World leaders at COP26 agree to end deforestation by 2030
More than 100 leaders sign first pledge
Last updated 27th May 2022
Leaders attending the COP26 conference in Glasgow have agreed to end deforestation and land degradation by 2030.
Over 100 countries have signed the deal, covering 85% of the world's forests. The agreement also has been backed with £8.75 billion of public funding, with an added £5.3 billion in private investments.
The pledge is the first major agreement to come out of the conference, where countries are trying to keep a 1.5C rise in global temperatures in reach.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the move, saying: “These great teeming ecosystems, these cathedrals of nature, are the lungs of our planet.
“Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supply, and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere.
“They are essential to our very survival.
“With today’s unprecedented pledges, we will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian.”
International efforts being made
Other initiatives being discussed at the two-week conference include a reduction in the emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas produced as a by-product of livestock farming and the extraction of fossil fuels.
Dozens of leaders will help to launch the pledge, headed by the US and the EU, with the aim of reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
The announcements are part of efforts at Cop26 in a range of sectors, characterised by Mr Johnson as “coal, cars, cash and trees”, to drive momentum on reducing missions, alongside national plans by countries to cut climate-warming pollution in the next decade.
Current national action plans to curb emissions leave the world way off track to meet global goals to keep temperature rises to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels and to aim for a less dangerous 1.5C limit.
The COP26 conference is also aiming to deliver on climate finance pledges to poorer nations, as well as finalising parts of the climate treaty signed in Paris in 2015.
Countries will try to find a way forward to deliver on pledges, as bigger economies such as India unveil new environmental commitments that bypass global emissions targets.
Leaders gather to tackle climate change at COP26
Angela Merkel arrives at Cop26
Other prominent climate activists and leaders were taking part in negotiations. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon met young climate campaigners Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate and called on leaders to "put their egos aside" to work on the common issue of solving the climate crisis.
Boris Johnson waits to greet leaders at Cop26
Boris Johnson at the Cop26 Action and Solidarity session
Prince Charles and Joe Biden at Cop26
French president Emmanuel Macron at Cop26
Nicola Sturgeon at the Cop26 World Leaders Summit
Boris Johnson at Cop26