In its first progress report, released as countries gather this week for a key UN nature conference in Montreal, the IPDD said agriculture, forestry and land use account for 22% of emissions. global greenhouse gas emissions, with half of those emissions caused by land use change, tropical deforestation and degradation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia.
Among the successes achieved by the IPDD are the application of the Brazilian Forest Code, fire prevention and public access to data.
In Indonesia, the group claimed to have made significant progress in speaking to government authorities and financial market regulators about deforestation and the growth of carbon markets.
Still, he noted that while in Indonesia deforestation rates have fallen sharply since 2017, in Brazil they had accelerated since 2019.
“While we believe we have made progress through these different lines of work, we are painfully aware that progress remains unacceptably slow, and out of proportion to the urgency and scale of the challenge,” the co-chairs of the meeting said in the report. IPDD Jan-Erik Saugestad, Chairman of Storebrand Asset Management, and Graham Stock, Partner at RBC BlueBay Asset Management.
In June, IPDD launched an initiative to work with countries consuming products from regions with high rates of deforestation, exploring ways to help curb commodity-driven deforestation.
The group noted that the ultimate test of its impact would be reduced deforestation. He called on participants at the two-week UN COP15 summit to commit to halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030.