By Ken Hickson, author of "The ABC of Carbon"

When thousands of delegates, including those from up to 191 Governments, as well as hundreds of non Government organisations and business lobby groups, gather in Copenhagen this month (December) there will be a relatively new word uttered - or perhaps even shouted from the rooftops - in and around conference rooms and cafes.

It is REDD and it stands for Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

What is it all about and why is it so important? Here's some very good reasons:

• Globally, deforestation accounts for up to 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, or about 5.8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent released into the atmosphere, each year.
• Following much discussion, REDD is scheduled to become an official carbon emissions reduction mechanism in December this year, at COP15 in Copenhagen.
• In partnership with the Australian investment bank Macquarie Group, Fauna and Flora International (FFI) has six other REDD schemes: three in Indonesia and others in Cambodia, Ecuador and Liberia.
• Dorjee Sun is CEO of Carbon Conservation and is passionate about forests, community development, conservation and climate change. Read more below about his work.
• Since 1950, estimates Greenpeace, more than 182 million acres (740,000 sq km) of Indonesian forests, the equivalent of more than 95 Ulu Masens, have been destroyed or degraded.
• Indonesia is introducing the world's first national legal regime for the implementation of REDD projects, to promote the issuance and trading of carbon credits in respect of the greenhouse gas reductions such projects generate.

For some insight into REDD and how it is proposed it will work, we look at an article from Carbon Planet's "Be The Change Magazine":

Globally, deforestation accounts for up to 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, or about 5.8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent released into the atmosphere, each year. This is more than global transport and aviation combined. According to the Stern Review, reducing deforestation is the "single largest opportunity for cost effective and immediate reductions of carbon emissions".

This is where REDD - otherwise known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation - comes in.

Put simply, the idea behind REDD is to make payments to discourage deforestation and degradation, particularly in relation to tropical rainforests, via a carbon credit mechanism. The idea is for the economic incentives of maintaining rainforests as carbon sinks to be greater than the commercial benefits associated with deforestation and degradation.

REDD comes under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), which is the certifying body for carbon credits for the voluntary market. The VCS REDD Methodology Framework provides guidance on constructing methodologies for REDD projects so they comply with VCS validation and verification requirements.

One methodology for REDD is through improved forestry management (IFM) (Carbon Planet's proposed REDD methodology is based on making REDD credits via IFM). REDD was originally discussed as part of the Kyoto Protocol but it wasn't until 2005, when a group of countries calling themselves the Coalition of Rainforest Nations put together a proposal for REDD, that it came to prominence. The idea was finally taken up in 2007, at the UNFCCC meeting in Bali: Conference of the Parties (COP13).3 Following much discussion, REDD is scheduled to become an official carbon emissions reduction mechanism in December this year, at COP15 in Copenhagen.

Isn't REDD just paying people to do nothing?

This is one argument often put forward against REDD.

What it fails to appreciate is just how complex proper REDD projects can be. It also fails to acknowledge that the environmental services provided by forests have a real value, and that paying the traditional owners of those forests to maintain them is just as valid as paying those people lucky enough to be born on top of an oil well - something we do every time we fill up the car with petrol. What must REDD address? Sadly, some unscrupulous individuals are trying to set up REDD projects that don't account for the indigenous owners of the rainforest in terms of rights and consultation, which is a key outcome of good REDD.

There is also the issue of leakage, which is when chopping down the forest is stopped in one area, only to be started up in another. www.carbonplanet.com

The latest issue of Time Magazine (30 November 2009) had a major cover feature story on deforestation and REDD. Here's part of the story:

Jungle- hardened rangers who patrol just one corner of this 1.9 million - acre (7,700 sq km) wilderness (Ulu Masen ecosystem in the Indonesian province of Aceh). They are trained by the London-based conservation group Fauna and Flora International (FFI) to protect Ulu Masen from illegal loggers and poachers, who greedily eye its valuable hardwoods and teeming wildlife: elephants, gibbons, tigers, leopards, bears, pythons and scaly anteaters.

The rangers' work might seem remote from the modern world, but it has implications far beyond Ulu Masen's frontiers - from Africa and the Amazon, which along with Indonesia are home to what's left of our rain forests, to the meeting rooms of Copenhagen, where thousands of delegates will arrive for next month's historic climate-change conference.

Green plants use light to transform carbon dioxide, absorbed from the atmosphere, and water into organic compounds, with oxygen as a by-product. The process is called photosynthesis, and it enables forests like Ulu Masen to play a critical role in regulating our climate.

Forests store an estimated 300 billion tons of carbon, or the equivalent of 40 times the world's total annual greenhouse-gas emissions - emissions that cause global warming. Destroy the trees and you release that carbon into the atmosphere, putting the great challenge of our age - averting catastrophic climate change - beyond reach.

Forest destruction accounts for 15% of global emissions by human activity, far outranking the total from vehicles and aircraft combined. Forests are disappearing so fast in Indonesia that, incredibly, this developing country ranks third in emissions behind industrial giants China and the U.S. Since 1950, estimates Greenpeace, more than 182 million acres (740,000 sq km) of Indonesian forests, the equivalent of more than 95 Ulu Masens, have been destroyed or degraded.

The good news is that protecting forests "is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to take a big bite out of the apple when it comes to emissions," says Greenpeace spokesman Daniel Kessler.

Ulu Masen will be one of the first forests to be protected under a pioneering U.N. program called REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries - that offers a powerful financial incentive to keep forests intact. Here's how it works.

Preserve Ulu Masen, and over the next 30 years an estimated 100 million tons of carbon are prevented from entering the earth's atmosphere - the equivalent of 50 million flights from London to Sydney. Those savings can be converted into millions of carbon-offset credits, which are sold to rich countries and companies trying to meet their U.N. emissions-reduction targets. The revenue produced by the sale of credits is then ploughed back into protecting the forest and improving life in communities living along its edge, thereby giving people a reason to leave the trees standing. In other words, forests are better REDD than dead. (See the top 10 animals stories of 2008.)

With schemes now proliferating across Indonesia and the globe, the U.N. estimates that REDD revenues could pump up to $30 billion a year into the developing world, promising much-needed revenue at a time when rich nations still haggle over how much money to give poorer countries to help them adapt to climate change. REDD will likely be part of any global climate pact negotiated in Copenhagen. "Everyone has got a lot of hope in REDD," says Joe Heffernan, an expert in environmental markets at FFI. "It's a big one."

In partnership with the Australian investment bank Macquarie Group, FFI has six other REDD schemes: three in Indonesia and others in Cambodia, Ecuador and Liberia.

Last month (October) , governors Irwandi and Schwarzenegger joined 30 other subnational leaders - including a dozen other U.S. governors and the leaders of forest-rich Brazilian states Amazonas and Mato Grosso - at a climate summit in Los Angeles, where they called upon governments to include REDD within the global framework for combating climate change.

Sun of Carbon Conservation hopes one day to see "a global infrastructure of forest factories, producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide." (See a graphic of the effects of climate change on the world by 2020.) www.time.com

Here are two very important and relevant extracts from my book "The ABC of Carbon" on the subject of deforestation and REDD:

Deforestation on film. Dorjee Sun, a young Australian entrepreneur, believes there's money to be made from saving rainforests in Indonesia and making a real impact on climate change. Armed with a laptop and a backpack, he sets out across the globe to find investors in his scheme. Meanwhile another burning season gets underway. A small-scale farmer wrestles with the dilemma of clearing his land. In Borneo, a wildlife carer battles overcrowding and despair as more orangutans are rescued from the fires. This is the story of a young man not afraid to single-handedly confront the biggest challenge of our time. His determination to succeed and his award winning achievement will uplift and entertain audiences and inspirehope in our future. "The Burning Season" is the film that brings the plight of people and the planet suffering through the effects of deforestation. Dorjee Sun is CEO of Carbon Conservation and is passionate about forests, community development, conservation andclimate change. He started Carbon Conservation - www.carbonpool.com - to finance the preservation of tropical rainforests and provide carbon credit revenues to local communities via avoided deforestation.

Forests go to REDD. Indonesia is introducing the world's first national legal regime for the implementation of Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation ("REDD") projects, to promote the issuance and trading of carbon credits in respect of the greenhouse gas reductions such projects generate, says a Baker and McKenzie report (May 2009). The REDD Regulation has been drafted with a view to aligning the Indonesian regime with any international REDD framework that may emerge from negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, prior to the advent of any international REDD framework, the Regulation allows Indonesian activities to be undertaken through: a. REDD demonstration activities (as separately regulated under the REDD Demonstration Activities Regulation); b. transfer of technologies; and c. trading of voluntary emission reduction credits in voluntary carbon markets. For a full report on this and related REDD activities go to www.bakernet.com

So REDD is something we'll be hearing much more about. It will become a very workable process to save the forests, reduce emissions and give countries, companies and individuals the opportunity to invest in the rainforests of countries like Indonesia and the Amazon, and at the same time contribute positively to communities which need to adapt to climate change impacts.

REDD is a winning combination of letters and ideas.