Global forest governance is the first agreement announced on November 2, 2021 at the climate conference (Cop 26) in Glasgow.
Over 100 world leaders representing 85% of the world’s forests have pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030. Among the signatory countries are the world’s largest forests: Canada , Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
the “Forest Deal” is one of the major and emblematic issues of the climate conference which is being held in Glasgow until 12 November. “The forests capture carbon and release oxygen. The forests of the Congo Basin are, along with the Amazon, the main green lung of the planet.
“It is not possible to achieve the goals of limiting the rise in temperature below 1.5 degrees of the Paris agreement, without ending the deforestation of the rainforest”, says the NGO Global Forest Watch.
“Protecting forests is essential in the fight against global warming as the destruction of tropical forests accounts for some 8% of global CO2 emissions”
NGO Global Forest WatchThe Guardian
The agreement, of which we do not yet have all the details, provides for public and private funding totaling 19.2 billion dollars (16.5 billion euros) “is essential to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to + 1.5 ° C.”, according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
CEOs of more than 30 private financial institutions and pension funds representing more than $ 8.7 trillion in global assets have pledged to phase out investments in deforestation-related activities. A strong statement, which will have to be made concrete and verified.
1.3 billion euros of these funds will be earmarked to protect the Congo Basin, which is home to the second largest tropical forest in the world. It is also about supporting indigenous communities, who are considered to be the best natural guardians of the natural world.
The major producing and consuming countries of commodities linked to deforestation such as soybeans, cocoa, coffee and palm oil will also have to commit to stopping deforestation.
For Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London: “There is a need to review supply chains, and gradually reduce the global area of agricultural land needed to feed humanity, thereby relieving the world’s remaining forests.” and therefore stop destroying forests to make soybeans for animal feed.
Essential carbon traps, tropical forests have continued to decline at high speed in recent years whether in Brazil, Indonesia, or central Africa. According to Global Forest Watch, the destruction of primary forests was up 12% in 2020 despite the health and economic crisis.
In the sights of experts, the Brazil of Jaïr Bolsonaro which has lost since 2019 some 10,000 km2 of forest per year, the equivalent of the area of Lebanon, against 6,500 km2 per year during the previous decade. Present in Glasgow, the Brazilian minister signing the agreement presented an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. Brazil’s change of strategy under international pressure, or belated awareness?
But President Bolsolnaro did not make the trip to Glasgow, preferring to visit northern Italy, where his family is from. A bad signal.
The Amazon Fund, organized in 2008 to finance the fight against deforestation in Brazil, to which Norway has contributed $ 1.2 billion, was considered a success, before the far-right Brazilian president unraveled the laws environmental policies pushed by the large soybean and livestock landowners who financed his election campaign.
For Frances Seymour, expert in forests and governance at the World Resources Institute, the commitments of the Cop26 must reflect a real desire, “because several countries had already made commitments in terms of deforestation that they did not keep”.
Same concern for the tropical forests of the Congo Basin when Kinshasa recently threatened to grant new logging titles.
If the moratorium in effect since 2012 has been lifted “The area of the DRC’s rainforest handed over to logging companies could increase by 20 million hectares.”
Among these areas likely to be ceded to foresters, “there would be more than a million hectares in peat bogs”, whose exploitation could, according to them, release an amount of carbon dioxide estimated at more than 10 billion tons. These permits would have been given to Chinese, Malaysian or Vietnamese companies which do not respect any rules of sustainable and selective exploitation.
This agreement on forest conservation has the advantage of setting clear global targets for reducing deforestation and land degradation by 2030. But for NGOs like Greenpeace, the 2030 target is too much. far in time and thus gives the green light to “another decade of deforestation“.
Especially since during the “New York Declaration on Forests” which dates from 2014, already committed many signatory countries to halve deforestation in 2020 and end it in 2030.
“Indigenous peoples are calling for 80% of the Amazon rainforest to be protected by 2025 and they are right, this is the right thing to do”, insisted Carolina Pasquali, head of Greenpeace in Brazil. knowing that 17% of its surface has already been cleared for extensive livestock farming, soybeans, and mining.
While welcoming this first agreement, Tuntiak Katan, from the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (Coica), said how the funds are actually spent will be closely monitored. The monitoring and verification of commitments is indeed the central issue.