Brazil is expected to join the initiative, under incoming president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and new public and private funding will boost spending on forest conservation to more than $20 billion over the next five years. The moves are part of efforts to tackle emissions from land use, the second biggest driver of global warming, of which tropical deforestation is a major component. The Forests and Climate Leaders Partnership, launched by the UK prime minister on Monday, builds on an initiative created at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year. The goal is to halt and reverse global forest loss by 2030, expanding the program with an additional $1 billion in funding from Germany and bringing together 25 countries representing nearly 60% of global GDP. Of the $12 billion pledged for these efforts, about $2.6 billion has been spent, which sources told the Guardian represented a major success. One of the problems with climate finance initiatives is that they can take years to get started, so disbursing about a fifth of the money for a five-year program in its first year shows that the program is on track. However, there will be no new funding from the UK for the partnership. Sunak is under fire for aiming to covertly cut UK aid programs – spending more of the money earmarked for foreign aid on the UK, for example on efforts to support Ukrainian refugees. Private funding for the partnership has also increased. Some $7.2 billion was committed to the program in Glasgow and $3.6 billion will be committed to Cop27, bringing the total funds committed to $23.8 billion. Craig Hanson, Managing Director of Programs at the non-profit World Resources Institute, said: “It is deeply encouraging that the new funding announced today puts countries on track to meet the commitment to direct $12 billion to programs related to the forests over five season of the year. We commend the UK for entering into this partnership which maintains high-level political attention to meeting the historic commitments made in Glasgow to protect and restore forests.” Three major initiatives to protect forests were launched at Cop26: a commitment by more than 140 leaders to stop and reverse deforestation, the creation of a working group of producers and consumers of goods linked to deforestation, and a commitment by soy traders and palm tree. oil, cocoa and cattle to prepare a road map to align their business practices with the 1.5C target. No high-quality data has yet been published on the deal’s impact on global deforestation rates, which continued at an “unrelenting” pace in 2021. In the tropics, 11.1 million hectares of tree cover were lost last year, including 3.75 hectares of primary forest critical to limiting global warming and biodiversity loss. Most disappeared in Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Bolivia. Boreal forests, mainly in Russia, saw a record loss in 2021 due to the worst fire season in Siberia since records began. The most important stories on the planet. Get all the week’s environmental news – the good, the bad and the must-haves Lula’s election last month in Brazil has renewed hope for the future, with the three major rainforest countries – Brazil, the DRC and Indonesia – in talks to form an alliance, dubbed the ‘OPEC of the rainforest’ , to coordinate financing and carbon markets in the UN environmental talks.
