In a sweeping accord aimed at protecting the world’s forests, which are crucial to absorbing carbon dioxide and slowing the rise in global warming, leaders of more than 100 countries gathered in Glasgow vowed on Tuesday to end deforestation by 2030.
President Biden said the United States would contribute billions to the global effort to protect the ecosystems that are vital for cleaning the air we breathe and the water we drink, and keeping the Earth’s climate in balance.
The pact — which includes countries like Brazil, Russia, China and the United States — encompasses about 85 percent of the world’s forests, officials said.
“These great teeming ecosystems — these cathedrals of nature,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said in announcing the agreement, “are the lungs of our planet.”
In a sweeping accord struck at #COP26, world leaders pledged to work together to end deforestation by 2030, seeking to preserve forests to slow the rise in global warming.https://t.co/pCjBDHeALv pic.twitter.com/dG1udrSJZG
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 2, 2021