Biden joins world leaders on pledge to end deforestation NRI

Houston പ്രസിഡന്റ് President Biden says the United States will contribute to efforts by more than 100 countries to end deforestation by 2030. World leaders will sign a major agreement aimed at protecting the world’s forests to absorb carbon dioxide and reduce global warming. Leaders of more than 100 countries have announced in Glasgow that they will end deforestation by 2030, with the goal of protecting the world’s forests. President Biden has said the United States will contribute billions of dollars to a global effort to purify the air we breathe and the water we drink, and to keep the earth’s climate in balance.

The agreement includes countries such as Brazil, Russia and China, which cover 85 percent of the world’s forests. It is one of the first major agreements to emerge from the United Nations Climate Summit, also known as COP26, which is seen as a critical moment in efforts to tackle climate change. Announcing the agreement, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that these great habitats are the lungs of our planet. President Biden has said he will work with Congress to deploy up to $ 9 billion globally by 2030. In addition, it will provide $ 12 billion by 2025. In addition, private companies have pledged $ 7 billion to protect and restore forests through various means, including $ 1.7 billion. More than 30 financial institutions have pledged to stop investing in companies responsible for deforestation.

This is not the first time that world leaders have announced a grand agreement to address such a crucial issue. In 2014, an agreement was reached to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it completely by 2030. But five years after the pledge, it is estimated that the area of ​​forest that is being destroyed each year has deteriorated significantly. Some environmentalists have predicted that it will happen again. This allows another decade of deforestation, said Carolina Pascuali, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil.

At the same time, the Amazon is already in such a state that it cannot survive years of deforestation. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. The new announcement comes amid growing awareness of the role of nature in tackling climate change. Undamaged forests and wetlands are natural reservoirs of carbon that keep it away from the atmosphere. But when these areas burn, the environment shifts to emitting greenhouse gases that destroy them. If tropical deforestation were a country, it would become the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after China and the United States, according to the World Resource Institute. This is because most of the world’s deforestation is caused by people cutting down trees to make room for livestock, soy, cocoa and palm oil. In an emotional speech at the summit on Tuesday, Gabon President Ali Bongo said the world was underestimating Africa’s critical habitat. ‘The Congo Basin is the heart and lungs of the African continent,’ he said.

Countries around the world have said they will block the emission of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas emitted from oil and natural gas activities, livestock production and landfills. It can heat up to 80 times faster than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for a short time. Biden also announced that the Environmental Protection Agency intends to limit methane emissions from existing oil and gas rigs across the US. The federal government previously had laws aimed at preventing methane leaks from oil and gas wells built since 2015, but the Trump administration repealed them. Administration aides said President Biden intends to restore and strengthen them.

The announcement comes at a time when Biden is under intense international and domestic pressure to show that the United States is the largest greenhouse pumping nation in history at the United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow. Ursula von der Lane, president of the European Commission, has said that reducing methane emissions is “one of the most effective things we can do” to slow global warming. Biden has set a goal of reducing the country’s emissions by about 50 percent this decade over 2005, but legislation to help achieve that goal has stalled in Congress. At this week’s UN climate summit, Biden also sought to persuade other countries to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, which are heating up to dangerous levels.

The White House says more than 90 countries have signed the Global Methane Pledge, which will reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Half of the world’s top 30 methane emitters are the United States, the European Union, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria. They are the ones who signed the contract. Some major pollutants such as China, India and Russia are not included. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas to heat the earth after carbon dioxide, which is produced when countries burn oil, coal and natural gas for energy. Methane is the main component of natural gas, which emits methane emissions before burning as it flows into the atmosphere from wells and pipelines. The European Union has announced that it will set up an International Methane Emission Observatory to ensure accountability.