Kevin Mark Conrad, born in the United States to parents living in Papua New Guinea [1] in 1968, [2] is a Papua New Guinean businessman [3] and environmentalist. He grew up in the Arapesh [4] tribe near Wewak, [1] East Sepik Province and graduated from Ukarumpa High School in the Eastern Highlands Province.
Conrad serves as Special Envoy and Ambassador for Environment & Climate Change for Papua New Guinea and also the executive director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. [2] He is a graduate of Columbia University, [4] London Business School, and University of Southern California. [5]
He was the country's Special Envoy and Ambassador to the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban. [6]
Conrad is a leading figure behind global efforts to value the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests [7] [8] with the objective of reducing rates of deforestation and increasing forest conservation. In this context, he is generally credited for launching efforts within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) now widely referred to as REDD+ -- 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries.'
Further, in his role at the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, Conrad has been instrumental in the establishment of the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility [9] and the United Nation's UN-REDD Programme. [10] Based upon these efforts, industrialized countries — including Norway, the United States, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, and Australia — pledged around US$3.5 billion by the close of 2009 under the Copenhagen Accord for capacity-building and incentives to reduce rates of deforestation in participating developing countries.
Conrad "gained a worldwide spotlight" [1] during the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference where he represented Papua New Guinea and declared:
We all came with high expectations. The world is watching us. We left a seat for every country. We asked for leadership — and there is an old saying: "If you're not willing to lead, then get out of the way." I would ask the United States: we ask for your leadership. We seek your leadership, but if for some reason you're not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us; please, get out of the way. [11]
According to the New York Times, "the room erupted in applause, and within minutes the lead American representative, Paula J. Dobriansky, dropped the objection and said, 'We will go forward and join consensus today.'" [1] Conrad's statement received widespread international media coverage, and was soon spread on YouTube. [1] [12] [13] [14] [15]
In July 2011, in preparation for the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference, he submitted a proposal, in the name of Papua New Guinea (supported by Mexico), to the secretariat of the conference, asking for amendments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change "in order to make effective the right to vote under Article 18 and allow a ‘last resort’ vote to be taken only when every effort to reach consensus has failed and where there is a matter that carries broad-based support and ‘political will’". The proposed amendment to article 18 included, in particular, the following line: "If such efforts to reach consensus have been exhausted and no agreement has been reached, a decision shall, as last resort, be adopted by a three-fourths majority vote of the Parties present and voting", with exceptions. [16] The BBC described it as an "intriguing" proposal to break the expected "deadlock between rich and poor" countries. Conrad had considered submitting the proposal at the Copenhagen Conference in 2009, and now felt it was time to clarify the decision-making process under the Convention. The BBC noted that although, under Papua New Guinea's proposal, developing countries would be able to use their numerical superiority to adopt any kind of obligation, in practical terms they would still need the approval of rich countries to secure funding. Nonetheless, the BBC's environmental correspondent Richard Black concluded his introductory article to the 2011 Conference by noting: "It will be intriguing to see how far PNG takes this idea, and how much support it gets". [3]
At the Durban Conference, Conrad accused China, the United States and India of "colluding" to delay any action over climate change until after 2020. [6]
On the sidelines of the Durban Conference, he was a member of a jury awarding a "Gigaton Award" to businesses having made significant efforts towards reducing carbon emissions. The twenty-one member jury also included Yvo de Boer (former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), Rajendra Pachauri (chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Sir Richard Branson (head of the Virgin Group) and Professor Jacqueline McGlade (Executive Director of the European Environment Agency). [17]
Representing Papua New Guinea at the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (the "COP25"), he expressed the view that the voices of developing countries were not being listened to or being taken into account. [18]
In 2009, the United Nations Environment Programme named Conrad a 'Champion of the Earth' for Policy Leadership along with Erik Solheim, Minister of Environment and International Development of Norway. [19] In 2008, Time magazine named Conrad #1 in the "Leaders & Visionaries" category within its annual list of "Heroes of the Environment", in an article by Joseph Stiglitz. [2]
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The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It was signed by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992. Its original secretariat was in Geneva but relocated to Bonn in 1996. It entered into force on 21 March 1994.
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) is a non-profit scientific research organization that conducts research on the use and management of forests with a focus on tropical forests in developing countries. CIFOR, which merged with World Agroforestry on Jan. 1, 2019, is the forestry and agroforestry research center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a network of 15 research centers around the world that focus on agricultural research for sustainable development, working closely with governments and other partners to help develop evidence-based solutions to problems related to sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
Sustainable forest management (SFM) is the management of forests according to the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable forest management has to keep the balance between three main pillars: ecological, economic and socio-cultural. The goal of sustainable forestry is to allow for a balance to be found between making use of trees and also maintaining natural patterns of disturbance and regeneration. The forestry industry mitigates climate change by boosting carbon storage in growing trees and soils and improving the sustainable supply of renewable raw materials via sustainable forest management. Successfully achieving sustainable forest management will provide integrated benefits to all, ranging from safeguarding local livelihoods to protecting biodiversity and ecosystems provided by forests, reducing rural poverty and mitigating some of the effects of climate change. Forest conservation is essential to stop climate change.
The Coalition for Rainforest Nations (CfRN) is an intergovernmental organization established by forested tropical countries to collaboratively reconcile forest stewardship with economic development. The Rainforest Coalition aims to bring together both developing and industrialized nations for the purpose of creating community-driven, environmentally sustainable growth.
Post-Kyoto negotiations refers to high level talks attempting to address global warming by limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Generally part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), these talks concern the period after the first "commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol, which expired at the end of 2012. Negotiations have been mandated by the adoption of the Bali Road Map and Decision 1/CP.13.
The Forests Now Declaration is a declaration that advocates using carbon credits to protect tropical forests. The Declaration was created by the Global Canopy Programme, and has been signed by over 200 NGOs, business leaders, scientists and conservationists. The Declaration was created as carbon credits from land use, land-use change and forestry were omitted from the Clean Development Mechanism for the First Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol despite contributing 18–25% of all emissions.
After the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference held on the island of Bali in Indonesia in December 2007, the participating nations adopted the Bali Road Map as a two-year process working towards finalizing a binding agreement at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference encompassed meetings of several bodies, including the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the third session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
The Copenhagen Accord is a document which delegates at the 15th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to "take note of" at the final plenary on 18 December 2009.
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen is a Costa Rican diplomat who has led national, international and multilateral policy negotiations. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in July 2010, six months after the failed COP15 in Copenhagen. During the next six years she worked to rebuild the global climate change negotiating process, leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement, widely recognized as a historic achievement.
Avoided Deforestation Partners, or AD Partners, is a non-profit organization under the auspices of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. AD Partners is involved in the global effort to solve climate change by working to end deforestation in tropical rainforest countries. By avoiding the practice of deforestation, i.e., clearing forests to provide inexpensive farmland, the world gains the significant climate benefits of not releasing carbon into the atmosphere. In addition, avoiding deforestation also allows forests to sequester carbon and scrub the air of pollutants. Beyond protecting the Earth's air quality, tropical forests facilitate conditions for rain, replenish water sources, provide habitats for myriad plant and animal species, and sustain the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people globally. Leading scientists and economists say that ending deforestation is the most cost effective and scalable method of reducing greenhouse gases. In fact, they believe that ending deforestation will cut the timeframe for solving the climate crisis in half.
The International Day of Forests was established on the 21st day of March, by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on November 28, 2013. Each year, various events celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests, and trees outside forests, for the benefit of current and future generations. Countries are encouraged to undertake efforts to organize local, national, and international activities involving forests and trees, such as tree planting campaigns, on International Day of Forests. The Secretariat of the United Nations Forum on Forests, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization, facilitates the implementation of such events in collaboration with governments, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, and international, regional and subregional organizations. International Day of Forests was observed for the first time on March 21, 2013.
The 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) was held in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 11 December 2011 to establish a new treaty to limit carbon emissions.
Deforestation in Papua New Guinea has been extensive and in recent decades from 2001 to 2020, Papua New Guinea lost 1.57Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 3.7% decrease in tree cover since 2000, and 1.15Gt of CO₂e emissions.
A global climate regime is a global framework that aims at regulating the interaction of human activity with the global climate system, to mitigate global climate change. The framework for such a regime was developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC for short.
The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC parties to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Starting in 2005 the conferences have also served as the "Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" (CMP); also parties to the convention that are not parties to the protocol can participate in protocol-related meetings as observers. From 2011 to 2015 the meetings were used to negotiate the Paris Agreement as part of the Durban platform, which created a general path towards climate action. Any final text of a COP must be agreed by consensus.
The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIFPCC) is the representative body of indigenous peoples participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Deforestation is a primary contributor to climate change, and climate change affects forests. Land use changes, especially in the form of deforestation, are the second largest anthropogenic source of atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions, after fossil fuel combustion. Greenhouse gases are emitted during combustion of forest biomass and decomposition of remaining plant material and soil carbon. Global models and national greenhouse gas inventories give similar results for deforestation emissions. As of 2019, deforestation is responsible for about 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation are accelerating. Growing forests are a carbon sink with additional potential to mitigate the effects of climate change. Some of the effects of climate change, such as more wildfires, insect outbreaks, invasive species, and storms are factors that increase deforestation.
April Salome Forest Management Area also known as April Salumei Rainforest is a forest management area in April — Salumei tropical forest covering about 521,500 hectares in Ambunti-Dreikikir District of East Sepik Province, of Papua New Guinea. The forest is located in the basins of two rivers: April and Salumei. The town of Ambunti serves as a gateway to the April Salome Forest Management Area.
REDD+ is a framework to encourage developing countries to reduce emissions and enhance removals of greenhouse gases through a variety of forest management options, and to provide technical and financial support for these efforts. The acronym refers to "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries". REDD+ is a voluntary climate change mitigation framework developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). REDD originally referred to "reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries", which was the title of the original document on REDD. It was superseded by REDD+ in the Warsaw Framework on REDD-plus negotiations.
In international law, a development safeguard or simply safeguard is a restraint on economic development to protect communities from development aggression.
