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The UN climate summit in Paris that ended on December 12th did not deliver on all fronts, providing no guarantee that the world will avoid the worst impacts of climate change. However it did produce the most promising international climate agreement in years, ITTO reported.

Critically, the agreement built on initial commitments of over 180 countries to reduce their carbon emissions and includes a review clause to encourage countries to increase their pledges in the near future. As the only the economic sector to be referenced explicitly, the Paris agreement also raised the political profile of forestry and signalled that cutting emissions from deforestation and promoting sustainable forestry is now recognised globally as one the most efficient ways to address climate change.

To make Paris a lasting success, it’s now important that the key agreements on issues such as financial support, the increase of emission-reduction pledges, and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) are further developed and implemented in the months and years ahead.

The agreement is built on the commitment of signatories to deliver against “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDC) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By allowing countries to voluntarily declare their own commitments, discussions in Paris side-stepped the serious political conflict created in earlier negotiations which sought to allocate specific targets for emissions reductions to individual countries.

The downside of this approach is that, in aggregate, the commitments made fall well short of what the scientific community argues is needed to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the widely recognised threshold for major economic and environmental disruption. The upside is that the agreement achieved unprecedented levels of political support. Close to 150 world leaders were in Paris to mark the start of the talks and negotiators from 195 countries signed off on the agreement when the talks ended.

Paris was also significant for the high and positive levels of business engagement, a testament to the growing momentum behind global climate policy. While the INDC’s in aggregate fall short of what is required, some national commitments are ambitious and together they signal that measures to reduce carbon emissions will be an increasing factor in political and economic decision-making worldwide in the future.

For example the EU committed to reduce GHG emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. China indicated that it will reduce carbon intensity to 60-65% of 2005 level by 2030, increase the non-fossil fuel in national energy supply to 20%, and continue to expand forest area. The United States stated that it would reduce GHG emissions to 26-28% below 2005 level by 2025. Many developing countries included action against deforestation in their INDCs.

For example Brazil committed to “strengthening policies and measures with a view to achieve, in the Brazilian Amazonia, zero illegal deforestation by 2030 and compensating for greenhouse gas emissions from legal suppression of vegetation by 2030.”

Forestry related measures were also prominent in the text of the agreement. Article 5 encourages countries to “take action to implement and support, including through results-based payments” REDD+ activities.

It also explicitly recognises “the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.”

The overarching “decision” that Annexes the Paris Agreement recognised “the importance of adequate and predictable” finance for REDD+ activities. Although the ‘rules of the game’ for REDD+ were already agreed – thus legitimising and ‘regulating’ REDD+ activities – the political signal of Article 5 is very important. It shows forest nations that this is a long-term game.

This in turn should give added confidence to continue with REDD+ strategy and readiness activities. Several groups of nations used the opportunity offered by the Paris Conference to launch new forestry-related initiatives. African nations, with support from NGOs and the German government, launched AFR100 at the Global Landscapes Forum during the Paris meeting.

AFR100 is an initiative to restore 100 million hectares of degraded forest lands before 2030. It is led by ten African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Togo and Uganda.

There was also a “Leaders’ Statement on Forests and Climate Change” issued jointly by the governments of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, France, Gabon, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Liberia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, United Kingdom and the United States.

The Statement included a commitment to intensifying efforts to protect forests, to significantly restore degraded forest, peat and agricultural lands, and to promote low carbon rural development. It also included commitment to large-scale implementation of national REDD+ and sustainable land-use and climate change programs and, importantly, to generate and reward verified results.

Leaders from developing and developed countries also launched specific partnerships to help reduce deforestation. For instance, Brazil and Norway extended to 2020 their partnership to reduce deforestation in the Amazon Forest and Norway committed new financial support.

Norway, Germany and the UK also pledged to provide US$5 billion from 2015 to 2020 for REDD+ programs. Some private sector representatives of the private sector were also keen to lend their support. The co-chairs of the Consumer Goods Forum – M&S and Unilever – issued a statement that they will preferentially buy agricommodities from areas that have “designed and are implementing jurisdictional forest and climate initiatives”.

Building on their commitment to “deforestation-free” sourcing policies through the New York Declaration on Forests, the two companies said in future they will preferentially source from jurisdictions that demonstrate commitment and progress towards an ambitious national INDC which includes a strategy for reducing emissions from forests and other lands whilst increasing agricultural productivity and improving livelihoods.

But perhaps more significant for forest policy than these statements of intent, was a pivotal reference in the Paris Agreement to the importance of “removals by sinks of greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century” to rapidly reduce global emissions after they peak “as soon as possible.”

There was combined with a transparency clause which makes clear that removals by sinks must be included in national emissions inventories. The implication is that forests – a vast sink which can be increased through active management – are acknowledged to be central to the solution of global climate change.

Countries worldwide are also under an obligation to account accurately and regularly for all the carbon stored in the vegetation and soils in forests, as well as in agricultural land and protected areas and in the products of these lands (such as wood, crops, and biomass).

As this data is collected and analysed, new market opportunities should arise for sustainable timber products as it becomes increasingly clear that increased use of such products is a particularly efficient way to reduce carbon emissions.

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