GLASGOW – More than 100 global leaders late on Monday pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, underpinned by $19 billion in public and private funds to invest in protecting and restoring forests.

The joint statement at the COP26 climate talks https://www.reuters.com/business/cop in Glasgow was backed by the leaders of countries including Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which collectively account for 85% of the world’s forests.

The Glasgow Leaders‘ Declaration on Forest and Land Use will cover forests totaling more than 13 million square miles, according to a statement from the UK prime minister’s office on behalf of the leaders.

“We will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian,” said British leader Boris Johnson, calling it an unprecedented agreement.

A slew of additional government and private initiatives were launched on Tuesday to help reach that goal, including billions in pledges for indigenous guardians of the forest and sustainable agriculture.

Forests absorb roughly 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the nonprofit World Resources Institute. The forests take the emissions out of the atmosphere and prevent them from warming the climate.

Yet this natural climate buffer is rapidly disappearing. The world lost 258,000 square kilometers of forest in 2020, according to WRI’s deforestation tracking initiative Global Forest Watch. That is an area larger than the United Kingdom.

Monday’s agreement vastly expands a similar commitment made by 40 countries as part of the 2014 New York Declaration of Forests and goes further than ever before in laying out the resources to reach that goal.

Under the agreement, 12 countries including Britain have pledged to provide 8.75 billion pounds ($12 billion) of public funding between 2021 and 2025 to help developing countries, including in efforts to restore degraded land and tackle wildfires.

At least a further 5.3 billion pounds would be provided by more than 30 private sector investors including Aviva, Schroders and AXA.

The investors, representing $8.7 trillion in assets under management, also pledged to stop investing in activities linked to deforestation by 2025.

Five countries, including the Britain and United States, and a group of global charities on Tuesday also pledged to provide $1.7 billion in financing to support indigenous people’s conservation of forests and to strengthen their land rights.

Environmentalists say that indigenous communities are the best protectors of the forest, often against violent encroachment of loggers and land grabbers.

More than 30 financial institutions with more than $8.7 trillion in assets under management also said they would make “best efforts” to eliminate deforestation related to cattle, palm oil, soy and pulp production by 2025.

COP26 aims to keep alive a target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say forests and so-called nature-based solutions will be vital to reaching that goal.

Woodlands have removed about 760 million tonnes of carbon every year since 2011, offsetting about 8% of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement, according to the Biomass Carbon Monitor project backed by data analytics firm Kayrros and French research institutions.

“Our biosphere is really helping bail us out for the time being, but there is no guarantee those processes will continue,” said Oliver Phillips, an ecologist at the United Kingdom’s University of Leeds. – Reuters

GLASGOW – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth told the United Nations climate change summit on Monday that “the time for words has now moved to the time for action”, as she urged world leaders to think of future generations when negotiating a deal to limit global warming.

In a video message on the first day of the conference in Scotland, the queen urged leaders to rise above “the politics of the moment” and said the legacy of a successful summit would help “our children’s children”.

The 95-year-old, the world’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch, was due to attend the event in person in Glasgow but pulled out after doctors advised her to rest.

“It is the hope of many that the legacy of this summit – written in history books yet to be printed – will describe you as the leaders who did not pass up the opportunity; and that you answered the call of those future generations,” the queen said.

“The benefits of such actions will not be there to enjoy for all of us here today: we, none of us will live forever. But we are doing this not for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children.”

She paid tribute to her late husband, Prince Philip, who died earlier this year aged 99. She remembered how he had warned an academic gathering in 1969 about the need to tackle the threats from pollution.

“If the world pollution situation is not critical at the moment, it is as certain as anything can be that the situation will become increasingly intolerable within a very short time,” she quoted him as saying.

The queen said she “could not be more proud” that his work had been continued by her two closest heirs, her son Prince Charles and grandson Prince William, who are both attending the summit.

On Monday, the queen was pictured driving by herself around her Windsor Castle estate after she last month cancelled some engagements and spent a night in hospital for an unspecified ailment, her first such overnight stay for years.  – Reuters