Despite their critical roles in sustaining people's health and livelihoods, regulating climate, and harboring biodiversity, the global forest area continues to shrink. Since 1990, an estimated 420 million hectares of forests have been lost worldwide. Annually, an estimated 10 million hectares worldwide have been deforested from 2015 to 2020.
In response to the call for concerted action by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in 2019, there is growing recognition of the need to halt deforestation and tap into the potential of forests to address many of the global challenges in the face of the increased level of inequality and poverty around the world, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, food, wood and energy insecurity, as well as increased prices of foods and other essentials.
In 2021, 141 countries signed the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use during UNFCCC COP26, calling for transformative action to conserve forests, promote sustainable trade and development policies, reduce human vulnerabilities, redesign agricultural policies, and increase financial incentives. Subsequently, the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership was launched during UNFCCC COP27 to help deliver the commitment made at COP26 to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. Furthermore, technical dialogue of the first global stocktake of the Paris Agreement identified halting and reversing deforestation and degradation as critical to reducing emissions and conserving and enhancing carbon sinks.
In line with these efforts, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, COP28 President-Designate/UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change, is working with forest-rich countries and their partners to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 in preparation for COP28.
The Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), comprising 16 international organisations, is spearheading the efforts to halt deforestation globally.
In 2021, the CPF released its joint statement “Challenges and Opportunities in Turning the Tide on Deforestation” at the 16th session of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) in support of the implementation of the UN Strategic Plan for Forests (UNSPF) and its Global Forest Goals (GFGs), including GFG target 1.1 to increase forest area by 3% by 2030, and other forest-related goals.
During the CPF Dialogue at the UNFCCC COP26, the CPF announced the launch of the CPF Joint Initiative on Turning the Tide on Deforestation, and shared update on its status at the COP27 CPF Dialogue.
Most recently, the Principals of the CPF Member Organizations met during the 2023 SDG Summit in the High-Level Event “Forests for our Future” in September in New York, to highlight the crucial contribution of forests to achieving the SDGs and other global goals, and launched the “CPF Joint Call to Action for Forests Towards 2030”, calling for enhanced action and political will to strengthen the implementation of forest solutions. The Joint Call to Action includes the CPF members’ commitments to strengthening shared efforts on: implementation and action; data, science and innovation; finance for forests; and communication and awareness-raising.
The upcoming midterm review of the International Arrangement on Forests at UNFF19 in May 2024 provides a critical opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the current arrangement, including the CPF as its component, to support the accelerated progress towards the achievement of the SDGs and the Global Forest Goals of the UN Strategic Plan for Forests by 2030, as well as other forest-related goals.
Main objective of the event
The CPF High-level Dialogue will provide an opportunity for the leaders of the UN agencies and other CPF members to share their perspectives and outline their individual and joint actions to accelerate efforts in
halting and reversing deforestation by 2030.
The dialogue will also serve to identify next steps to be taken to realize enhanced ambitions of the CPF, including through supporting countries in enhancing and implementing their Nationally-determined
Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement and preparations for the midterm review of the International Arrangement on Forests in 2024.
Modalities of the event
The High-level Dialogue will be held at COP28 Action Arena 1 (Al Hur). The event will be held in English with no simultaneous interpretation.
Following the opening remarks, principals of the participating CPF member organizations will address the event as panellists in response to the following guiding questions:
