PEFC at COP 25

4 December 2019 News

PEFC will have an important role to play on the fourth day of the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25, currently underway in Madrid. Tomorrow, Thursday, is set to be devoted to analysing the role of forests in the face of climate change.

In addition to the negotiations on the reduction of carbon emissions that are taking place, the XXV Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Change Framework Convention has called on countries, international organizations and the private sector to act in the search for natural forest-based solutions. In this line, PEFC will have a very important role.

At midday tomorrow, the General Secretary of PEFC Spain, Ana Belén Noriega, will participate in the High Level Meeting on Forests, as part of a panel that will address the mobilization of private resources to find solutions based on the forestry sector. The session, chaired by Jennifer Morris, President of Conservation International, will open a space for actors to present their initiatives and discuss their strategies to engage consumers in environmentally responsible forest actions.

Ana Belén will be joined on the panel by Pamela Castillo Brahona, Vice Minister of Environment of Costa Rica; Gabriel Quijandría Acosta, Vice Minister of Strategic Development of Natural Resources of Peru; Dirk Forrister, CEO and President of International Emissions Trading Association (IETA); Luiz Cornacchioni, President of the Associação Brasileira do Agronegócio (ABAG); and Mario Cerutti, Director of Institutional Relations and Sustainability of Lavazza in Italy.

Later in the afternoon, Ana Belén will share her reflections on the panel ‘Community Forest Enterprises: New models for adaptation and mitigation’, hosted by our international stakeholder member RECOFTC, the Center for People and Forests.

This official COP25 side event will discuss successful case studies of Community Forest Enterprises (CFEs) that have helped communities adapt to climate change, new businesses and business models that can source from CFEs and support their growth, and new ways of tracing and certifying the products derived from CFEs for consumers to be confident that their money is well spent.

Ana Belén Noriega will share a table with Pham Thu Thuy, senior scientist at CIFOR in Vietnam where she is involved in payments to the poorest communities for environmental services; Aliya Das Gupta, from iov42, who will talk about the contributions that blockchain can offer in sustainability; Alvin Li, CEO and founder of The Kommon Goods, which produces green products for companies, hotels and events; and Marcel Starfinger, who has explored innovative financing tools and incentives for small forest owners in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Photos: UNFCCC and RECOFTC