Global Leaders Pledge to End Deforestation by 2030


Yet efforts to keep the forests afloat have been met with difficulty. An effort recognized in the Paris climate agreement aims to pay forested countries to reduce tree loss, but progress has been disappointingly slow. Governments have made similar promises before making much progress in preventing deforestation for agriculture and commercial timber. This year, scientists found parts of the Amazon. started to emit more carbon more than they hide.

United Nations Plan announced in 2017 made similar commitments. The New York Statement on Forests, an agreement in 2014 to end deforestation by 2030, set goals with no means to achieve them, and deforestation continued. New announcements bring more countries and focus on enforcing the guidelines.

Participating governments pledged “support for smallholders, Indigenous Peoples and local communities that depend on forests for their livelihoods and play a key role in their management.”

Tuntiak Katan, general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Regional Communities and a member of the Shuar people in Amazon Ecuador, praised the effort in Glasgow but questioned throwing money into a system he saw as corrupt.

“If this funding does not work directly and shoulder to shoulder with Indigenous peoples, it will not have the necessary impact,” he said.

China is one of the biggest signatories of the deforestation declaration, but the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, did not attend the climate talks in Glasgow. Over the past decades, China has suffered heavy forest losses as its population and industry have grown. But in recent years, the country has pledged to regrow forests and expand sustainable tree farming.

According to China’s estimate, forests now cover about 23 percent of the land mass, up from 17 percent in 1990. According to the World Bank. Some studies have questioned the scale and quality of this expanded tree cover, but the Chinese government has made expanded afforestation a pillar of its climate policies, and many parts of the country are notably greener than they were a few decades ago.



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