COP26: World leaders including US, China & Brazil pledge to end deforestation by 2030

By Ishika Dangayach on Nov 02, 2021 | 05:32 AM IST

· Around $12 billion in public funding will be made available for the project from 12 nations between 2021 and 2025.

· The leaders representing more than 85% of the world’s forests vows to cease, reverse deforestation and land degradation.

More than 100 global leaders including the United States, China, and Brazil agreed to stop and reverse deforestation by 2030 in the first significant agreement at the COP26 climate summit.

The agreement was reached on Monday evening, but the leaders will sign on Tuesday and promise to commit about $19.2 billion (£14 billion) in public and private funds.

The agreement signed on Tuesday will be hailed as a "landmark agreement to protect and restore the Earth's forests" by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the global summit in Glasgow.

These commitments included promises to assist trade policies that encouraged sustainable development and commodity production and consumption, as well as a vow to establish or modify agricultural policies to favor sustainable farming.

The deforestation agreement includes both affluent and poor countries, like Brazil and Indonesia, who have long been chastised for not doing enough to conserve their forests.

The nations that have signed the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forest and Land Use cover an area of nearly 33.7 million square kilometers of forest.

Fundings

A total of $12 billion in public funding will be made available for the project from 12 nations between 2021 and 2025 to assist underdeveloped nations, in attempts to rehabilitate damaged land and combat wildfires

The investors, who collectively oversee $8.7 trillion in assets, also agreed to halt investing in deforestation-related industries by 2025.

On Tuesday, five governments, including the UK and US, and a group of worldwide organizations donated $1.7 billion in funding to promote Indigenous peoples' forest protection and land rights.

“We urge all leaders to join forces in a sustainable land use transition,” delegates agreeing to the deal said in their declaration on Monday evening, CNBC stated. “This is essential to meeting the Paris Agreement goals, including reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.”

More than 30 financial organizations, including Aviva, Schroders, and Axa, are providing private sector capital. These corporations will also agree to stop deforestation-related operations.

Signatories

The leaders representing more than 85% of the world’s forests will vow to cease, reverse deforestation and land degradation.

The majority of countries that are home to the Amazon Rainforest, the world's largest forest have signed the deal including Brazil.

The deal is signed by the United Kingdom, Australia, China, USA, the European Union, Australia, Belgium, Bhutan, Nepal, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan New Zealand, Nigeria, and Norway. There are 102 signatures as of November 2.

India, one of the world's worst polluters, was conspicuously absent from the list of countries that committed to halt deforestation by 2030.

The New York Declaration on Forests in 2014

Meanwhile, people around the globe applauded the commitment but also warned that the New York Declaration on Forests in 2014 was a failure as BBC in 2019 reported that deforestation is increasing at an alarming rate.

In 2014, the New York Declaration on Forests was a non-binding, voluntary agreement on deforestation. It sought to curb deforestation in half by 2020 and end it entirely by 2030, and 40 nations finally signed on.

That promise, however, did not include signatories such as China, Brazil, and Russia, all of whom have subsequently joined this year.

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