Environmentalists say the pledge is too little too late, and “the climate and the natural world can’t afford this deal.”
Glasgow — World leaders meeting at the in Glasgow will on Tuesday issue a multibillion-dollar pledge to end by 2030, but that date is too distant for campaigners who want action sooner to save the planet’s lungs. According to the British government, which is hosting the summit, the pledge is backed by almost $20 billion in public and private funding and is endorsed by more than 100 leaders representing over 85% of the world’s forests, including the, Canada’s northern boreal forest and the Congo Basin rainforest. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the agreement on deforestation was pivotal to the overarching ambition of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius. “These great teeming ecosystems — these cathedrals of nature — are the lungs of our planet,” he was expected to say in Glasgow, according to Downing Street. Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supply, and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. They are essential to our very survival,” said Johnson, who is chairing the summit. “With today’s (Tuesday’s) unprecedented pledges, we will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian.” The signatories include Brazil and Russia, which have been in their territories, as well as the United States, China, Australia and France.
