Opinion: Forest must be priority
By Tej Singh Kardam The COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow made some progress in a number of areas but not enough. The world still remains off track to beat back the climate crisis. Recognising the urgency of the challenge, member countries all over the world agreed that they should come back next year to […]
By Tej Singh Kardam
The COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow made some progress in a number of areas but not enough. The world still remains off track to beat back the climate crisis. Recognising the urgency of the challenge, member countries all over the world agreed that they should come back next year to submit stronger 2030 emission reduction targets with the aim of closing the gap to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
They also agreed that developed countries should urgently deliver more resources to help climate-vulnerable countries adapt to the dangerous and costly consequences of climate change that they are already experiencing from dwindling crop yields to devastating storms. The countries also made commitments to curb methane emissions, align the finance sector with net-zero by 2050, accelerate phasing out coal, barring a few countries, curb international financing for fossil fuel and halt forest deforestation/degradation etc, stressing collective global action to address the crisis.
Inter-connected Solution
Climate crisis is intertwined with other complex issues, therefore, we require a multi-pronged, inter-connected climate solution. Forests are one of them. Forests have a crucial role to play in enabling the world to meet the SDGs, including those related to biodiversity conservation, livelihoods, food security, mitigating natural risks, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Forests, which are home to 80% terrestrial wildlife, are at this intersection. They absorb a net 7.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
A recent study found that their biophysical aspects have a tendency to cool the Earth by an additional 0.5%. The conservation of forests, along with other nature-based solutions, can provide up to 37% of the emission reductions needed to tackle climate change. Another study estimated that annual gross carbon emissions from tropical tree cover loss between 2015 and 2017 was equivalent to 4.8 billion tonnes. This causes more emissions each year than 85 million cars do in their lifetime. In 2019, about 34% of the total net anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions came from the energy sector, 24% from industry, 22% from agriculture, forestry and other land use, 15% from transport and 6% from buildings.
Emissions Gap
The ‘Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window’ released ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 27) in Egypt, said the international community is still falling far short of Paris goals with no credible pathway to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius in place. It said at 2.4 tCO2e (tonne carbon dioxide equivalent), India’s per capita GHG emissions (including land use, land-use change and forestry) stood far below the world average of 6.3 tCO2e in 2020.
The US remains far above this level at 14 tCO2 e, followed by Russia at 13, China 9.7, Brazil and Indonesia 7.5 and the European union at 7.2 tCO2e. Per capita emissions range widely across G20 members. Emissions of India are about half of the G20 average whereas Saudi Arabia reaches more than twice the G20, the report said. It mentioned that despite the decisions by all countries in Glasgow to strengthen Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and some updates from nations, progress has been woefully inadequate.
India updated its NDC in August and committed to reducing emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% from the 2005 level and achieving about 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based resources by 2030. The updated NDC reads, “To put forward and further propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation, including through a mass movement for LIFE – Lifestyle for Environment, as a key to combating climate change”. The updated NDC also represents the framework for India’s transition to cleaner energy for the period 2021-2030.
Narrow Moment
The world has only a narrow moment to pursue action to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis and seize economic opportunity. Critical ecosystems – terrestrial and coastal ecosystems including forests, mangroves, wetlands and grasslands –that are biologically rich, are essential to humanity and serve important carbon sinks; for example, the Amazon forests represent some of the most biodiverse parts of the planet. In addition to serving as significant carbon sinks, these ecosystems benefit the global population with a wealth of services, including providing a source of food and medicines, regulating local temperature and reducing vulnerability to extreme weather etc.
As per the State of the World’s Forests, 2022, of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly one-third of the planet’s land has been transformed in the last 60 years and nearly 90% of the deforestation between 2000 and 2019 was related to agriculture. Deforestation poses a serious threat to biodiversity because it leads to a disproportionate loss of species distributions, increasing the risk of extinction. That, in some cases, deforestation is irreversible and in others, recovery might be very slow is of great concern and reinforces the need to halt deforestation as a means for addressing climate change.
Halting deforestation and preventing forest degradation is one of the most important actions for reducing GHG emissions and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As per FAO 2019, biodiversity is indispensable for food security, sustainable development and the supply of ecosystem services. The WWF report ‘Living Planet Report’ 2022, is a wake-up call to the world as it points out that there is a decline of 69% in wildlife population across the world during 1970-2018. This staggering rate of downfall is yet another reaffirmation that our planet is in the throes of a biodiversity crisis. To reverse the trend of biodiversity loss, a transformative change is needed to tackle its root causes – the interconnected economic, sociocultural, demographic, political, institutional and technological drivers.
The world’s forests and forest soils annually store more than one trillion tonnes of carbon, twice the amount floating free in the atmosphere. Destruction of forests through deforestation or fire adds billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year. Forests are intricately linked to climate change, both as a cause and solution. Therefore, world leaders should not only take a pledge at COP 27 but also immediate action to halt deforestation and maintain forest ecosystem services to benefit climate, biodiversity, health and long-term food security.
(The author is a retired IFS officer)
