SFOC feed

🌏 SB64 Bonn Recap: Closing the Forest Accountability Gap 🌳 Earlier this week at #SB64 in Bonn, Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC), the University of Melbourne, Griffith University, the Climate Justice Program and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), co-hosted an official side event on “Closing the Accountability Gap: A Forest Roadmap Priority”. Underscoring the need for clearer definitions, aligned standards and robust monitoring in closing the forest accountability gap and ensuring alignment between the COP30 Forest Roadmap and the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) Roadmap, the session highlighted the need to mobilize the Roadmap to accelerate progress on halting global forest degradation. 🗝️ Key Takeaways 🔬 Moderator Kate Dooley (University of Melbourne) opened by clarifying the differences between deforestation (permanent conversion to other land uses) and forest degradation (driven primarily by logging and wildfire). She highlighted that ~20 million hectares of forests will be lost or degraded each year by 2030 under current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). 🌳 Virginia Young (Griffith University) flagged degradation as a decline in ecosystem integrity, the metric by which forests are classified by the FAO. High-integrity forests store more carbon, are more resilient, and better resist tipping points. She warned that current FAO deforestation definitions can still mask the impact of degradation by focusing on assumptions of regrowth and ignoring loss of this ecosystem integrity. ⚠️ Katja Garson (Stand.earth, representing the Biomass Action Network) identified forest bioenergy as a growing problem across nature, climate, and energy agendas. Driven by subsidies and flawed carbon accounting guidelines, large-scale biomass is not, as industry often claims, carbon neutral; it is highly emissive and drives forest degradation. She emphasized the need for the Forest and TAFF Roadmaps to be aligned on concerns regarding biomass, and to exclude forest bioenergy as a climate “solution”. 🕵🏽♀️ Jennifer Skene (NRDC) pointed out the significant Global South–Global North divide in how forest responsibility is framed, the major gaps in the Global North’s monitoring of forest degradation, and the need for harmonized accountability. She warned that vague terms such as “Sustainable Forest Management” (SFM) can obscure real impacts, making clear, harmonized standards and transparent reporting critical. ⚖️ Marco Tulio Scarpelli Cabral (Brazil MFA and Forest Roadmap lead) emphasized that degradation is equally important as deforestation, and called for stronger civil society engagement, and clearer definitions, including for SFM. 📸 Check out some of the highlights below! 🔗 Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/ei_8ib44 #ClimateAction #Bioenergy #Deforestation #DeforestationRoadmap #SFOC Environmental Paper Network

Asia has a key role to play in cutting methane emissions 🌏 This #WorldEnvironmentDay, join us at 4PM KST today to discuss solutions in the waste sector. #Methane #ClimateAction #Webinar