Oslo climate change conference report - May feature

How to tackle climate change and reduce its impact on the planet is an increasingly important part of policy for many governments around the world. The UK's own coalition government recently pledged that its reign of power will be the greenest seen in Britain and representatives from almost 200 countries met in Copenhagen last year to try and come up with a global strategy on carbon emissions.

A global issue

This month, global leaders descended on Oslo, Norway, for the nation's own climate change and forest conference which was organised by the Norwegian government. The event was held ahead of more climate negotiations set to take place in Mexico later this year and deforestation and the destruction of the world's rainforests were both subjects up for discussion.

Representatives from over 50 countries attended the talks, including France, Japan, the UK, the US, Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Prince Charles, a well known advocate of rainforest protection, also travelled to Norway for the conference and spoke to the assembled delegates. In his speech, the prince warned that the world has only 86 months left until it reaches the catastrophic tipping point after which the impact of climate change cannot be reversed.

The prince also noted the loss of biodiversity and rainforest areas seen in the last three years alone. "The world’s tropical forests were about thirty-six million hectares larger than they are today. Our planet was populated by approximately 80,000 more species," he told the conference.

So what was decided in Norway?

Nations attending Oslo came up with an agreement to pump financial aid into protecting the world's most endangered rainforests but the impact of the economic downturn was apparent, with donations by individual nations much lower than had been expected.

However, aid donations to preserve the planet's rainforests have still risen by £345 million compared to the figure the funding stood at following Copenhagen. According to the Interim REDD+ Partnership Document, the funding cash will be used to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and clearing in developing nations and measures were also put in place to ensure that relevant parties are included in further agreements, such as the indigenous peoples who call the rainforest home.

The forest protection scheme will be chaired by two representatives - one from a developing nation and one from a wealthier country - and secretariat support will be offered by the World Bank and the UN.

Speaking from Washington before the Oslo conference, chief of the World Bank Robert Zoellick pondered that the talks could "be the first comprehensive component for a future international agreement on climate change".

Speaking after the event, the UK's climate change minister Greg Barker, who also attended the talks, said he had been "encouraged" by the willingness of developing and wealthy nations to tackle the issue of climate change.

Disagreements between developing and developed countries proved to be one of the main reasons why last year's Copenhagen climate change conference failed in its mission to come up with a global agreement on tackling carbon emissions.

He said that the agreements made at Oslo "puts the world on course to delivering scaled up early action to tackle deforestation and represents a real breakthrough in making progress on keeping [rises in] global temperatures below two degrees Celsius".

Why is lowering current levels of deforestation so important for the planet?

According to figures from the UN, the halting of deforestation is absolutely crucial in ensuring the future safety of the planet and its species. Figures published by the UN showed that each year, a rainforest area equivalent to the whole of England is wiped out by degradation and clearing.

Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg also pointed out that reducing deforestation levels in the world's rainforests is a highly effective way of lowering emissions. When trees are cut down in areas such as the Amazon, the carbon contained within them is released into the air around, making forest clearing one of the biggest contributors to the current level of carbon seen in the atmosphere.

"Reducing deforestation and forest degradation can provide the largest, fastest and cheapest cuts in carbon emissions," Stoltenberg said.

The prime minister of Papua New Guinea Michael Somare spoke about a change in the way in which forests are valued. He noted that due to the industry seen in many of the planet's tropical areas, forests are worth more to an economy destroyed than left to grow.

He called for countries to "find a way to value forests more alive than dead".

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