Author Archives: danieljkessler

What The Dell? Design Out Toxics!

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On Tuesday, Greenpeace held a protest at computer giant Dell’s Round Rock, Texas headquarters over the company’s backtracking on its public commitment to eliminate key toxic chemicals in its products by 2009. Our decision to directly communicate with the company’s leadership and employees was not taken lightly — it was reached after it became clear that Dell is not moving quickly enough to honor its public to phase out the use of toxics by 2011.

Our message, delivered on Dell’s campus with an enormous banner suspended from the roof, was addressed to CEO Michael Dell and read: “Michael, What the Dell? Delete Toxics Now.” The protest follows similar demonstrations against Dell at its offices in Bangalore, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. Greenpeace is pressuring Dell around the world to let the company and the public know that while Dell’s competitors are phasing out the use polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Dell is falling behind and is contributing to the mounting e-waste problem that is poisoning communities in places like China and in West African nations.

PVC and BFRs are highly toxic and can release dioxin, a known carcinogen, when burned. With the growing tsunami of electronic waste being shipped to developing countries for open burning, workers who deal with e-waste are at the most significant risk for health impacts. Eliminating these substances will decrease exposure to workers and consumers and will increase the recyclability and reusability of electronic products.

The amount of electronic products discarded globally has skyrocketed recently, with 20-50 million tons generated every year. If such a huge figure is hard to imagine, think of it like this: If the estimated amount of e-waste generated every year would be put into containers on a train, it would go all the way around the world. E-waste now makes up five percent of all municipal solid waste worldwide, nearly the same amount as all plastic packaging, but much more hazardous. And it’s not only developed countries that generate e-waste: Asia discards an estimated 12 million tons each year.

E-waste is now the fastest growing component of the municipal solid waste stream, due largely to people upgrading their mobile phones, computers, televisions, audio equipment and printers more frequently than ever before. In Europe, e-waste is increasing at three to five percent a year, almost three times faster than the total waste stream. Developing countries are also expected to triple their e-waste production over the next five years.

Greenpeace and Consumer Electronics

For the past five years, Greenpeace has been campaigning for electronics companies to reduce toxic chemicals usage and improve take-back and responsible recycling programs. This involves regular meetings with many of these companies to exchange information and discuss company progress and relevant industry developments.

Our primary tool for tracking the progress of consumer electronics companies is the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, which is updated quarterly. In the latest version of the Guide, both Apple and HP moved up, their scores fueled by having new computer lines free of PVC and BFRs, demonstrating the technical feasibility and supply chain readiness of producing alternatives to these hazardous substances. Dell stands in 10th place, having been penalized in the previous ranking for its backtracking on PVC/BFR phase out.

There is still time for Dell to do the right thing and honor its commitment to phase out toxic PVC and BFRs. As an electronics industry leader, Dell’s move would be seen as a true game changer. People concerned with Dell’s toxics backtracking can take action.

Can IT help to keep more coal in the ground?

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Behindthegreen.org has an excellent and poignant post up today on the connection between IT and coal. The blogger, Brooks Boliek, comes from a coal mining family, and he’s clearly been affected by the recent mining incident in West Virginia in which 29 miners died after being trapped underground. The efficiencies that IT can create could be enough to keep more coal in the ground, Boliek writes.

"What does this have to do with information and communications technologies? ICT can make it possible for fewer people have to go underground. ICT’s long suit is efficiency. It can make us use less electricity, and less electricity means we need less of the black stuff that makes it.

There’s a conundrum there. It’s the same conundrum that faces the miners everyday they ride the man lift. Mining is dangerous, dirty and difficult, but it is also rewarding. Miners make a lot of money and that money fuels the economic activity in small towns in out-of-the way places where there isn’t a lot of money to be had. Reducing our need for the black stuff, whether it’s coal or oil, could very well have an impact in those small towns and out-of-the way places.

It’s a tough problem, but in the end ICT also provides jobs. It has the potential to provide more than those in the coal industry. As much as I personally admire and respect those people who do that dirty, dangerous and difficult job, changing the nation from a country too dependent on the black stuff to a nation dependent on the green stuff is really the only way to go. Making our homes, cars and industries more efficient and less dependent on the black stuff isn’t just good for the environment, it’s as economic necessity for the country as a whole."

 More at behindthegreen.org.

 

The iPad, Cloud Computing, and IT’s Growing Carbon Problem

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The announcement of Apple’s iPad has been much anticipated by a world with an ever-increasing appetite for mobile computing devices as a way to connect, interact, learn and work. As rumors circulated – first about its existence and then about its capabilities – the iPad received more media attention than any other gadget in recent memory.

Whether you actually want an iPad or not, there is no doubt that it is a harbinger of things to come. The iPad relies upon cloud-based computing to stream video, download music and books, and fetch email. Already, millions access the ‘cloud’ to make use of online social networks, watch streaming video, check email and create documents, and store thousands of digital photos online on popular web-hosted sites like Flickr and Picasa.

The cloud is growing at a time when climate change and reducing emissions from energy use is of paramount concern. With the growth of the cloud, however, comes an increasing demand for energy. For all of this content to be delivered to us in real time, virtual mountains of video, pictures and other data must be stored somewhere and be available for almost instantaneous access. That ’somewhere’ is data centers – massive storage facilities that consume incredible amounts of energy.

Greenpeace’s new report, Make IT Green:Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change" shows that cloud-based computing has potentially a much larger carbon footprint than previously estimated. The report finds that at current growth rates, data centers and telecommunication networks, the two key components of the cloud, will consume about 1,963 billion kws hrs of electricity in 2020, more than triple their current consumption and over half the current electricity consumption of the US–or more than France, Germany, Canada and Brazil — combined.

Here is an interesting story that demonstrates how IT companies can make an impact by deciding where to site their data centers. In January 2010, Facebook commissioned a new data center in Oregon and committed to a power service provider agreement with PacificCorp, a utility that gets the majority of its energy from coal-fired power stations, the United States’ largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Effectively becoming an industrial-scale consumer of electricity, Facebook now faces the same choices and challenges that other large ‘cloud-computing’ companies have in building their data centres. With a premium being placed on access to the cheapest electricity available on the grid. In many countries, this means dirty coal.

All the same, other companies have made better decisions for siting some of their data centres. Yahoo!, for instance, chose to build a data centre outside Buffalo, New York, that is powered by energy from a hydroelectric power plant – dramatically decreasing its carbon footprint. Google Energy, a subsidiary of cloud leader Google, applied and was recently approved as a regulated wholesale buyer and seller of electricity in the United States, giving it greater flexibility as to where it buys its electricity to power its data centers.

People are expressing their concern over the new Facebook data center on a Facebook group that has over 200,000 members. You can become a fan of the group here.

Brown cloud or green cloud?
Ultimately, if cloud providers want to provide a truly green and renewable cloud, they must use their power and influence to not only drive investments near renewable energy sources, but also become involved in setting the policies that will drive rapid deployment of renewable electricity generation economy-wide, and place greater R&D into storage devices that will deliver electricity from renewable sources 24/7. If we hope to phase out dirty sources of energy to address climate change, then – given the massive amounts of electricity needed in order to run computers, provide backup power and coordinate related cooling equipment that even energy-efficient data centres consume – the last thing we need is for more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power.

The potential of ICT technologies and cloud computing to drive low-carbon economic growth underscore the importance of building cloud infrastructure in places powered by clean renewable energy. Companies like Facebook, Google, and other large players in the cloud computing market must advocate for policy change at the local, national and international levels to ensure that, as their appetite for energy increases, so does the supply of renewable energy.

You can find out more at greenpeace.org/coolit.

 

How Facebook (and other IT companies) can help kick coal off your computer

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"I have always believed that IT is the engine of an efficient economy; it also can drive a greener one." – Michael Dell, Forbes

Last month, Facebook announced that it was building its first data center, in Prineville, Oregon, in the northwest of the US. Unfortunately for the climate, we soon found out that instead of renewable energy, Facebook chose to operate its data center with energy from Pacific Power, a utility that is fueled primarily by coal. Last Friday, Greenpeace responded by challenging the company to become a climate champion and dump coal.

How the internet is powered is an issue not just for Facebook but for the entire IT industry. The industry holds many of the keys to reaching our climate goals by innovating internet based solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy efficiency. Technologies that enable smart grids, zero emissions buildings, and more efficient transport systems are central to efforts to combat climate change.

However, the IT industry’s global environmental footprint is still growing — in fact, it’s set to double by 2020. In 2008, The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) issued SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. The study showed the incredible efficiencies IT can create, but it also highlighted the massive footprint of the IT industry and predicted that because of the rapid economic expansion in places like India and China, among other causes, demand for IT services will quadruple by 2020.

How Facebook Should Lead
After we highlighted its growing footprint, Facebook issued a public response. It touted the significant energy efficiency of its data centers, but it also said that Pacific Power and its parent company PacifiCorp "has an energy mix that is weighted slightly more toward coal than the national average" of roughly 50%. This is not the full story. Facebook went to a state with only one existing in-state coal plant (that’s shutting down within the decade) and instead decided to throw its lot with a utility that imports dirty coal from out of state.

Moreover, burning coal contributes the largest share of CO2 emissions globally, as well as contributing to increased asthma, acid rain, and mortality from other pollutants. Facebook’s decision to choose a company primarily powered by coal over other cleaner sources of energy is a missed opportunity to strike a blow against this dirty fuel and drive a clean energy economy. We expect more from a company that was recently named the most innovative by Fast Company magazine.

In fact, other data center operators are realizing that efficiency is only part of the equation in dealing with company footprint. Yahoo similarly chose a cooler climate in Buffalo, NY for a data center in order to reduce the need for energy intensive cooling systems, but it chose its location based on access to lower carbon hydropower. Google has established Google Energy, which was recently granted its application to become a wholesale electricity buyer and seller. Google will hopefully use this standing to drive more renewable energy powered data centers.

Greenpeace is calling on Facebook, as we have with other IT companies, to:

  • Commit to growing without using dirty coal power;
  • Use its purchasing power to choose clean sources of electricity;
  • Advocate for strong climate and energy policy changes at the local, national and international level to ensure that as its industry’s appetite for energy increases, so does the supply of renewable energy;
  • Share this information publicly on its website so its 350 million users know the company is a climate leader.

How You Can Get Involved
The IT industry’s ability to lead and innovate are the reasons Greenpeace built on its work in the sector and began its Cool IT Campaign in 2009. The campaign uses direct company engagement and public pressure to push the ICT industry to put forward solutions to achieve economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions and to become stronger advocates for policies that combat climate change and increase the use of renewable energy.

We want Facebook users to tell the company that you love using Facebook, but you want them to dump coal. You can get involved by joining one of the numerous Facebook groups that have sprung up to raise awareness about Facebook’s choice of coal power for its Prineville data center. You can also use your networks and creativity to spread the word on other online social networks about the campaign. The internet is one of the greatest inventions& ever for creating social change. Let’s use it.

Thank You Daily Show For Mocking Climate Deniers

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Thank the stars for the Daily Show. While the mainstream media has largely been silent over the lies and distortions climate change deniers have been making over the recent snowstorms affecting the East Coast, Jon Stewart’s merry cast of characters took the air out of their ridiculous and irresponsible arguments. At the 3:48 mark of the video below, Stewart hilariously mocks the comments by some that say the heavy snow is proof that climate change is a hoax.

 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Unusually Large Snowstorm
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
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Climate change deniers, like Sens. Jim DeMint and James Inhofe, will use any opportunity to push their fact-free agenda. On Monday, DeMint wrote on his Twitter account: "It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle’". Inhofe and his grandchildren built an igloo on the national mall and adorned it with a sign that reads "Al Gore’s New Home".

Oh, the wit. And the utter recklessness of it.

Fortunately, the Daily Show effectively used their sardonic platform to show how ridiculous these sort of actions are. Again, for the benefit of some of our media friends and elected officials, climate is about long-term patterns, which in the case of our climate shows a dangerous warming trend caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Weather is about short-term events, like snowstorms or rainfall. 

In fact, a White House report issued last year shows that climate change is likely to lead to bigger snow storm in the mid-Atlantic region because warmer air holds more moisture. It’s true. You can look it up. I invite Senators Inhofe and DeMint to do the same before they go off and embarrass themselves and their families.

Greenpeace at CES 2010

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CES 2010. The lights, the sounds, the greenwash. Greenpeace analysts are once again here at the "World’s Largest" consumer electronics show to help consumers and the throngs of industry media to see through the haze of both positive green news and industry misinformation.

While some electronics makers have moved to eliminate toxic chemicals in their products — Apple, for instance, which has phased out both PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) — others lag behind. Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, and LGE stand out as laggards, but HP had made news today by bringing to the market the first desktop PC to be free of both PVC and BFRs.

So, if both Apple and HP have shown the way, why is the rest of the industry behind? That’s a question we hope those at CES will ask of the companies as they tour around looking at all the hot new gadgets.

What are PVC and BFRs?
PVC contaminates humans and the environment throughout its lifecycle; during its production, use, and disposal it is the single most environmentally damaging of all plastics, and can form dioxin, a known carcinogen, when burned. Some BFRs are highly resistant to degradation in the environment and are able to bio-accumulate (build up in animals and humans).

With the growth of electronic waste, workers who deal with e-waste and the wider community are at significant health risks. Burning of e-waste to recover valuable resources, as routinely takes place in the backyards of China, India and much of the South, can form dioxins. Eliminating the substances will decrease exposure and increase the recyclability and reusability of electronic products.

Greenpeace at CES
Greenpeace will be all over CES for the next three days. At 10am Thursday in the Venetian Hotel, we’ll be having a press conference to debut version 14 of the Guide to Greener Electronics, a ranking of the top consumer electronics companies based on both their commitments and actions to phase out toxic chemicals and other important green criteria.

We’ll also be handing out awards at 3PM everyday for the “Best New Green Products” as well as the “Worst Greenwash.” On Saturday afternoon, we’ll give the big prizes for the best and worst for the whole week.

In 2010, we should see significant developments, with products free of PVC and BFRs in the PC and TV markets. Any company failing to achieve this goal is taking a big gamble with its green reputation.

Unilever Action Exposes RSPO, Sinar Mas

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Last month, I went to Greenpeace’s Climate Defenders Camp, located on the Kempar Peninsula, to see first hand the destruction of Indonesia’s peatlands. The area, which is ground zero for climate change, has one of the fastest rates of forest loss in the world, and its destruction accounts for 4 percent of global human induced greenhouse gas emissions.
 
One of the worst offenders in the area is Sinar Mas, Indonesia’s biggest palm oil producer, which has been persistently engaging in widespread illegal deforestation and peatland clearance. Sinar Mas has been hiding behind the cover of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which is supposed to be pushing for sustainable policies for palm oil production, but instead provides PR cover for forest offenders. 
 
But a new Greenpeace investigation shows evidence that Sinar Mas is committing forest crimes and is in violation of RSPO policies. As a result, one of their biggest customers, the giant Unilever corporation (makers of Ben & Jerry’s, among other top brands), has decided to stop buying palm oil from Sinar Mas.
 
Earlier this year, Gandi Sulistiyanto, one of Sinar Mas’ managing directors, told Reuters that, “We should have been arrested if we had ever been involved in deforestation.” Mr. Sulistiyanto may consider getting fitted for striped pajamas because there is no doubt now that Sinar Mas is destroying one of the world’s most important carbon sinks. 
As leaders meet in Copenhagen to agree to a new climate treaty, the Unilever news should be a reminder to them that we can’t solve climate change without stopping deforestation. The best way to do that is to create a fund that gives incentives to countries to keep their forests standing. Now, of course, trees only have value after they are cut down.
Greenpeace is calling on President Yudhoyono to implement an immediate moratorium on any further destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests and peat lands. He has the ideal platform to make this commitment when he attends the UN Summit where forest protection to decrease global emissions will be discussed. Greenpeace is promoting the creation of a global fund to end deforestation in countries like Indonesia and Brazil, which requires industrialized countries to invest $45 billion annually in forest protection. 

Journalists and Activists Detained and Deported from Indonesia’s Climate Ground Zero

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On November 16th, two Greenpeace activists from Germany and Italy and two members of the press from India and Italy, all of whom were traveling on valid business and journalist visas, were picked up and detained by Indonesian police. They were on their way to meet the villagers of Teluk Meranti, who have been supporting Greenpeace in its efforts to highlight rainforest and peatland destruction in the Kampar Peninsula–ground zero for climate change. The police also took into custody an activist from Belgium who had been working at our Climate Defenders Camp there.

Despite the validity of their travel documents and the absence of any wrongdoing, two of the activists and both journalists are now being deported by immigration authorities on questionable and seemingly contrived grounds, even though no formal deportation permits have been issued. Just a few days before, immigration authorities deported eleven other international Greenpeace activists who participated in a non-violent direct action on November 12th, in a concession where APRIL, one of Indonesia’s largest pulp and paper companies, is clearing rainforest and draining peatland on the Peninsula.

We set up the Climate Defenders Camp to bring attention to role of deforestation as a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions in advance of December’s Copenhagen climate negotiations. If we are stop climate change, we must end global deforestation by 2020 and bring it to zero in priority areas like Indonesia by 2015. A drive through the Kampar Peninsula reveals acre after acre of forest conversion from healthy rainforest to palm oil plantations. There is no sign of animal life or biodiversity — just row after row of palm. The destruction of the peatlands helps to make Indonesia the world’s 3rd largest emitter go greenhouse gases, just after the US and China.

In the interest of the environment and human rights, Greenpeace is calling upon world leaders and concerned citizens to contact Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono to ask him to stop these repressive actions by the Indonesian Police and Immigration authorities. The tactics currently being used by the authorities are likely to adversely impact upon the Indonesian government’s international reputation as well as the country’s reputation as a vibrant democracy.

It is not Greenpeace activists or journalists who should be the focus of the authorities, but the companies who are responsible for this forest destruction. We are working to make President Yudhoyono’s recent commitment to reduce Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions a reality and the journalists are telling that story.

You can take action at www.greenpeace.org.

The darkest hour is just before the dawn

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There was enough bad news last week to make me want to crawl under my desk and never come back out. But as the saying goes, sometimes the darkest hour is just before the dawn. First came news that President Obama, along with other leaders of Asian Pacific countries, would announce that they will not pursue a binding treaty in Copenhagen next month. Millions of climate activists have been working for years to make the Copenhagen negotiations the time when the world would come together to make the necessary agreements that will halt catastrophic climate change. Now that chance is in serious danger of being lost.  

 

bustar climate defenders camp 

 

On the heels of this dereliction came word that police were descending on Greenpeace’s Climate Defenders Camp, our outpost in the threatened Kampar Peninsula in Indonesia, designed to show Obama and other leaders the face of deforestation, a primary driver of climate change.

 

But in an amazing turn of events, the chief of police of the Pelalawan district revoked an earlier order of the Governor of Riau to evict Greenpeace activists and permitted them to stay following massive support from local communities. Over 300 community members of Teluk Meranti village, across the river from the camp, came in the morning to prevent Greenpeace activists from leaving the camp under police escort as per the orders of Riau police.

 

The activists in the camp were overwhelmed and humbled by this extraordinary support from the people of Riau, and it confirms our belief that the people of Indonesia wish their forests to be protected. The community support should be a signal to President Yudhoyono that his people are willing to help him honor his ambition to reduce emissions from deforestation.

 

Greenpeace opened the camp three weeks ago to bring urgent attention to the role that rainforest and peatland destruction play in driving dangerous climate change. Almost a fifth of global warming causing emissions come from deforestation, making Riau ground zero for climate change.

 

The camp will continue to serve as a beacon of hope for all of us waiting until our leaders wake up to reality. These leaders will not act until massive public outrage forces them to.The time for action is now, not next year or the year after. We can’t kick this can down the road for the next generation to deal with. President Obama, show leadership and galvanize support for a binding treaty now.

Indonesia’s Rainforests and the Climate Crisis

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I’m on the ground in Sumatra at Greenpeace’s Climate Defenders Camp. We’re here to let world leaders know that this is ground zero for deforestation and if immediate action isn’t taken to end the destruction of our rainforests, climate catastrophe is all but assured.

Southeast Asia is the region most exposed to and least prepared for the impacts of climate change, according to the Asian Development Bank. The ADB warns that the poor — and especially women — are the most vulnerable. Approximately 2.2 billion Asians are subsistence farmers; they are already experiencing falling crop yields caused by floods, droughts, erratic rainfall and other climate change impacts.

As well as supporting biodiversity and forest-dwelling communities, forests and their soils are huge carbon stores; they contain nearly 300 billion tones of carbon. That is 40 times more carbon than we currently emit to the atmosphere every year.

Indonesia burns © Greenpeace / John Novis
© Greenpeace / John Novis

Tropical forest destruction accounts for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world’s trains, planes and cars put together. Therefore, we can only avert a climate crisis if world leaders commit to deep and binding cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions from both fossil fuels and deforestation at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

Globally, more than one million hectares of forest, mostly tropical rainforest, is destroyed every month — that is an area of forest the size of a soccer field every two seconds. Destruction and degradation of forests drives climate change in two ways. First, the clearing and burning of forests releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; and second, the area of forest that absorbs carbon dioxide is reduced. Their role in regulating the climate is so crucial that if we destroy the last tropical forests, we will likely lose the battle against climate change.

INDONESIA’S RAINFORESTS AND PEATLANDS


On the ground, it’s easy to see the massive destruction that has taken place here. A drive through the Kampar Peninsula reveals acre after acre of forest conversion from healthy rainforest to palm oil plantations. There is no sign of animal life or biodiversity — just row after row of palm. The roads are congested with trucks carrying out palm kernels and the sky is filled with the smoke from hundreds of fires set to clear the land for planting.

Pulp and paper plantation in Indonesia © Greenpeace / Daniel Beltrá
Riau Andalah Pulp and Paper Company owned by the April Group. © Greenpeace / Daniel Beltrá

Indonesia is a stark example of the need for a robust plan and the provision of international funds to protect tropical forests. According to the latest available figures, it has one of the fastest rates of deforestation. This emits so much CO2 that Indonesia is the third largest climate polluter, after China and the US.

The reason these emissions are so high is twofold. It is caused by the rapid rate of deforestation, and the drainage and burning of the carbon rich peat soil the forests grow on. Deforestation of tropical forests is driven by global demand for products like paper, palm oil (which is used in toothpaste), chocolate, and as a biofuel. Since 1950, over 182 million acres of Indonesia’s rainforests have been destroyed completely and others have been seriously degraded.

In a recent report, the Indonesian Government identified the oil palm, pulp and paper, agriculture, and logging industries as those primarily responsible for draining peat, for destroying its forests, and for causing the country’s enormous CO2 emissions. It predicts that, unless action is taken, these emissions will continue to increase.

However, the government continues to hand out the concessions that allow these companies to destroy the remaining rainforest. The Indonesian government has laws to protect some of these carbon-rich peat areas but it fails to enforce the law and even continues to grant permits to companies to destroy them. Under Indonesian law, it is prohibited to develop or clear the forest and to drain any peat if it is deeper than three meters. Over 80% of Kampar’s peat is deeper than that, but companies are still granted licenses to destroy its forests and peatlands. Only 10% of the peatlands that remain intact are officially "protected". The remaining 90% is under immediate threat, encircled by encroaching pulp and paper companies. They have been allocated for conversion in spite of the law.

THE COPENHAGEN SOLUTION

International governments give companies that are destroying the rainforest here an incentive to keep up business as usual and drive climate change by allowing imports of paper and palm oil products that come from forest destruction. With the UN Copenhagen Climate Summit just around the corner, the Heads of State of developed countries must show real leadership and secure a robust climate deal in December that includes a global funding mechanism that will transfer $42 billion annually from industrialized countries to poor forested countries like Indonesia, Congo, and Brazil, with the aim of ending deforestation by 2020. Such a deal must deliver substantial emissions reductions from deforestation as well as protect wildlife and respect the rights of forest dwelling people. It must also ensure that money does not end up in the hands of those responsible for forest destruction, like those in the logging industry.

Greenpeace is also calling on Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono to commit to zero deforestation by 2015 in Indonesia and to implement an immediate moratorium on the destruction of forests and peatlands to give the climate some breathing space while the forest protection plans are put into action.

President Obama can do his part by coming to Copenhagen to attend the negotiations himself and help push other world leaders to commit to funding solutions to end deforestation. Obama must show leadership now by pushing Congress to pass legislation that will cap our emissions at the levels scientists say is safe and that will help pay for a global funding mechanism for forests. The bills in Congress are too weak and the international talks are veering off course. Now is the time for action from President Obama.

Cross posted at The Huffington Post