MORE than 100 world leaders representing over 85 percent of the world’s forests pledged to halt deforestation over the next decade Tuesday at COP26, the United Nations climate summit underway in Glasgow, Scotland.
The announcement included Brazil, which is home to the Amazon rainforest, as well as Canada, Russia, Norway, Colombia and Indonesia. The United States also signed onto the agreement, which was backed by $12 billion in public funds and $7.2 billion in private money.
The destruction of forests is a major factor driving up global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with about 23 percent of total emissions stemming from agriculture, forestry and other land uses.
Trees play a critical role in absorbing carbon dioxide as they grow, thereby slowing global warming. When they are cut, and are either burned or decay, they release this carbon into the atmosphere.
While environmentalists and
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