Merrill Lynch announces carbon credits-for-forest conservation partnership
Merrill Lynch announces carbon credits-for-forest conservation partnership
mongabay.com
December 6, 2007
Wall Street Giant Announces New Market-Based Approach To Environmental Challenges
Merrill Lynch is working with Carbon Conservation, an ecosystem services firms, to explore opportunities in avoided deforestation and integrated sustainable land management. The partnership was announced Thursday in Bali, Indonesia, where more than 10,000 policymakers, scientists, and activists are meeting to discuss a post-Kyoto framework on limiting climate change.
“At COP-13 we fully expect government negotiators to agree that market mechanisms are essential to provide incentives for avoided deforestation that can cost-effectively tackle 20% of the global greenhouse gas emissions problem. It is critical for such mechanisms to be included in the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol,” said Abyd Kamali, Managing Director and Global Head of Carbon Emissions at Merrill Lynch. “We are pleased to be working alongside a leader in the sector such as Carbon Conservation, and impressed with their proven land use and forestry sector expertise in pivotal countries such as Australia and Indonesia. We look forward to exploring potential opportunities with Carbon Conservation where we hope to derive synergy from Merrill Lynch’s strength in the carbon markets, our interest in developing innovative market-based approaches to environmental challenges, and our overarching commitment to sustainability.”
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The announcement comes as momentum gathers for mechanisms to reduce emissions by reducing deforestation (REDD). Carbon Conservation is working on carbon finance projects in Aceh, Papua and Papua Barat in Indonesia.
“We really are at a tipping point at the UNFCCC meeting at COP 13 in Bali” said David Pearse, Director of Strategy for Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry at Carbon Conservation. “Nowhere else is it more evident than in land use and forestry that the pursuit of short term profit is unsustainable both financially and in terms of climate change”
“The scale of the opportunity is once in a lifetime,” added said Carbon Conservation CEO Dorjee Sun. “The need to develop poverty-alleviating jobs alongside the preservation of biodiverse standing forests containing watersheds, carbon and endangered species is critically important and recognized by the Green leadership of the Governors of Aceh, Papua and Papua Barat. Now to have a strategic alliance with an innovative Wall Street powerhouse like Merrill Lynch is fantastic.”
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