Reflections on this year’s climate COP in Egypt

During this year’s climate COP in Egypt there has, thankfully, been a lot of talk about reforestation and protecting tropical forests and some encouraging commitments have been made.

They include the Bezos Earth Fund’s announcement to accelerate Africa’s locally led restoration movement through the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), an initiative which is helping ITF and others develop best in class restoration efforts in Africa. We are heartened by President Lula of Brazil announcing the target of zero deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2030. It is also encouraging to see that the EU will establish a fund to help countries that are suffering the brunt of climate change impacts to reduce the loss and damage caused by climate change; this latter announcement is important as we see from our first-hand experience in Africa how climate change is pushing communities to the brink and beyond and we know how landscape restoration is vital to strengthening their resilience to climate shocks.

We know however that far more needs to be done to ensure indigenous peoples and local communities are at the heart of climate policies and that land rights are respected and upheld against powerful state and commercial forces that are often the driving force of deforestation and environmental destruction. And we know that the commitments so far to dealing with the damage to developing countries is miles off what is needed.

Among the announcements there has also been a lot of talk about carbon offsets and reforestation. This is where a company will calculate its carbon footprint and then offset those emissions by ‘buying’ carbon captured through activities the planting of trees. We are wary about this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, we know that the main priority for humanity needs to be driving down greenhouse gas emissions in all sectors of the global economy. We worry about green-washing by businesses and countries that wish to deflect attention away from their need to clean up their own activities and supply chains.

Part of our worry about carbon offsets also stems from the mechanics and perverse incentives that it can produce. The market for carbon credits can encourage cheap schemes that cause as many problems as they solve. The whole process is complicated and often opaque; in some cases as little as 10% of the price of carbon goes to the community – which doesn’t seem like a great deal. That is why we know that caution and transparency are required to ensure that what gets developed is in the best interests of local communities and doesn’t become part of the problem.

We know that trees are not a panacea for fixing climate change. But we know that community-led reforestation and forest protection, done well, is a major plank in wider global strategies to combat climate change and protect nature. At ITF we realise that we’ve got a lot to do! I come away from this COP applauding some of the efforts but concerned about how some of the high-level announcements will actually translate into improving the physical situation on the ground.