Global progress on meeting targets to protect and restore forests by 2030 has moved too slowly, a study has found.
At the UN’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, 145 countries pledged to end the felling of forests by the end of the decade as this is responsible for about 10 per cent of global carbon emissions.
But the study from a coalition of civil society and research organisations has found that not only are countries failing to meet the stated goal, but in some cases deforestation is continuing to worsen.
“The world’s forests are in crisis. All these promises have been made to halt deforestation and fund forest protection. But the opportunity to make progress is passing us by year after year,” said Erin Matson, a lead author of the Forest Declaration Assessment.
“We saw that in 2021 efforts to end deforestation were already lagging. 2022 was a chance to catch up, but leaders fell short once again. We can’t afford to keep stumbling on the road to no deforestation by 2030. It’s now clear that halting deforestation will require sweeping changes to the economy – and that all of society has a role to play.”
Even when the original deal was unveiled in 2021 by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson alongside the presidents of Indonesia and Colombia, climate activists expressed concern that the pact was not strong enough.
They said the agreement lacked any concrete methods of reaching the 2030 goal, just like a similar deal agreed in 2014 that also failed.
Overall, global deforestation increased by 4 per cent in 2022 compared to 2021. This loss of some 6.6 million hectares of forest means that the world is 21 per cent off track to eliminate deforestation by 2030.
Efforts to protect primary tropical forests – the densest, most pristine forests on Earth – are 33 per cent off track, with 4.1 million hectares lost in 2022. Globally, the world needs to reduce deforestation by more than 27 per cent to be on track in 2023.
In 2021, deforestation slowed, but not enough to be on track to reach the 2030 goal. In 2022, global deforestation rates increased, putting the world even further off track.
“Hope isn’t lost, though,” added Franziska Haupt, a lead author on the study. “We also find that some 50 countries are on track to end deforestation in their borders. Major rainforest countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia have demonstrated drastic reductions in forest loss.
“The reforms it takes aren’t pie in the sky, and these countries set clear examples that others must follow. But the challenge is great: globally, we will need to reduce deforestation by 27.8 per cent to be on track in 2023.”
