The Deforestation Pledge isn’t Enough: The Deforestation Pledge Isn’t Working , World leaders at the COP26 summit on climate change have committed to end deforestation by 2030, but environmental groups across the world are doubtful that it will happen, with Greenpeace calling it a green light for “another decade of devastation.”
Given the IPCC’s most recent report, which stated unequivocally that human-induced climate change has reached new heights and has already resulted in impacts “irreversible” for millennia, it would not be inappropriate to argue that far more serious efforts are now required.
The Deforestation Pledge isn’t Enough
Many countries, such as Brazil and Russia, have agreed to sign a pledge promising they will take steps to reduce deforestation. However, environmentalists argue that waiting around to see if these countries follow through on their promises is not an efficient use of time given the current state of the world.
At a UN climate gathering in New York in 2014, it was promised that the rate of deforestation would be halved by 2020 and stopped altogether by 2030. However, little has changed since then; if anything, things have gotten worse. In Brazil, for example, deforestation surged in 2020 leading to a 9.5 percent increase its emissions. And Bangladesh is facing its own critical environmental issues as well.
A recent report published by the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) stated that data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization showed that the deforestation rate in Bangladesh was almost double what the global average is, which is 2.6 percent annually. In just 17 years, 66 square-kilometers of tropical rainforests have been destroyed in Bangladesh, along with 287,453 acres of forest land being occupied throughout different parts of the country.
The misuse of power by the Forest Department and collusion and incompetence among a portion of officials in forestry-centric corruption are two major barriers to stopping deforestation and preserving biodiversity in Bangladesh, according to the TIB.
We cannot afford to be laid back about taking aggressive and immediate action to terminate deforestation. Unregulated development activities on timberland, building of coal-fired power plants close to reserved forests, allotment of land surrounding forests for construction of public and private industries and establishments, and corruption and encroachment of forest land are all problems that we need to fix expeditiously.
We cannot stop climate change by ourselves; almost a quarter of all man-made emissions of carbon dioxide come from pursuits such as logging, deforestation, and farming. The issue is largely present in the developed world, however countries like Bangladesh are disproportionately affected. To reduce the amount of greenhouse gases causing climate change, we urge politicians to put an end to mass deforestation and fund loss and damage claims for the countries whose populations have been most harmed by it.
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