EcoWorldly

EcoWorldly’s interview with Rolf Skar, Greenpeace’s Senior Forest Campaigner

EW: What are your initial impressions after the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva?

RS: I think in terms of positive there was a god personal rapport and a general commitment to improve relations. Not that they were terrible under the Bush administration, but it was clear that there was a mutual respect and mutual interests that the two countries want to pursue. So I think that was positive. I think there was also a commitment to try and address the global economic crisis, which is affecting both countries. I know Lulu was talking about how Brazil’s economy is still robust, but of course there are plenty of challenges there two, so I think those are two positives.

EW: What’s your position on biofuels? Are you pro, con or is there a good middle ground that can be worked out?

RS: There can be. The problem right now is that many biofuels are a bit of a distraction from other technologies and other mechanisms which clearly produce better climate results for less investment, so I understand how Brazil is busy to reduce import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol. I don’t think those tariffs will be removed overnight, if they are at all; and I think biofuels, for example we saw a push for biofuel based on palm oil coming out of Southeast Asia, and then when we crunched the numbers, we found that that kind of biodiesel would result in as much as 15 to 30 times the greenhouse gas emissions because of the way it’s produced.

So lots of times, biofuels are seen as a quick fix–as an easy way to switch fuels–and unfortunately easy doesn’t always mean possible or effective. Certainly the ethanol that’s being produced in the US right now in terms of an energy investment and solving a greenhouse gas emissions problem, it’s definitely not the cure-all that  some proponents want to make it out to be.

EW: What can be done to make Brazilian ethanol more environmentally friendly?

RS: There need to be better efficiencies. Certainly when you’re producing biofuels and then shipping them around the planet, you reduce some of the efficiencies that are potentially built in to those kinds of fuels. And I think that the big consuming nations–I know Brazil uses a lot of it domestically–but the countries in Europe and the US are developing renewable fuel standards that the set really robust, scientifically sound benchmarks and sideboards on the kinds of fuels that can be purchased. There need to be true life cycle analyses showing that there are true environmental and climate benefits. And there need to be basic sideboards. For example, we shouldn’t be sacrificing in tact or ancient forests to produce biofuels which have small or minimum climate benefits; we don’t want to sacrifice biodiversity for small gains on the climate side.

EW: Greenpeace has talked about a $16 billion annual fund from the US to support the rain forest. What’s that number about?

RS: The number is based on a global Greenpeace assessment of contributions that are needed for from [rich] nations to developing countries. And the $16 billion is roughly what we think the US should contribute on an annual basis to a global fund to tropical forests worldwide. So $16 billion is a number that we suggest the US should invest annually to really produce enormous climate benefits around the world– not just in the Amazon, but also in SE Asia and the Congo basin. The debate around how to do this is basically framed around whether people want market based offsets in which green carbon credits are traded with black smokestack carbon, or whether you want some sort of fund based project, or something in the middle.

Greenpeace is proposing a hybrid fund based approach where we make sure that there’s sizable, predictable investment that countries can bank on into the future as they do their long term planning that can be available soon so we can take immediate action and that is adaptable to the different realities on the ground in different rain forest nations. So, Brazil has a relatively highly sophisticated infrastructure for measuring both deforestation and other important benchmarks that are needed to prove emissions reductions. Nations in the Congo Basin are completely without those capacities. The fund would allow us to invest in those nations and allow them to protect their forests alongside of Brazil.

We think that Brazil’s a particularly important player in this debate because not only do they have the largest chunk of remaining rain forest in the world, but Lula’s administration has come out very clearly and said on the Eve of the talks in Poland this past December that they want their forests protected for the climate, they want the economic benefits for that, but in no way do they want market based credits or offsets coming from their rain forest land. So they’re very clearly made that statement. It was a bit of a bombshell for lots of folks, because of course they hold the majority of the world’s rain forests at least in terms of the nation by nation split and I know that they’ve been talking to other smaller rain forest nations about the benefits of a fund based approach as opposed to a market based approach.

In terms of coming back to the Obama and Lula visit, it was a bit of a missed opportunity for Obma because his administration has not yet come down on one side or the other of this issue, and they haven’t found a middle ground either. They haven’t really articulated a position. This would be a great opportunity for Obama to at least  hear out Lula on why Brazil has taken this position and then consider ways in which the two countries can work together. I think personally, it’s clear to me that both two men are the most important in the world on the deforestation issue.

EW: Brazil has just discovered 80 billion barrels of oil and there’s some talk of using that as a bargaining chip to lift the US import tariff on Brazilian cane ethanol. As a conservationist, does the discovery of oil make your job easier or more difficult?

RS: I think it makes it more difficult in some ways, of course. I mean, oil always tends to complicate political equations, and so I’m not sure it makes it any easier. I know that in Brazil it’s a source of national pride because for many years, they were told that they didn’t have oil reserves. They had everything else in the world, in terms of forests, water and mining resources, but not oil. And now they finally have that too, so it’s a bit of pride. As a conservationist, of course, I don’t want to see oil influence their national policy, so if we can minimize that as much as possible.

EW: How do you think the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva will affect US relations with other South American countries?

RS: I think it will actually help. I’m not an expert on foreign relations, but I think Lula is seen a bit left of center from US perspective, but not as left as Chavez, and I think that if he can serve as a bit of a bridge–if he can be an ambassador to other nations in Central and South America–I think that’s a good thing.

I think, again, just to bring it back to the forest issues for just a minute and reduced emissions and deforestation, I think that Lula’s in a unique position to serve as an ambassador to a lot of other nations in Central and South America and even in other parts of the world, like the Congo Basin and SE Asia to show some strong leadership. And with commitments from the US on some funding, or you know with an olive branch from the US extended on this issue, they could use the necessary momentum. If you’ve got the largest potential donor nation in the world and then the largest rain forest nation in the world showing leadership on this issue, I think a lot of other nations would come along.

EW: In an ideal world, what would you like to see happen at this point?

RS: I’d love to see Obama visit Brazil. It sounds like there may be plans in the works for that, and I’d love to see that trip serve as an opportunity for the deforestation issue and reduced emissions to really be treated substantively for the two leaders. I think it actually needs to be handled at the top. It’s an important enough issue. There’s lots of money at stake, but I think it needs to be treated at the executive level. I’d also like to see members of the Obama administration within the state dept. under Hillary Clinton’s leadership start a dialogue with their counterparts in Brazil on this issue and to start developing a set of positions and a way to move forward cooperatively on the reduced emissions and deforestation program. This is not work that can happen at Copenhagen in December. It’s not even work that can happen in October of this year. It needs to happen now. We’ve got a lot of ground to make up; over the last eight years there was a lot of wasted time.

Image credit: The White House Blog via Global Voices, under a Creative Commons license.

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