Global Leaders Pledge to End Deforestation by 2030

Leaders of more than 100 countries, including Brazil, China, Russia and the United States, vowed at climate talks in Glasgow to end deforestation by 2030, in a landmark agreement that encompasses some 85 percent of the world’s forests.

“These great teeming ecosystems — these cathedrals of nature — are the lungs of our planet,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said in describing the pact on Tuesday at an event attended by President Biden and the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo.

The pledge will demand “transformative further action,” the declaration said, to preserve forests crucial to absorbing carbon dioxide and slowing the pace of global warming. But while it was accompanied by several measures intended to help put it into effect, some advocacy groups criticized the agreement as lacking teeth, saying it would allow deforestation to continue and noting that similar efforts have failed in the past.

At the heart of the plan is the effort to reduce the lucrative financial incentives to cut down forests. Much of the world’s deforestation is driven by the world’s demand for food, driving people to fell trees to make room for cattle, soy, cocoa and palm oil.

The agreement brings together countries including Brazil, where deforestation in the Amazon and elsewhere has spiked in recent years. But as often happens in diplomatic negotiations, securing widespread buy-in that entices the most critical countries to join comes with potential weaknesses.