Co-Chairs’ Summary : Dialogue on Forests and Climate - Washington D.C.

On 1-2 April 2008 in Washington DC, The Forests Dialogue (TFD) convened more than 50 leaders for the first full dialogue under its new forests and climate change (FCC) initiative. Hosted by The World Resources Institute, this dialogue was part of a 2 year initiative focused on stakeholder engagement on this important issue. The dialogue was preceded by a smaller “scoping” dialogue held in conjunction with the UNFCCC’s COP 13 in Bali, Indonesia on 9 December 2007.

The principle objective of the DC FCC Dialogue was to explore the nature of and reasons behind the “fracture lines” or tensions between different stakeholder groups arising from existing and proposed climate policy mechanisms for the treatment of forests. A related objective was to identify possible options whereby stakeholder groups within the broader forest community can work together to overcome some of these differences, thus collaborating to shape and influence future forests and climate policy frameworks and decisions.

The DC dialogue confirmed that there is strong common cause for forest stakeholders to work together to better inform climate policy negotiators on forestry issues in the lead up to COP 15 (December 2009, Copenhagen). There was also agreement that TFD should convene further dialogues this year aimed at developing a set of common messages for climate negotiators that will present a more unified view on key issues of agreement (and disagreement) among a representative set of actors in the forest sector.