As the United Nations General Assembly meets for its annual gathering in New York, it faces a climate catastrophe aggravated by the wholesale burning of the world's tropical forests — a trigger for a climate tipping point. A global solution is desperately needed to avoid an irreversible catastrophe. The UN must act in the face of this existential threat.
G7 leaders, who held their summit last month in Biarritz, France, while swaths of the Amazon rainforest were ablaze, failed to act on the fate of the world's forests that, as the UN puts it, have an "unparalleled capacity to absorb and store carbon". They focused instead on the trade war between the US and China. As the architect of the Paris climate agreement and with its expertise on forestry, the UN should put these massive forest fires at the top of its agenda and produce an actionable resolution.
Scientists could not be clearer about the devastation of tropical forests, melting glaciers and runaway climate change. But what the UN must reckon with is that the vital signs are headed in the wrong direction, with CO2 emissions in the air rising globally to 415 parts per million (ppm), the top emitters, China, the US and India, burning more fossil fuels over the past three years, and temperatures hitting new records. At the current rate, global carbon will exceed the calamitous threshold of 450 ppm in 15 years.
Add to this picture the huge, man made fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest and the remaining forests in Indonesia's Kalimantan and Sumatra islands, fires in Siberia, and blazes even in Alaska. Aggravated by global warming, tropical forests suffered their worst losses in recorded history in the past three years. Nearly 40m acres — an area the size of Bangladesh — disappeared in 2017, making it the second-worst year, topped only by 2016. Continuing losses are likely to set a new record in 2019. The UN's findings indicate that 1m species of plants and animals face extinction.
The Amazon rainforest has faced fires set by illegal loggers and cattle ranchers year after year, but in 2019 they are especially severe. In the seven months to July, over 7,200 square miles were burnt — nearly the size of New Jersey. It is unacceptable that this forest clearing was driven by president Jair Bolsonaro's affirmative goal of deforestation in the name of economic growth, a baseless premise as previous periods of high deforestation have never coincided with high economic growth.
Every year for the past quarter of a century, large tracts of forest in Indonesia have been burnt to make way for palm oil and paper and pulp plantation. The resulting pollution and haze have caused health problems and disrupted schools not only in Indonesia but also in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. Indonesia's poor governance and rampant corruption are at the root of destructive agricultural practices that deliver a large cost to society and financial gain to a few. President Joko Widodo warned senior police and army officers that they would be fired if they failed to prevent forest fires. He should make good on that promise.
The slow response of the Russian authorities to the fires raging in Siberia allowed them to engulf a larger area.
This mayhem cannot be viewed as purely a country matter, as Brazil's president has claimed. When neighbours' health and wellbeing are endangered, as in south-east Asia from the Indonesian fires and probably for South American neighbours from Brazil's fires, burning on's own forests is not just a domestic affair. The UN must label it as a crime against humanity.
Moreover, forests have an unparalleled capacity to absorb and store carbon. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed the vital role that reversing deforestation can have in keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The UN's environment, development and agriculture chiefs note in a joint statement that reversing deforestation could provide 30 per cent of the climate solution. But to see these benefits, the UN, together with multilateral development banks, must extend vast compensatory financing for countries protecting forests.
Finally, missing in all this is the leadership of the US, the largest carbon emitter per capita. The Security Council should table a proposition calling for America's re-entry to the Paris Accord. The world is paying a steep price for the US administration's anti-environmental stance, rendering a knock-on effect in Brazil, Indonesia and elsewhere. This alone should be reason to support protectors of the environment at the polls.
The odds of the UN delivering in time on a global emergency are usually not great. But this time could be different because forestry and climate change are the UN's niche, and because many leaders are realising that the climate catastrophe is no longer a threat over the horizon but is with us here and now.
Vinod Thomas is a former senior vice-president of the World Bank.@vthomas14
beyondbrics is a forum on emerging markets for contributors from the worlds of business, finance, politics, academia and the third sector. All views expressed are those of the author(s) and should not be taken as reflecting the views of the Financial Times.
This article was first published in the Financial Times on 17 September 2019.
Photo by Rini Sulaiman/Norwegian Embassy
If you're interested in reading such content, subscribe here.