Seminar Series: Abstract

12.30
September 15 2009

REDD Seminar Series - The carbon cargo cult in Papua New Guinea
Dr Colin Filer

The Director of PNG’s Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability was recently suspended and is now the subject of an official government inquiry because of a scandal over his dealings with various carbon brokers who were attempting to secure Voluntary Carbon Agreements with customary landowners. Kevin Conrad, PNG’s ambassador to the UNFCCC, has since made it clear that he wants the PNG government to rule out any further dealings of this kind until it can flesh out the details of a so-called ‘REDD Road Map’ that will secure the approval and financial support of the international donor community. However, the task of developing a clear and consistent government policy framework has been greatly complicated by the appearance of what some commentators describe as a ‘carbon cargo cult’ in the wake of the UNFCCC conference in Bali in December 2007. In this seminar, I shall try to explain how different political interests inside PNG have raised the temperature of political debate and popular expectations about the ‘sky money’ which might (or might not) be obtained by government agencies, private consultants or customary landowners from the act of protecting native forests from the twin evils of deforestation and forest degradation.