Emission savings through the COP26 declaration of deforestation could come at the expense of non-forest land conversion

Abstract

The majority of signatories to The United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2021 (COP26) made a declaration to end deforestation by 2030. Here, we quantify future changes in land use and associated CO _2 emissions to examine the impact of ending deforestation by 2030 on global land dynamics and emissions using an open-source land-use model. We show that if the COP26 declaration to end deforestation is fully implemented globally, about 167 Mha of deforestation could be avoided until 2050, compared to a baseline scenario which does not have extended forest protection. However, avoided deforestation and associated emissions come at the cost of strongly increased conversion of unprotected non-forested land to agricultural land, while land-use intensification in most regions is similar compared to a baseline scenario. Global initiatives are needed to facilitate a common dialogue on addressing the possible carbon emissions and non-forest leakage effects due to the expedited loss of non-forested land under a policy aimed at halting deforestation by 2030.

Keywords

• COP26
• land-use modeling
• deforestation