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Climate Focus participates in European Forestry House Workshop. 26 June 2008. The European Forestry House hosted a workshop aimed at exchanging views with private forests owners, the wood industry and NGOs on the inclusion of forestry carbon credits in the EU ETS. Dr. Charlotte Streck made a presentation aimed at responding to concerns from EU’s DG Environment about the possible impact of inclusion of forestry credits on the EU carbon market. Download agenda, and download presentation.

Climate Focus at Energy Risk USA 2008. Climate Focus presents at the carbon trading seminar held in Houston on 12 June 2008. Dr. Charlotte Streck will provide a presentation on project risk management to carbon traders, commodities traders, emissions and carbon managers, CDM/JI project managers, brokers, market analysts, quantitative analysts, financial engineers, risk managers, and portfolio managers. Download Agenda.

Workshop on Emerging Modes of Governance and Climate Protection. July 3 - 4 Potsdam and Berlin. Dr. Charlotte Streck partipates in a workshop on the interplay of public and private actors in the CDM marketsin Brazil, China and India. Host country experts, European and International policymakers and carbon market actors gather to discuss the findings of an in-depth field study, conducted during the past six months by the Potsdam University research team in these three countries. Download Agenda.

Avoided Deforestation and U.S. Climate Policy. Climate Focus, Avoided Deforestation Partners, and other organizations (Green Belt Movement, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Covington & Burling LLP, PG&E Corp., and Baker & McKenzie LLP) hosted a luncheon discussion on 19 May 2008 on the science and economics behind climate change and deforestation. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai spoke about the importance of reducing deforestation in developing countries which was followed by a detailed panel discussion of some of the policy issues surrounding reducing emissions from deforestation and the need and opportunity for US leadership. Download Photos of the Event. For more information please visit www.adpartners.org

Climate Focus leads efforts to ensure continuity of the Joint Implementation. Together with a number of partner companies, Climate Focus launched an initiative for the reform and continuity of a Joint Implementation mechanism at Carbon Expo 2008 (May). The initiative  presented a set of principles underscoring the importance of a Joint Implementation mechanism in the context of a post 2012 regime. As offset mechanism integrated into a cap-and-trade programme, JI is not only essential to mobilize finance in climate projects in Annex I countries, it also ensures continuity for projects that have been developed under the CDM but find themselves in a capped environment post-2012. The initiative has been welcomed by many companies, European Governments and international organizations. Download Document.

2008 Global Katoomba Group Meeting XII. The Katoomba Group, the leading forum on ecosystem markets, brings together a global group of finance, business, community, environment and government experts in Washington DC 9-10 June to discuss the latest developments in ecosystem markets and how they are being created and utilized to help solve some of our most critical environmental challenges. Climate Focus Director Charlotte Streck will participate in a panel on the future of international carbon markets.For more information please visit http://katoombagroup.org/chesapeake/agenda.php

CDM governance workshop. On May 28 and 29, the University of Lund, Sweden, hosted a workshop on CDM governance. Charlotte Streck presented a paper on “Public-Private Rule Making in the New Carbon Economy”. The agenda of the event is attached.

Call for Papers: Legal Aspects of Forestry and Climate Change. Carbon & Climate Law Review is welcoming manuscript submissions for a special issue on Climate Policy, Carbon Markets and Forestry to be published in Fall 2008. Contributions should address legal and policy aspects relating to the consideration of agriculture, forestry and other land-use (AFOLU) in climate legislation. Subjects to be addressed include AFOLU emissions and emissions reductions under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, Legal challenges related to avoiding emissions from deforestation, Consideration of Forestry in National ET Systems and Payment for Ecosystem Services. For more information please follow this link: www.lexxion.eu/cclr/ . If you are interested in submitting a manuscript for this issue, kindly contact guest editor, Charlotte Streck.

Climate Change: Science, Impacts & Responses course at Imperial College London
Dr. Charlotte Streck participates in a programme to provide professionals, particularly in government and industry, with an in-depth understanding of the issues surrounding climate change. The programme is being held on 14 – 18 April. Charlotte will give a presentation on Legal and political principles of the Kyoto Mechanisms.
Please visit website for Programme details

The Forests Dialogue (TFD) at the World Resources Institute
Climate Focus participated on 1-2 April 2008 in the first of a series of dialogues organized by TFD throughout the year. The purpose of these dialogues was to raise stakeholder awareness and understanding, and identify potential roles of different actors for the comprehensive treatment of forests within international climate policy negotiations. This dialogue pertained to identify current perspectives and tensions within the forest community with regards to issues surrounding forests and climate, and opportunities for stakeholder agreement and mechanisms to resolve such tensions.
Download Agenda (58k PDF) and Concept Paper (102k PDF)

The consortium of Climate Focus and South Pole is sourcing CDM and JI projects on behalf of the Swiss Climate Cent Foundation (http://www.stiftungklimarappen.ch). Projects must be highly credible and of high-quality in terms of sustainable development benefits. Suitable projects, including Gold Standard certified projects, will be awarded a direct emission reduction purchase agreement with the Climate Cent Foundation. For more information please contact Juan Pablo Castro at jp.castro@climatefocus.com or +31 65 040 8865.
Download Information Sheet

A submission on ways to strengthen the effectiveness of the CDM has been sent to the UNFCCC on 11 March 2008 by a group of collaborators that includes Climate Focus. It discusses ways to improve the scope, effectiveness and functioning of afforestation and reforestation (A/R) activities under the CDM with the recognition that doing so will help enhance the regional distribution of CDM projects.
Download Submission (174k PDF)

Climate Focus at Carbon Market Insights 2008
Climate Focus was invited to give a presentation during Point Carbon’s Carbon Market Insights 2008 Conference on 11 and 12 March. Charlotte Streck gave a presentation during the session on “New Sources for Supply 2012?”
Download Conference Schedule (902k PDF)

Strengthening Forestry Activities in Argentina
On February 19 and 20 Dr. Charlotte Streck made a presentation about Market and Financial issues for LULUCF projects in a workshop to strengthen and promote CDM forestry activities in Argentina.
Download Final agenda of the workshop

Perspectives for forests in the post-Kyoto arrangements
Dr. Charlotte Streck, from Climate Focus, participated as a lecturer in a conference titled "Perspectives for forests in the post-Kyoto arrangements" celebrated in the Centre AgroParisTech (ENGREF) in Nancy on 5 February 2008. The objective of this conference was to introduce the students to forest-carbon projects and the prospects of these projects in the carbon market, based on practical examples and case studies.

Together with Terra Carbon, Sustainable Forest Management, Ecosecurities and the London based Carbon Market Association, Climate Focus has issued a paper on 28 January 2008 rebutting concerns expressed by the EU Commission with respect to CDM forestry projects. The EU Commission has argued that insecurities associated with those projects are too high to allow the import of forestry credits into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Download Paper (413k PDF)

Climate Focus, along with Avoided Deforestation Partners and PG&E hosted a roundtable discussion in San Francisco on February 28, on current policies and strategies to stimulate investment in avoided deforestation projects.
Download Invitation

Mongabay.com published an article written by Climate Focus in collaboration with Avoided Deforestation Partners titled “The hidden value of Bali: Why saving the world's rainforests is good for the climate and the US economy.” (2008) by J. Horowitz and R. O’Sullivan. The article is also available on the EcosystemMarketplace website under the title "Analysis: Why saving the world's rainforests is good for the climate and the US economy."
Read article on Mongabay website or EcosystemMarketplace website

Climate Focus joins the Carbon Market Association in January 2008. The CMA is an international trade association representing service providers to the global carbon market.
Visit website

Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, UK
Dr. Charlotte Streck gave the first Lecture in a series titled “Blowing in the Wind: Current Issues in Law, Environment and Development” during the month of January 2008. This series was hosted by the Law, Environment and Development Centre of the School of Oriental and African Studies, in collaboration with the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. Charlotte’s lecture was about international policy solutions and incentives to avoid deforestation and promote sustainable forest management with the objective of combating climate change.
Download event flyer (49k PDF)

FORUM, the Magazine of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers published an interview with Adriaan Korthuis, Director of Climate Focus, on 9 January 2008 addressing the state of the Climate Change debate, the current carbon market and the need of poor countries to receive finance to combat climate change.
Download the article (295k PDF) Visit website (in Dutch)

The Katoomba’s Group Ecosystem Marketplace published an article on 2 January 2008 on conversations about REDD issues and outcomes from Bali. The article mentions the Carbon Stock Approach promoted by Climate Focus. This approach is based on the idea that a baseline-and-credit system is not practical and rather a cap-and-trade system that operates by giving carbon stock units (CSUs) to participating countries based on the amount of carbon in their forests during a base year is more realistic. Countries could sell CSUs based on how much forest they put under protection.
Read article