Today's plenary hall of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is illuminated with green lighting and the sound of birds chirping and leaves rustling constantly emanating from giant video screens and speakers. The calm manner of the delegates seemed to indicate that they were already breathing cleaner air.
Conference officiant and sustainability advocate Sandrine Dixson-Decleve welcomed participants to the Key Leaders Event on Forests and Land Use at COP 26 on Tuesday. "Today will be a monumental day when we are setting the tone for how to protect the world's lungs," she said.
Next, a film narrated by Sir David Attenborough, Britain's leading advocate for nature and the environment, played on the screen.
Caption: "By destroying forests, we are harming biodiversity and our lives... Forests provide fresh water, clean the air we breathe, inspire spiritual values, and provide us with food... Our challenge now must be to stop the destruction and start restoring the forest. This is a difficult task, and each country needs its own solution."
His familiar voice echoed throughout the hall. His call to action spread to all corners of the room.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson took to the podium to announce that at least 110 countries representing 85% of the world's forest area have joined the key Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use, committing to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030.
"Protecting our forests is not only a course of action to combat climate change, but also to ensure a more prosperous future," he said.
Johnson stressed that China, Russia and Brazil have also joined the commitment. He believes the process of restoring forests may provide opportunities to create jobs as well.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, among other absentee leaders from the COP, appeared in pre-recorded video messages supporting the pledge.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged on his official Twitter account: "Joining the Declaration is relatively easy. It is vital that this plan is implemented now, for the sake of people and the planet."
Content of declaration
Through the Declaration, leaders committed to strengthen joint efforts to protect forests and other terrestrial ecosystems, accelerate their recovery, and promote sustainable trade and development policies internationally and domestically.
The text also notes the empowerment of local communities, including indigenous peoples, who are often negatively affected by forest development and degradation.
The Declaration also aims to implement and redesign agricultural policies and programmes to reduce hunger and benefit the environment.
Financing is also key to this commitment. The leaders pledged to promote financial flows in line with international goals to reverse losses and degradation, while ensuring policies that accelerate the transition to a greener economy.
Over the past decade, about 40 times more money has flowed into destructive land-use practices than into forest protection, conservation and sustainable agriculture.
The pledge signed by more than 30 financial institutions, which manage more than $8.7 trillion in global assets, aims to change that. The commitment aims to move away from portfolios that invest in supply chains of agricultural commodities with a high risk of deforestation towards sustainable production.
'Chocolate Without guilt'
Indonesian President Joko Widodo joined British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce a series of actions committed to sustainable trade by 28 countries that account for 75 percent of global trade in key products that threaten forests, such as palm oil and cocoa.
Boris said it could be called "chocolate without guilt!" He noted that the Roadmap for Action on Trade in Forests, Agriculture and Commodities is a new partnership between major producing and consuming governments to break the link between deforestation and agricultural commodities.
The roadmap will accelerate actions to incentivise supply chain sustainability, support smallholder farmer participation in markets, improve supply chain transparency, and drive new technologies and innovation.
Fundraising for the Congo Basin
There were some other important announcements today. The co-sponsors of COP 26 launched a fund-raising initiative for the Congo Basin. The initiative aims to raise $1.5 billion to protect forests, peatlands and other important carbon stores in the region. Currently, more than 10 countries, the Bezos Earth Fund and the European Union have joined the initiative.
Gabon's President Bongo declared: "The Congo Basin is the heart and lungs of the African continent, and we cannot win the battle against climate change if we do not keep the basin stable."
The initiative is also part of a new global forest financing commitment of more than $12 billion, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.
"This is the largest collective commitment of public funds for climate action in history. Let's end this huge global chainsaw massacre."
Commitment from the United States and Colombia
Also at today's event, U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States is committed to ensuring clean water supplies, preserving biodiversity, protecting indigenous communities and reducing the risk of disease transmission.
Biden said 20 million hectares of forest land are being restored, and the United States is announcing a new program to support halting deforestation and restoring carbon sinks.
"We need to take this as seriously as we take the decarbonisation of the economy. That's what we do in the United States."
Biden added that the United States will mobilize billions of dollars with the goal of supporting the restoration of 200 million hectares of forest by 2030, and that this initiative is only the first of its kind.
Meanwhile, President Duque of Colombia has pledged to protect 30 percent of the country's territory from deforestation by 2022.
"We cannot wait until 2030, we must act now to protect our forests," he said. This ambitious commitment he made at the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties was warmly applauded.
Jeff Bezos' commitment and other private sector actions
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said at COP 26, "Nature is beautiful, but it's also fragile. I was reminded of this when I took Blue Origin into space in July. I've been told that seeing the Earth from space changes the way you look at the world, but I wasn't completely prepared for the extent to which that's true."
Through his Bezos Earth Fund, he pledged an additional $2 billion in funding to help restore nature and transform the food system. In early September, the fund pledged another $1 billion.
Bezos: "Will we work together in this chamber to leave our children and grandchildren an improved natural world?" I know the answer is yes. ... I look forward to working together on this important journey."
Three other major initiatives were launched on Tuesday:
The Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco Initiative (IFACC) will announce $3 billion in funding to accelerate deforestation-free and deforestation-free cultivation of soybeans and cattle in South America.
The Natural Capital Investment Alliance (NCIA) of the Sustainable Markets Initiative is an organization created by Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, to promote private investment in natural capital. It announced 12 new members that day and plans to raise $10 billion in private capital by the end of 2022.
The initial $1 billion in public and private funding will come through the Accelerated Forest Financing to Reduce Emissions Coalition, which includes major companies such as Delta, PWC, Airbnb and Unilever. This will provide funding for countries that successfully reduce emissions from deforestation, provided those emissions reductions have been independently verified and confirmed. Funding can only be provided by companies that have already committed to implementing emissions reductions in their own supply chains.
Financial institution
Nine multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, submitted a joint statement supporting all the investments and transformations already announced.
In this statement, they committed to mainstreaming nature into their investments and policy dialogue with countries.
Indigenous leaders reacted
More than 1.6 billion people worldwide depend on forests for their livelihoods, and indigenous peoples are guardians of at least 36 percent of the world's large intact forests. Evidence shows that forests are better protected and managed when local people are empowered to manage them.
During the event, several indigenous leaders from around the world responded to the Glasgow Forest and Land Pledge.
Tuntiak Katak, deputy coordinator of the Amazon Indigenous Coordination Group, said: "We will be looking for concrete evidence of a shift in the way money is invested. If the 80 per cent proposed to support land rights and indigenous and local communities are implemented, we will see a dramatic reversal of the current trend of destruction of our natural resources."
Speaking in Spanish, he stressed at the plenary session that "we are ready to act, we will work together, we will not drown... Because we're all traveling in the same canoe in the basin."
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