Forest Carbon Finance Summit 2010:

Getting to Scale, Getting Results

February 25-27, 2010 • World Wildlife Fund Offices and the Fairmont Hotel, Washington, DC

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), in conjunction with the Program on International Financial Systems, and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, are pleased to announce that the second annual Forest Carbon Finance Summit: Getting to Scale, Getting Results, will be held February 25-27, 2010 in Washington, DC.  

Based on the success of FCFS 2009: Making Forest Carbon Markets Work, 60-80 thought leaders from the forest carbon finance field will gather in Washington, DC for two and a half days of intense discussions intended to move the conversation on REDD+ from a conceptual level to a practical one. The invitation-only event brings together senior executives, legal and financial leaders, policy experts, and investors, to participate in a charrette designed to address real issues and pose practical solutions.

The Summit will focus on how the carbon markets, public finance, and new mechanisms can be used to channel the required sums of capital to the forest to enable and encourage these countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

Discussions will address the following questions:

• The Challenge of Urgency: Bringing REDD+ Financing to Scale
• Alternative Financial Structures for REDD+
• Rapid Capacity Building: The Lessons Learned So Far, and Strategies to Succeed

Participants will discuss the merits of the various carbon accounting frameworks, practical experiences from the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation mechanism, necessary infrastructure requirements to make forest carbon markets work, and ways to achieve market system integrity for permanent and real carbon reduction with effective protection of social and environmental values, with due regard for national sovereignty.

Summit Materials

• Summit Report
• Agenda
• Participant List 
• Final Presentation (PPT Slides)

Panelist Presentations

• Early Lessons from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility
  Benoît Bosquet, World Bank
• Lessons Learned
  Ludovino Lopes
• Alternative  Structures for REDD+
  David Reed
• Legal Guides for PES and REDD
  Jim Salzman  
• Rapid Capacity Building
  Julio C. Tresierra

Commissioned Papers for FCFS 2010

1. Protected areas as tools for REDD: an issues paper for WWF
   Nigel Dudley
2. At the Crossroads?: The Nexus between public and private finance for REDD+
   Pablo Gutman, Bruce Cabarle
3. Options for Managing Financial Flows from REDD+
   Charlotte Streck, Manuel Estrada Porrua, Carina Bracer, Michael Coren
4. The Challenge of Urgency: Incentivizing Private Sector Early Action in REDD+
   Charlotte Streck, Anna Lehmann, Alexander Rau, Michael Coren

Briefing Materials

1. Forest Carbon Initiative: Proposed Checklist of Policy, Legal and Regulatory Requirements to Stimulate REDD Activities
   Don Kanak, Kaveesh Nath
2. Guidebook to support the development of early action REDD activities
   Pedro Moura Costa
3. Forging a Path for High-Quality Compliance REDD Credits
   Brian C. Murray, Lydia P. Olander, Donald P. Kanak

Participant Concept Papers

1. Other shades of REDD: Payments for "reduced extinctions from deforestation"
   Jonah Busch, Conservation International
2. Berau Forest Carbon Program: Delivering Practical Solutions to Support Development of a National-level REDD Framework in Indonesia
   Greg Fishbein, The Nature Conservancy
3. Early REDD Implementation Fund Overview
   Greg Fishbein, The Nature Conservancy
4. Expanding the Scope of International Terrestrial Carbon Options: Implications of REDD+ and Beyond
   Kathleen Lawlor, Aaron Jenkins, Lydia Olander, Brian Murray
5. Accelerating Transfers of Interim Finance for REDD+: Options for Early Market Involvement
   Pedro Moura Costa, Ruth Nussbaum
6. Accelerating Transfers of Interim Finance for REDD+: Building Absorptive Capacity
   Ruth Nussbaum, Alison Hoare, Connie McDermott, Jade Saunders, Pedro Moura Costa
7. Forest Carbon Finance Summit 2010: Getting to Scale, Getting Results
   Julio C. Tresierra
   

Made possible by the gracious support of our sponsors.

Platinum Sponsors

Fondation 1796 is the foundation of the Partners of Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie, private bankers since 1796. Being a seven generation family business with strong values and a long tradition of philanthropic engagement, we see it as our responsibility to help society address the challenges it faces today as well as those future generations will face. Our philanthropic commitment is a reflection of our values: ethics, independence, excellence, adaptability, responsibility, confidentiality, and sustainability.

Aligned with our business strategy, our core philanthropic engagements focus on three themes:
• Promoting sustainable development
• Advancing knowledge of family businesses and developing youth entrepreneurship
• Enhancing the context for philanthropy

The end result of this strategy would be helping to build a better world with an economic, social, and environmental balance.

Goldman Sachs is a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities, and investment management services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments, and high-net-worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and other major financial centers around the world.

Goldman Sachs believes that a healthy environment is necessary for the well-being of society, our people, and our business, and is the foundation for a sustainable and strong economy. We take seriously our responsibility for environmental stewardship and believe that as a leading global financial institution we can and should play a constructive role in helping to address the challenges facing the environment. To that end, we work to ensure that our people, capital, and ideas are used to help find effective market-based solutions to environmental issues. 

Sponsor

Evolution Markets Inc., provides strategic financial and transactional services to participants in global environmental markets and the clean energy sector. The company has become the carbon markets leader, leveraging its unrivaled experience and knowledge on behalf of carbon project developers to facilitate investment and structure trades in carbon offsets. Evolution Markets has brokered more than $75 billion in environmental transactions, including many landmark carbon trades such as the first EUA allowance trade, first trade of Kyoto carbon allowances, first CER option, and the first RGGI carbon offset trade. In addition to its industry leading brokerage services, Evolution Markets also provides carbon finance services through its merchant bank subsidiary, Evolution Markets Financial Services LLC, which is a member of FINRA, SIPC. Evolution Markets serves global clients on five continents from offices in New York, San Francisco, London, New Delhi, and Beijing.

FCFS 2009: Making Forest Carbon Markets Work

March 6-8, 2009 • World Wildlife Fund Offices and the Fairmont Hotel, Washington, DC

PIFS, The World Wildlife Fund, and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University jointly sponsored the inaugural Forest Carbon Finance Summit 2009 in Washington, DC. The Summit brought together 70 senior executives, policy experts, and investors, as well as legal and financial leaders in an off-the-record, off-site meeting to enable frank engagement on whether and how the carbon markets can be useful to channel the required sums of capital to the forest countries to enable and encourage those countries to reduce emissions from deforestation. 

Discussions addressed the following questions:

• How can forest carbon become compliance carbon used to meet emission reduction obligations? How to establish forest carbon transactions within national and subnational accounting frameworks? What lessons learned from CDM and JI and voluntary markets can be instructive to establish compliance forest carbon?
• What infrastructure requirements, carbon registries, exchange platforms, and legal and institutional frameworks are critical to make markets work and make the carbon results credible and real?
• How can a market system achieve integrity: permanent real carbon reduction and effective protection of social and environmental values, with due regard for national sovereignty?

The Summit was held at the Fairmont Hotel and World Wildlife Fund Conference Facilities in Washington, DC. The Summit began on Friday evening, March 6, with a keynote address from His Excellency Bharrat Jagdeo, President of the Republic of Guyana. His Excellency the Honourable Robert Hill, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations, addressed the participants on Saturday, March 7.  

FCFS 2009 white papers, participant concept papers, and background materials are available below.

Summit Materials

• Final Report
• Agenda
• Participants
• Final Plenary Presentation

Commissioned Papers for FCFS 2009

1. Contractual Arrangements for the Implementation of Forest Carbon Schemes with Emphasis on REDD Schemes in Peru: Legal and Institutional Considerations
   José Luis Capella, SPDA
2. The Interminable Politics of Forest Carbon: an EU Outlook
   Alex Bozmoski and Cameron Hepburn, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
3. Including Reduced Emissions from International Forest Carbon in Climate Policy: Understanding the Economics
   Brian Murray (lead), Nicholas Institute, Duke University; Ruben Lubowski, Environmental Defense Fund; and Brent Sohngen, Ohio State University
4. Driving Private Capital to Conserve Tropical Forests: Current Frameworks & Policy Ideas
   John O. Niles, Director, Tropical Forest Group
5. Forests and Climate: The Crucial Role of Forest Carbon in Combating Climate Change
   Lydia Olander, Nicholas Institute, Duke University (coordinating), and (in alphabetical order) William Boyd, University of Colorado Law School; Kathleen Lawlor, Nicholas Institute; Erin Myers Madeira, Resources for the Future; and John O. Niles, Tropical Forest Group. Erin Myers Madeira is the primary author of the introduction.

Participant Concept Papers

1. Avoided Deforestation as a GHG Mitigation Compliance Activity
   Pedro Moura Costa, EcoSecurities Group Plc
2. Compensation for Carbon Stock Maintenance in Forests as an Alternative to Avoiding Carbon Flows
   Pedro Moura Costa, EcoSecurities Group Plc
3.  Ensuring Integrity in Forest Carbon Markets: A Concept Note
   Hosny El-Lakany, University of British Columbia
4. Reflections of a Summit Organizer: Overview of the Discussion About Forest Carbon Markets
   Don Kanak

Additional Suggested Materials

1. Moving Ahead With REDD: Issues, Options, and Implications
   Published by Center for International Forestry Research(CIFOR), Arlid Angelsen, Editor
2. Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy
   McKinsey & Company