Global Climate Action Has Failed to Halt Deforestation: UNEP
Deforestation in Costa Rica, 2024. Photo: X/ @insideclimate
June 11, 2024 Hour: 2:24 pm
After the 2020 goal to halve forest loss was not met, we must ensure that the 2030 goal does not meet the same fate, said Dechen Tsering.
On Monday, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) launched the report titled “Raising Ambition, Accelerating Action: Towards Enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions for Forests.”
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The report shows that failure to place efforts to halt deforestation at the heart of global climate response could slow down the transition to a green, resilient, and prosperous future for the human race. It also observes that many countries are off-track in meeting the 2030 target to halt deforestation, a scenario that could worsen the climate crisis, poverty, hunger, and biodiversity loss.
Launched on the eve of a global climate change meeting in Bonn, Germany, the UNEP report says that greenhouse gas reduction targets that countries submitted between 2017 and 2021 failed to meet the ambitious goal of halting and reversing forest loss by 2030.
Forests are key in regulating climate, air, and water quality, storing planet-warming gases, and providing a home to pollinators while their destruction threatens the global sustainability agenda.
“After the 2020 goal by world leaders to halve forest loss was not met, we must ensure that the 2030 goal does not meet the same fate,” said Dechen Tsering, acting director of UNEP’s Climate Division, in a press release issued by UNEP in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
“Climate action plans, due in 2025, need to have ambitious, consistent, detailed, targeted, and actionable goals for forest conservation, restoration and sustainable use.”
So far, only eight of the top 20 countries most responsible for the destruction of tropical forests have fully integrated them into their national climate actions also known as Nationally Determined Contributions, the UNEP report says.
Forests have the potential to contribute to one-third of global greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts, as outlined in the Paris climate deal of 2015. Sustained financing toward forest conservation should be accompanied by harmonization of national climate policies and legislation to accelerate the green transition.
“Implementation of policies that encourage wider sustainable economic practices, for example, bio-economy approaches, can help drive long-term economic change, provide employment, and keep forests intact,” the report says, adding that providing alternative livelihoods to indigenous and local communities will be key to conserving tropical forests and enhancing their contribution to climate resilience.
Source: Xinhua
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