COP26 President Alok Sharma is calling on world leaders to join the launch of the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership at COP27, to scale up action to protect, conserve and restore the world’s forests while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation. He is also calling on future COP Presidencies to join the UK in maintaining momentum on forests year on year.
Participating countries will meet annually to enhance collective efforts to maximise the contribution of forests and sustainable land use to global and national climate goals.
With the first meeting of the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership taking place at COP27 in Egypt this November, member countries representing a range of regions, forest areas, and economic and financial centres will focus their combined support on transformational areas of action. These include cooperation related to high integrity carbon markets for forests, building robust forest economies that contribute to a net-zero world, securing and protecting applicable forest tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, and scaling efforts to conserve and sustainably manage high integrity forests.
Members will work closely with the private sector, civil society and community leaders to implement and rapidly scale up solutions on deforestation, reforestation and sustainable forest and land use management, that reflect each members’ national context and priorities as well as the urgency of the global climate crisis.
At COP26 in Glasgow, more than 140 Heads of State from countries with over 90% of the world’s forests committed to work together to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.
These actions are fundamental to adapting to climate change and have the potential to deliver up to 10% of the emissions reductions needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, while securing global biodiversity, economic prosperity and food supplies.
This was backed by over $19.2 billion in public and private funds, and ground-breaking commitments to shift global systems of production, supply chains, finance and land tenure in favour of forests and forest-dependent people.
The Forests & Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP) will offer a way to enhance cooperation on delivery of these commitments, to scale ambition and to find innovative solutions to ongoing problems. By joining, countries are committing to lead by example in the implementation of their national goals and striving to be more ambitious over time. They are also committing to work together to advance global forests and climate efforts, and to meet annually to take stock of progress.
Every member country will commit to play a leadership role to drive forward at least one of the FCLP’s action areas, which include:
● scaling up sustainable land use enterprises, forest positive economies and supply chains;
● supporting Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ initiatives and applicable tenure rights; and
● mobilising forest-positive public and private finance.
At the inaugural meeting at COP27, member countries will take stock of progress since COP26 and discuss key insights, successes, challenges and priorities for future collaboration. The meeting will include a public event at which member countries will speak alongside business and community leaders to highlight the most ambitious commitments and the strongest examples of progress since COP26.
Alok Sharma, COP26 President, said: “I’m proud to be calling for this important Partnership today. Forests are a precious resource that support sustainable livelihoods and act as the lungs of the world. At COP26 we saw incredible ambition with more than 140 countries committing to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. This partnership is a critical next step to collectively deliver on this promise and help keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C alive.”
John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, said: “We know forests are a fundamental component of the solution set we need to deploy if we are to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. The FCLP will provide us with a new opportunity to spur even greater action to addressing our shared challenges with committed partners, and to holding ourselves accountable for meeting our commitments.”
The current endorsers of the FCLP include: Nigeria, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Finland, Gabon, Ghana, Norway, Republic of Congo, South Korea, Tanzania, UK and USA.
