President Biden signs agreement to save forests at world climate summit – around 100 countries participate!
Around a hundred countries adopt declaration on halting deforestation by 2030
Biden signs declaration!
More than a hundred heads of state and government have pledged to step up the fight against deforestation at the UN Climate Change Conference COP26. A corresponding declaration on forest protection was adopted at the meeting in Glasgow on Tuesday, according to the British organizers. According to the declaration, deforestation is to be stopped by 2030 in the fight against global warming.
“I am glad that we have now managed this cooperation here,” German Environment State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth said of the initiative. However, he stressed that money alone is not enough to protect forests: “You also need the conscious cooperation of the countries that look after these forests.” In this respect, he said, it was “already a bit hopeful” that Brazil had also joined the agreement.
About a houndred coutries signed
According to the British government, the declaration is backed by more than a hundred heads of state and government whose countries together are home to more than 85 percent of the world’s forests, including the Canadian boreal forest, the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and the tropical rainforest in the Congo Basin. The effort is supported by nearly $20 billion (17 billion euros) in financial commitments from public and private funds.
“Climate change and biodiversity are two sides of the same coin,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. U.S. President Joe Biden also stressed that forests are an “indispensable part of meeting our climate goals.”
The British government called the plan “unprecedented.” However, participants at a UN climate meeting in New York had already announced in 2014 that they would halve the rate of deforestation by 2020 and halt deforestation by 2030.
Nevertheless, deforestation on an industrial scale continues unabated, not least in the Amazon rainforest under the government of Brazil’s radical right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro. However, Brazil is also one of the signatories of the current declaration for a deforestation stop by 2030.
The nature conservation organization Greenpeace criticized the Glasgow initiative as insufficient. It effectively gives the green light “for another decade of deforestation,” it said.