SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
The Glasgow Declaration on Forests is far from “unprecedented”. It’s just another in a long line of meaningless UN declarations
Published
3 years agoon
On 2 November 2021, at COP26 in Glasgow, more than 100 governments signed on to the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use. Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, described it as a “landmark agreement to protect and restore the earth’s forests”. Johnson also called the pledges under the agreement “unprecedented”.
Colombia’s President Iván Duque also called the Declaration a “landmark commitment” and said that, “Never before have so many leaders, from all regions, representing all types of forests, joined forces in this way.”
Michelle Passero of The Nature Conservancy told Al Jazeera that the Declaration was a “terrific start”.
UN forest declarations: A short history
The reality is that this is far from the first UN forest declaration.
In 1992, at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, governments agreed a “Non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests”.
Following on from UNCED, in June 1995, the UN set up “an ad hoc open-ended Intergovernmental Panel on Forests”.
In 2000, the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) replaced the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests with the UN Forum on Forests and set up the International Arrangement on Forests, which has five components: the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) and its Member States; the UNFF Secretariat; the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF); the UNFF Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network (GFFFN); and the UNFF Trust Fund.
The Collaborative Partnership on Forests was set up in 2001 and consists of the following organisations:
In January 2020, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests put out a Strategic Vision towards 2030, which includes the following “Vision Statement”:
‘By 2030 all types of forests and forest landscapes are sustainably managed, their multiple values are fully recognized, the potential of forests and their goods and services is fully unlocked, and the Global Forest Goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other global forest-related goals, targets and commitments are achieved.’
The UN Forum on Forests is supposed to promote “the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests and to strengthen long-term political commitment to this end”.
In fact, the UN Forum on Forests has achieved little or nothing apart from meeting every year. In December 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted a “Non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests”.
In January 2017, the UN Forum on Forests agreed to create the UN Strategic Plan for Forests. It was adopted by the UN General Assembly in April 2017. The Strategic Plan sets out six “forest goals”. Goal number one is to:
‘Reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide through sustainable forest management, including protection, restoration, afforestation and reforestation, and increase efforts to prevent forest degradation and contribute to the global effort of addressing climate change.’
Meanwhile, in 2014, at the UN Climate Summit, governments signed on to a “non-legally binding political declaration” called the New York Declaration on Forests. This aimed to reduce deforestation in half by 2020 to end it by 2030.
A five year assessment report put out in 2019 found that,
‘Instead of slowing down, tropical deforestation has continued at an unsustainable pace since the adoption of the NYDF. Since 2014, the world has lost an area of tree cover the size of the United Kingdom every year.’
And then there’s REDD
REDD was introduced at the COP11 in Montreal in 2005. REDD was discussed at great length in a series of UN climate meetings. Between 2007 and 2013, the UNFCCC adopted 13 decisions on REDD.
But REDD has completely failed to address deforestation. Even worse, it’s a carbon trading mechanism, meaning that even if emissions from deforestation were reduced, any reduction would be cancelled out by continued emissions from burning fossil fuels.
In 2020, the loss of primary old-growth tropical forest increased by 12% compared to 2019. This happened in a year that the global economy contracted by at least 3%.
Funding to save the forests?
Under the Glasgow Forest Declaration, 12 countries promised to provide US$12 billion between 2021 and 2025 to restore degraded land and to tackle forest fires. Much of this public funding is already committed, and significant amount will no doubt be poured into the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Despite more than US$1 billion funding the FCPF has failed to save a single hectare of forest.
A further US$7.2 billion will come from private sector investors including Aviva, Schroders, and AXA. But this money will be spent on buying carbon credits, allowing Big Polluters to continue polluting, and thus cancelling out any reduction in emissions from reduced deforestation.
Souparna Lahiri of the Global Forest Coalition isn’t impressed by the idea of pouring money at the problem of deforestation. In a statement put out by the Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance (CLARA) Lahiri says:
‘This Declaration is one of those oft repeated attempts to make us believe that deforestation can be stopped and forest can be conserved by pushing billions of dollars into the land and territories of the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. More money means more land grab, violation of the rights of the IPLCs [Indigenous Peoples and local communities] and women, and more corporate incursion into forests. Time has come to let these political leaders know that any effort towards halting deforestation and forest conservation should begin with recognising the rights of the IPLCs and women and ensuring tenurial and collective rights and governance over and access to forests for IPLCs, and particularly women. Without these structural transformations, these Declarations will always sound hollow, and result in not only not achieving their objectives but leave behind scarred forests, biodiversity and communities.’
Greenpeace criticised the Glasgow Forest Declaration as “a green light for another decade of forest destruction”. In a press release, Carolina Pasquali of Greenpeace Brazil says,
‘There’s a very good reason Bolsonaro felt comfortable signing on to this new deal. It allows another decade of forest destruction and isn’t binding. Meanwhile the Amazon is already on the brink and can’t survive years more deforestation.’
Original source: redd-monitor.org
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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS
Statement: The Energy Sector Strategy 2024–2028 Must Mark the End of the EBRD’s Support to Fossil Fuels
Published
1 year agoon
September 27, 2023The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is due to publish a new Energy Sector Strategy before the end of 2023. A total of 130 civil society organizations from over 40 countries have released a statement calling on the EBRD to end finance for all fossil fuels, including gas.
From 2018 to 2021, the EBRD invested EUR 2.9 billion in the fossil energy sector, with the majority of this support going to gas. This makes it the third biggest funder of fossil fuels among all multilateral development banks, behind the World Bank Group and the Islamic Development Bank.
The EBRD has already excluded coal and upstream oil and gas fields from its financing. The draft Energy Sector Strategy further excludes oil transportation and oil-fired electricity generation. However, the draft strategy would continue to allow some investment in new fossil gas pipelines and other transportation infrastructure, as well as gas power generation and heating.
In the statement, the civil society organizations point out that any new support to gas risks locking in outdated energy infrastructure in places that need investments in clean energy the most. At the same time, they highlight, ending support to fossil gas is necessary, not only for climate security, but also for ensuring energy security, since continued investment in gas exposes countries of operation to high and volatile energy prices that can have a severe impact on their ability to reach development targets. Moreover, they underscore that supporting new gas transportation infrastructure is not a solution to the current energy crisis, given that new infrastructure would not come online for several years, well after the crisis has passed.
The signatories of the statement call on the EBRD to amend the Energy Sector Strategy to
- fully exclude new investments in midstream and downstream gas projects;
- avoid loopholes involving the use of unproven or uneconomic technologies, as well as aspirational but meaningless mitigation measures such as “CCS-readiness”; and
- strengthen the requirements for financial intermediaries where the intended nature of the sub-transactions is not known to exclude fossil fuel finance across the entire value chain.
Source: iisd.org
Download the statement: https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2023-09/ngo-statement-on-energy-sector-strategy-2024-2028.pdf
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Will more sovereign wealth funds mean less food sovereignty?
Published
2 years agoon
April 13, 2023- 45% of Louis Dreyfus Company, with its massive land holdings in Latin America, growing sugarcane, citrus, rice and coffee;
- a majority stake in Unifrutti, with 15,000 ha of fruit farms in Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Philippines, Spain, Italy and South Africa; and
- Al Dahra, a large agribusiness conglomerate controlling and cultivating 118,315 ha of farmland in Romania, Spain, Serbia, Morocco, Egypt, Namibia and the US.
Sovereign wealth funds invested in farmland/food/agriculture (2023)
|
|||
Country
|
Fund
|
Est.
|
AUM (US$bn)
|
China
|
CIC
|
2007
|
1351
|
Norway
|
NBIM
|
1997
|
1145
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADIA
|
1967
|
993
|
Kuwait
|
KIA
|
1953
|
769
|
Saudi Arabia
|
PIF
|
1971
|
620
|
China
|
NSSF
|
2000
|
474
|
Qatar
|
QIA
|
2005
|
450
|
UAE – Dubai
|
ICD
|
2006
|
300
|
Singapore
|
Temasek
|
1974
|
298
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
Mubadala
|
2002
|
284
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADQ
|
2018
|
157
|
Australia
|
Future Fund
|
2006
|
157
|
Iran
|
NDFI
|
2011
|
139
|
UAE
|
EIA
|
2007
|
91
|
USA – AK
|
Alaska PFC
|
1976
|
73
|
Australia – QLD
|
QIC
|
1991
|
67
|
USA – TX
|
UTIMCO
|
1876
|
64
|
USA – TX
|
Texas PSF
|
1854
|
56
|
Brunei
|
BIA
|
1983
|
55
|
France
|
Bpifrance
|
2008
|
50
|
UAE – Dubai
|
Dubai World
|
2005
|
42
|
Oman
|
OIA
|
2020
|
42
|
USA – NM
|
New Mexico SIC
|
1958
|
37
|
Malaysia
|
Khazanah
|
1993
|
31
|
Russia
|
RDIF
|
2011
|
28
|
Turkey
|
TVF
|
2017
|
22
|
Bahrain
|
Mumtalakat
|
2006
|
19
|
Ireland
|
ISIF
|
2014
|
16
|
Canada – SK
|
SK CIC
|
1947
|
16
|
Italy
|
CDP Equity
|
2011
|
13
|
China
|
CADF
|
2007
|
10
|
Indonesia
|
INA
|
2020
|
6
|
India
|
NIIF
|
2015
|
4
|
Spain
|
COFIDES
|
1988
|
4
|
Nigeria
|
NSIA
|
2011
|
3
|
Angola
|
FSDEA
|
2012
|
3
|
Egypt
|
TSFE
|
2018
|
2
|
Vietnam
|
SCIC
|
2006
|
2
|
Gabon
|
FGIS
|
2012
|
2
|
Morocco
|
Ithmar Capital
|
2011
|
2
|
Palestine
|
PIF
|
2003
|
1
|
Bolivia
|
FINPRO
|
2015
|
0,4
|
AUM (assets under management) figures from Global SWF, January 2023
|
|||
Engagement in food/farmland/agriculture assessed by GRAIN
|
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Farmland values hit record highs, pricing out farmers
Published
2 years agoon
November 21, 2022Breaking: There has been an alarming Rise in Forced Land Evictions in Uganda; over 360,000 Ugandans were Displaced in the First Half of 2024.
Uganda is developing a Management Information System to strengthen reporting on business-related human rights violations.
A multisectoral meeting has kicked off in Kampala to discuss progress in implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other related standards and principles.
Tanzanian High Court Tramples Rights of Indigenous Maasai Pastoralists to Boost Tourism Revenues
EACOP activism under Siege: Activists are reportedly criminalized for opposing oil pipeline project in Uganda.
Women’s Climate Assembly, 2024: African women vow to protect human and environmental rights amidst an influx of destructive land-based investments on the continent.
African Women forge bold actions for climate justice at the 2024 Women’s Climate Assembly in Senegal.
Breaking: There has been an alarming Rise in Forced Land Evictions in Uganda; over 360,000 Ugandans were Displaced in the First Half of 2024.
Innovative Finance from Canada projects positive impact on local communities.
Over 5000 Indigenous Communities evicted in Kiryandongo District
Petition To Land Inquiry Commission Over Human Rights In Kiryandongo District
Invisible victims of Uganda Land Grabs
Resource Center
- LAND GRABS AT GUNPOINT REPORT IN KIRYANDONGO DISTRICT
- PRESENDIANTIAL DIRECTIVE BANNING ALL LAND EVICTIONS IN UGANDA
- FORCED LAND EVICTIONS IN UGANDA
- FROM LAND GRABBERS TO CARBON COWBOYS A NEW SCRAMBLE FOR COMMUNITY LANDS TAKES OFF
- African Faith Leaders Demand Reparations From The Gates Foundation.
- GUNS, MONEY AND POWER GRABBED OVER 1,975,834 HECTARES OF LAND; BROKE FAMILIES IN MUBENDE DISTRICT.
- THE SITUATION OF PLANET, ENVIRONMENTAL AND LAND RIGHTS DEFENDERS IS FURTHER DETERIORATING IN UGANDA AS 2023 WITNESSED A RECORD OF OVER 180 ATTACKS.
- A CASE STUDY REPORT ON THE CHALLENGES OF ACCESSING JUSTICE BY VICTIMS OF LAND GRABBING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE IMPACT ON DISPLACED COMMUNITIES IN UGANDA
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