lpaa1 December 2015: A special event on forests, held as part of the Paris Climate Change Conference and under the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA), showcased partnerships, commitments and implementation strategies to protect and restore forests, and endorsed them as a key climate solution. The LPAA is a joint undertaking of the Peruvian and French Presidencies of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC, the Office of the UN Secretary-General and the UNFCCC Secretariat.

The event on forests focused on implementing partnerships with additional resources to ensure healthy forests and the sustainable farming and livelihoods that depend on them. Sixteen countries recommitted to provide strong, collective and urgent action to promote equitable rural economic development while slowing, halting and reversing deforestation and massively increasing forest restoration. Several “forest countries” presented their national commitments, including Brazil, which reduced Amazon deforestation over 70% in the last decade, and Colombia, which announced an ambitious partnership, together with Germany, Norway, and the UK, to implement its vision for green growth, with a particular focus on reducing deforestation in the Amazon region. In addition, Brazil and Norway made a joint announcement to extend their climate and forest partnership until 2020. Germany, Norway and the UK announced a collective aim to provide $5 billion from 2015 to 2020, if forest countries demonstrate measured, reported and verified (MRV) emission reductions. In accordance with the Latin American Protected Areas Declaration, 16 countries stressed the key role of protected areas for adaptation and mitigation, and called for increased international support for the effective and sustainable management of protected areas.

The private sector was also featured, especially its ambitious goals to achieve zero net deforestation on supply chains of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, paper and beef products no later than 2020 and to end natural forest loss by 2030. Goals highlighted included: the commitment of 42 major companies under the We mean Business Coalition to remove commodity-driven deforestation from all supply chains by 2020; the commitment of Members of Consumer Goods Forum, which represents 400 companies and commodity traders, to preferentially source commodities from these areas, such as through quantity or pricing guarantees; and the commitment of commercial banks and private investors to mobilize a specific amount of financing for land sector development in these areas. In addition, indigenous organizations in the Amazon basin are building the Indigenous Amazon Fund, promoting the Indigenous approach to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and working on forest projects with the support of the Dedicated Grant Mechanism of the Forest Investment Program.

The LPAA aims to strengthen climate action through mobilizing robust global action towards low carbon and resilient societies; providing enhanced support to existing initiatives; and mobilizing new partners and providing a platform for the visibility of their actions, commitments and results. LPAA ongoing initiatives addressing forests include the New York Declaration on Forests, the Lima Challenge, the Landscape Restoration initiative, and the protection of 400 million ha of forests by the Global Coalition of Indigenous Peoples. [UNFCCC Secretariat Press Release] [LPAA Forest Area Webpage] [IISD RS Coverage of COP 21] [UN Press Release]