Cop26: Leaders promise to halt deforestation by 2030, but campaigners say action needed now

November 03, 2021

More than 100 national leaders will make a promise during the Cop26 summit to stop deforestation and begin restoring the world’s forests by 2030, the UK government has said.

Leaders representing countries that are home to 85 per cent of the planet’s forests – including Brazil – will commit to “halt and reverse” deforestation by the end of the decade at an event convened by Boris Johnson in Glasgow on Tuesday.

Downing Street said the pledge was backed by $12bn (£8.75bn) of public funding from governments aimed at restoring ripped-up land, with a further $7.2bn (£5.3bn) coming from private investment.

It includes $2bn (£1.47bn) from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for land restoration in Africa, double what he previously committed just a day earlier at an event with the Prince of Wales.

The commitment has been largely welcomed by climate campaigners – but they warned that change was needed immediately to stop new logging from taking place, as well as delivering on the restoration of forests.
Greenpeace was critical of the lack of a binding timetable for the measures – claiming the announcement amounted to a “green light for another decade of forest destruction”.

Carolina Pasquali, executive director at Greenpeace Brazil, said: “There’s a very good reason [president] Jair Bolsonaro felt comfortable signing on to this new deal. It allows another decade of forest destruction and isn’t binding.”

She added: “Meanwhile the Amazon is already on the brink and can’t survive years more deforestation. Indigenous peoples are calling for 80 per cent of the Amazon to be protected by 2025, and they’re right, that’s what’s needed. The climate and the natural world can’t afford this deal.”

The land covered by the agreement includes the tropical rainforests of Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as the northern forests of Canada and Russia – an area of more than 13 million square miles.