President Joe Biden detailed a plan in Glasgow on Tuesday to contribute billions over the next decade to support the conservation of global forests, calling the effort an “indispensable” piece of his climate agenda.
The money would fund projects such as conservation and landscape restoration and the development of better data systems to preserve forests and other ecosystems, which serve as “carbon sinks” for their maintenance of carbon emitted by fossil fuels and natural processes.
“We need to approach this issue with the same seriousness of purpose as decarbonizing our economy,” Biden said during remarks at the United Nations’s COP26 climate change conference.
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The plan provides for $9 billion, subject to congressional appropriations, of the United States’s international climate funding to support its forestry objectives.
Leaders representing more than 100 nations across the globe also agreed to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030, signing a “Declaration on Forests and Land Use” pledge announced on Tuesday. The signatories, which include Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States, represent 85% of the world’s forests, according to a fact sheet released by the U.K. government, which led the forest effort.
The agreement commits $12 billion of public funds to be put up by 12 signatory nations between 2021 and 2025. Another $7.2 billion of private investment will go toward the forest protection and restoration initiative.
“Indonesia is blessed as the most carbon rich country in the world on vast rainforests, mangroves, oceans and peatlands,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in a statement. “We are committed to protecting these critical carbonsinks and our natural capital for future generations.”
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The Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asian forests, where deforestation has been particularly acute in recent years, are among the main targets of the preservation plans. The global rate of deforestation between 2015 and 2020 was estimated at 10 million hectares per year, which is an area approximately the size of South Korea, according to the White House.
