COP26 Presidency Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Sustainable Land Use and Trade in Forest and Agricultural Commodities

 

"Deforestation is one of the greatest problems of our day." -- UK Climate Minister Zac Goldsmith

 

 

Globally, 80% of tropical forest deforestation can be attributed to agricultural commodity production in Southeast Asia, Central and West Africa, and Latin America. The expanded production of agricultural commodities such as beef, soy, cacao, palm oil and paper/pulp are the major drivers of primary forest loss. This loss of primary tropical forest contributes significantly to C02 emissions, while sustainably managed tropical forests provide substantial and cost-effective carbon emission mitigation, while also generating social and economic benefits.

 

COP26 Presidency Action 

The UK Government is hosting the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in November 2021 in Glasgow, and will serve as the Presidency of this global climate conference. 

As President of COP26, the UK intends to convene a dialogue on sustainable land use and trade in forest and agricultural commodities.  The aim is for countries to take collaborative actions that promote trade and development while protecting forests. 

 

This will be a government-to-government dialogue, supported by wider multi-stakeholder consultations. In the COP26 context, this will be part of a broader campaign to strengthen political commitment and increase financial flows for nature-based solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss.  The intention is that this dialogue should continue well beyond COP26, in order to achieve the necessary long-term cooperation and progress.

 

UK Climate Minister Zac Goldsmith, on new UK action to address tropical deforestation:

"This is about cleaning up our supply chains - we can do all the wonderful things in the world domestically with our own environment, but if we import environmental destruction through commodities then that is a problem and it is something that needs to be sorted.

"The hope is that on the back of what we're doing in the UK, we'll be able to build a global collation of other countries all committed to doing something similar with a view to tackling what is one of the great problems of our day - deforestation."

 

 

Multi-stakeholder Consultation Dialogues

The Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) hosted by the World Economic Forum has grown to become a powerful community of purpose, drawing together 170+ partner organizations, including governments, companies and civil society organizations, to create innovative private-public partnerships to tackle deforestation associated with agricultural commodities, including palm oil, beef, soy and paper/pulp and cattle. 

TFA convenes and/or supports these tropical forest multi-stakeholder actors through several Collective Action Tracks including:

Upon invitation of the COP26 Presidency, TFA is facilitating the multi-stakeholder consultations of the Sustainable Land Use & Commodity Trade Dialogue process. This role will leverage TFA's existing Collective Action Tracks and expansive multi-stakeholder relationships, and is supported through a direct grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

 

The TFA facilitator role includes:  

Dialogue: promote and host multi-stakeholder dialogues to identify key issues and opportunities for progress

Coordination: strengthen coherence between different initiatives and platforms

Insight: provide strategic perspective to support the government processes and keep ambition high

Action: identify & curate flagship initiatives, actions and commitments, together with the Marrakesh Partnership.

 

 

Timeline

The below is a draft timeline of the the proposed multi-stakeholder consultation process. It outlines an initial phase Sept-Dec 2020, and the launch of the dialogue initiatives from January 2021, running until COP26 in November 2021. 

 

 

 

The multi-stakeholder dialogues process will feed into the government-to-government process, through this draft process map, and will inform both a Collective Action Roadmap and Shared Principles.

 

 

Outputs

The outputs of the COP26 Presidency's Sustainable Land Use & Commodity Trade Dialogue multi-stakeholder consultation process will be published here as they become available. 

Pre-launch multi-stakeholder consultation reports:

English

French

 

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