The United Nations warned that climate change poses a threat to the world’s northern forests, putting the planet’s most powerful natural defence at serious risk. The UNECE regional agency urged the forthcoming COP30 climate summit to put forest resilience at the centre of efforts to combat global warming. “The forests of the northern hemisphere are crucial,” said Paola Deda, UNECE’s forests division director. “…the attention to forests in COPs has been lost. The technicalities have taken over,” she said. …Some 54 percent of the world’s forests are in: Brazil, China, Canada, Russia and the United States, with the latter three in the UNECE region… Although the world’s forest area has shrunk by 203 million hectares since 1990, in the UNECE region it has grown by around 60 million hectares — an area roughly as big as France. However, these gains “are now being jeopardised by record wildfires, pests, and an escalating climate-driven crisis”, UNECE warned.
Related coverage:
- The Associated Press, by Isabel Debre And Mauricio Savarese: UN climate summit kicks off in Brazil’s Amazon with hopes for action despite US absence
- Energetic City, by Ed Hitchins: Treaty 8 Nation to head to Brazil as part of COP30 delegation
- World Economic Forum, by Gill Einhorn: Ahead of COP30, a new era of forest restoration and resilience is taking root