries to inventory their emissions of greenhouse gases, assess their
vulnerability to climate change, and evaluate options to mitigate GHG emissions and adapt to
climate change; (2) support countries' efforts to establish a process for developing and
implementing national policies and measures; and (3) develop data and information that can be
used to assess trends in emissions and further national and international discussions of climate
change issues. The CSP and the GEF are discussing a possible joint program to support country
studies, in which the CSP would provide training and technical assistance, and the GEF would
fund country costs to carry out studies. Germay, Canada, and Denmark have expressed interest
in collaborating with the CSP in a bilateral donoriGEF country study program.
In the first round of the CSP, 26 developing countries and countries with economies in transition
have received funding, training, and technical support to carry out climate change country
studies and disseminate study results domestically and internationally. In the second round,27

8. 7
additional countries have signed cooperative agreements for studies. There is a need for at least
a limited third round of studies to include important greenhouse gas emitters such as Brazil and
India.
It is proposed that the CSP evolve to assist countries to build on the initial studies to develop
national climate action plans. More than 30 countries from the first and second rounds have
requested such assistance, including such important GHG emitters as Indonesia, Kazakhstan,
Philippines, Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine. Public outreach and education is planned to
promote participation of stakeholders in the national planning process.
National climate action plans would be beneficial for both developing countries and donors in
order to define priorities for investments to reduce GHG emissions and to build capacity to adapt
to climate change. National climate action plans should be undertaken as a participatory process
to evaluate the social, economic, and ecological impacts of GHG emissions reduction activities
and to prioritize among potential Jl projects.
The plethora of national environmental plans
There is a critical need for donor institutions to promote integration of the many national
environmental planning efforts currently or soon to be underway. Foresters have been
promoting National Forest Programs in upwards of 90 countries under the Tropical Forestry
Action Programme (TFAP) since 1985. National Conservation Strategies and Forestry Master
Plans have been promoted in other countries. Early success engaging stakeholders to analyze
and prioritize environmental policies and interventions in the National Environmental Action
Plan (NEAP) process (Fox et al., 1992) has led the World Bank to require that countries
applying to the International Development Association for concessional loans must develop a
NEAP. Unfortunately,. in some cases countries preparing those NEAPs have fallen into the
same trap often encountered with the TFAP, in which foreign consultants and technicd
ministries work in relative isolation to prepare a NEAP, failing to involve key stakeholders and
policy makers in a process to analyze and reform policies across sectors and to prioritize among
potential environmental investments.
The CBD and FCCC opened for signing at UNCED both require all Parties to prepare national
action plans. Lessons learned from TFAP and the NEAPs must be heeded by donors in
promoting and supporting these new national action plans; namely that all major stakeholders
should participate in the process, that commitment from the highest levels of government is
necessary if action is to result, and that planning is a continuous process requiring monitoring
and feedback by and among stakeholders. Finally, sectoral plans such as biodiversity
conservation and climate change action plans must be incorporated into broader, multi-sectoral
planning frameworks if stakeholders, donors, and policy makers are to rationalize policies and
prioritize action to implement the planS.

9. 8
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