If deforestation were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, according to the World Resources Institute. Only China and the United States emit more. Greenpeace criticised the Glasgow initiative for effectively giving the green light to ”another decade of deforestation”. Monday`s agreement significantly expands a similar commitment made by 40 countries under the 2014 New York State Declaration of Forestry and goes further than ever in defining the resources needed to achieve that goal. Baker added that while the COP26 deforestation commitment is an important step for climate action, some fear it could negatively impact timber harvesting and other active forest management practices that could play an important role in reducing the carbon footprint of the United States and other countries. But some of these signatures have sparked cynicism – especially that of Brazil. Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, deforestation rates in the country have reached their highest level in 12 years, prompting a group of academics and environmental activists to warn in July that the Amazon rainforest would ”collapse” if she remained president. Investors, who represent $8.7 trillion in assets under management, have also pledged to stop investing in deforestation-related activities by 2025. On the other hand, the preliminary figures of the new Global Carbon Project report offer very encouraging news. Project researchers had previously estimated that carbon emissions from deforestation and other land-use changes had increased by about 35% since 2000. But their revised estimate replaces that increase with a decline of about the same size, largely because the expansion of area in tropical forests in Brazil and elsewhere appears to have been smaller than previously thought. The commitment will require ”further transformative actions,” the statement said, to preserve forests that are essential to absorb carbon dioxide and slow the pace of global warming. But while it has been accompanied by several measures designed to help with its implementation, some stakeholders have criticized the deal as toothless, saying it would allow deforestation to continue, noting that similar efforts have failed in the past.
Twelve governments have pledged $12 billion and private companies $7 billion to protect and restore forests in a variety of ways, including $1.7 billion for Indigenous peoples. More than 30 financial institutions have also promised to stop investing in companies responsible for deforestation. And a new set of guidelines offers a way to eliminate deforestation from supply chains. Global commitments have already struggled or failed to stop deforestation. For example, the 2014 New York Declaration of Forests, which set a goal of no deforestation by 2030, did not miss its intermediate goal of reducing by 50% by 2020, with tropical deforestation alone increasing by 13% between 2019 and 2020. I am cautiously impressed by the attention given to the issue of equitably reducing tropical deforestation at COP26. The first event under the UK-led programme brought together forest communities and indigenous peoples to discuss lessons learned from the past decade of forest protection. But he told the BBC that the world had ”already been here” with a statement in New York in 2014 ”that has not slowed down deforestation at all.” ”Forcing Indonesia not to achieve deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair,” the country`s environment minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, said on Twitter on Wednesday. Development, she continued, ”must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation.” Many previous plans have not achieved their objectives. In fact, deforestation has increased since the launch of a similar promise in 2014. World leaders have agreed on an agreement to halt and reverse global deforestation over the next decade as part of a multi-billion dollar package of measures to combat man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
This historic agreement reflects a growing recognition of nature`s role in the fight against global warming. Still, critics said it wasn`t ambitious enough. ”These are voluntary mechanisms that were agreed at these meetings,” said Baker, who specializes in climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. ”The fact that they have large emitters of greenhouse gases from deforestation at the table, such as Brazil, participating in this agreement is a good sign of productivity. If the new numbers hold, it would mean that global CO2 emissions may have remained essentially unchanged over the past decade – despite this year`s increase in post-COVID emissions. Either way, research is another indicator of the magnitude of the difference in stopping deforestation. This highlighted a blatant ambiguity in the statement: what exactly did it mean by its commitment to ”stop and reverse forest land loss and degradation”? According to one interpretation, for example, forest removal cannot technically be deforestation if the land is not developed for other commercial purposes or if it is replanted in the form of tree plantations for, for example, wood pellets. Boris Johnson will present the deal at an event attended by US President Joe Biden, the Prince of Wales and Indonesian President Joko Widodo. He is expected to say, ”These beautiful teeming ecosystems – these cathedrals of nature – are the lungs of our planet. Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supplies, and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. They are essential to our survival.
So, will this promise finally stop and reverse deforestation? Unlikely. But given the importance of the issue, the renewed focus on deforestation at COP26 is certainly positive. .