It’s about “biggest step forward in protecting the world’s forests in a generation”, enthusiastic Boris Johnson in a statement released Monday, November 1. World leaders meeting in Glasgow (Scotland) for COP26 must commit, Tuesday, November 2, to halt deforestation by 2030. According to the British government, host of the climate conference, a joint declaration will be adopted by more than one hundred countries sheltering 85% of the world’s forests.
The initiative is key to achieving the goal of limiting global warming to +1.5 ° C, according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “These formidable teeming ecosystems – these cathedrals of nature – are the lungs of our planet”, absorbing a significant part of the CO2 released into the atmosphere, he must say Tuesday according to his services. However, the forests, “essential to our very survival”, are retreating to the “alarming rate” of 27 football fields every minute. Franceinfo takes stock of what we know about the text to be released on Tuesday.
Public and private funds to protect forests
This agreement plans to mobilize $ 19.2 billion (€ 16.5 billion) for the protection and restoration of forests. In details, twelve countries, including France, will commit to jointly mobilizing 8.75 billion pounds (10.3 billion euros) of public funds between 2021 and 2025, to fight against deforestation. To this sum should be added 5.3 billion pounds (6.24 billion euros) of private investment.
Among these funds, 1.1 billion pounds ($ 1.3 billion) will be earmarked in particular to protect the Congo Basin, which is home to the second largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon.
In addition, the CEOs of more than 30 financial institutions, representing more than $ 8.7 trillion in global assets – including Aviva, Schroders and Axa – will pledge to phase out investments in deforestation-related activities.
Fran Price, head of the NGO WWF Global Forest Practice, calls for “urgent implementation of these commitments and policies to fight against drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, including unsustainable agricultural and extractive activities, land tenure and governance and financial flows. ” In a press release (English content), she adds that this agreement must, to be truly ambitious, “include stricter policies in importing and producer countries, more funding for forest conservation, and active participation of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) in decision-making and policy development. ”
Commitments to save our forests
According to the NGO WWF, the key commitments of this declaration include the conservation of forests and other terrestrial ecosystems, as well as the acceleration of their restoration. The agreement also provides for the promotion of sustainable production and consumption of basic commodities (that do not lead to deforestation and land degradation) or even reducing the vulnerability of the communities living in these areas.
About a hundred signatory countries …
In total, this joint declaration will be adopted by more than 100 countries. Together, they are home to 85% of the world’s forests, including the boreal forest in Canada, the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and the tropical forest in the Congo Basin. Russia, China, Australia, the United States and France are also among the signatories.
… including countries deemed not to be “credible” by NGOs
Campaign coordinator of the NGO Canopée, which works for the protection of the world’s forests, Sylvain Angérand believes that there is a question as to the signing of a certain number of countries “which one can legitimately doubt their good faith”. Asked Tuesday on franceinfo, he mentioned in particular the Democratic Republic of the Congo, “which is preparing to lift a moratorium on logging with an area equivalent to that of France”, but also Brazil, “where we have broken records of deforestation for three years”. “What is their credibility?”, he asked himself.
Under fire from criticism for its environmental policy, Brazil announced Monday at COP26 more ambitious objectives in terms of reducing CO2 emissions and combating deforestation, planning to reduce its emissions by 50% of by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. According to several recent studies, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has transformed this fundamental carbon sink for the planet into a net emitter of CO2 in 2020. Experts from the Austrian NGO AllRise estimate that the rate of this deforestation has increased by 88 % since the arrival to power of the far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, representing a loss of some 4,000 km2 of Amazon rainforest each year.
Not really new goals
The new pledge against deforestation echoes the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests. At the time, many countries pledged to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030. “Most of the signatories, including France, had already committed to ending imported deforestation in 2020”, recalled on franceinfo Sylvain Angérand.“We haven’t met that target and we’re just shifting it to 2030. It’s worrying.” However, he concedes that this announcement constitutes a “interesting signal”, but warns: “Today we need concrete actions and we must see them in a much more precise way”.
On the side of Greenpeace, it is estimated that the 2030 target is far too distant and gives the green light to “another decade of deforestation”.