They've taken leaders at their word and are keeping a close eye on whether they hold their promises. Since 145 countries pledged to stop deforestation and land degradation by 2030 at the 26^th World Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021, a broad coalition of civil society organizations including NGOs and research bodies has published an annual "Forest Declaration Assessment."

In 2022, the previous edition reported "modest progress," even if countries were collectively not on the right trajectory to achieve their targets. The new assessment, published on Monday, October 23, did not confirm this past progress and on the contrary expressed alarm over a step backward: Global deforestation increased by 4% in 2022 compared to 2021.

Nearly 6.6 million hectares have disappeared, including 4.1 million hectares of primary tropical forests, extremely valuable for climate, biodiversity and the regulation of various cycles, such as water. The tropical region of Latin America and the Caribbean has been particularly hard hit, with Brazil, Indonesia, Bolivia and the Democratic Republic of Congo accounting for the largest absolute areas of deforestation. Agriculture (cattle breeding, soya production, palm oil, etc.) is the main cause of forest loss in the tropics. However, 50 countries around the world are on track to end deforestation within their borders by the end of the decade, including Venezuela, Guatemala, Vietnam, Malaysia and Mexico.

"This 2030 target is not just a nice-to-have target. Halting deforestation is essential to maintain acceptable living conditions for humanity," pointed out Erin Matson, assessment coordinator and consultant with Climate Focus. "But today, our investments in activities that are harmful to forests are far higher than our investments in sectors that are favorable to them." Harmful spending is estimated at around $500 billion (€473 billion) a year, compared with $2.2 billion in "green" public spending.

The impact of deforestation on the climate is major. In 2022, gross emissions linked to the practice reached an equivalent of 4 billion tonnes of CO₂, a figure up 2% on the reference period (2018-2020). In other words, if deforestation were a country, it would be the third largest emitter after China and the United States.

Deforestation induces CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere and also harms the capacity of forests to store carbon. Using a new method of satellite image analysis, an international team of researchers has produced the first map to show where carbon sources and sinks are located on a planetary scale. Their study, published in early October in Nature Geoscience, established that over the past decade, the world's forests have sequestered an average of 500 million tonnes of carbon per year. It also shows that boreal and temperate forests have become the main contributors to this carbon sink, while vast tropical forests hardly absorb any CO₂.

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