Context
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that at least 110 countries had signed the pivotal COP26 Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use, committing to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030.
About the Declaration
- Through the Declaration, leaders promise to
- strengthen their shared efforts to conserve forest and other terrestrial ecosystems
- accelerate their restoration
- facilitate sustainable trade and development policies, internationally and domestically
- Empowerment of locals: It provides for empowerment of local communities, including indigenous peoples, which are often negatively affected by the exploitation and degradation of forests.
- Redesigning agriculture: It also aims to implement and redesign agricultural policies and programmes to reduce hunger and benefit the environment.
- Finance: Leaders promised to facilitate the alignment of financial flows with international goals to reverse loss and degradation.
- The declaration has over 105 signatories including the United Kingdom, United States, Russia and China.
- The leaders who signed the declaration represent over 85% of the world’s forests.
- 12 countries have committed 12 billion dollars in public funds from 2021-25, to protect and restore forests, alongside 7.2 billion dollars of newly-mobilised private investment.
- This will include a 1.5 billion dollar fund to protect the Congo Basin –home to the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world.
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India’s stand
- India did not sign the Declaration.
- It objected to “trade” being interlinked to climate change and forest issues in the agreement.
- India, Argentina, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and South Africa are the only G20 countries that did not sign the declaration.
