Wazzup Pilipinas!?
Bélém, Brazil (12 November 2025)—A new global analysis released today at the COP30 climate summit issues a stark warning: the world is facing a "land gap" and a "forest gap" that threaten to undermine the entire fight against climate change. The study finds that national climate plans submitted for COP30 are overwhelmingly relying on massive, unachievable land-based carbon removal schemes—like vast tree planting—while dangerously neglecting the crucial, immediate work of protecting existing forests.
The report, "The Land Gap 2025," led by a global consortium of experts from the University of Melbourne, concludes that the true impediment to forest protection is not merely a lack of finance, but a deeply flawed global economic system that forces countries to choose economic survival over ecosystem preservation.
"Why are so many countries ignoring forest protection as a key pillar of climate targets?" asks Kate Dooley, the report’s lead author. "The answer is that they live in a world where heavy sovereign debt burdens and industry-friendly tax and trade policies force many of them to exploit forests to keep their economies from crashing".
The Land Gap: An Area Larger Than Australia
The analysis exposes the two critical flaws in current national climate plans:
The "Land Gap": This is the chasm between governments’ reliance on land-based efforts to meet carbon mitigation goals and what is actually achievable. The assessment of COP30 pledges reveals a startling demand for land:
To achieve their targets under the Paris Agreement, countries would have to devote just over 1 billion hectares of land to carbon removal initiatives.
This required land mass is larger than the size of Australia.
This massive level of carbon removal would put lands critical to the survival of marginalized groups—including Indigenous peoples, local communities, and smallholder farmers—at risk.
Moreover, the promised emissions savings would take decades to materialize.
The "Forest Gap": While pledges for halting and reversing deforestation are "limited" in national plans, the report reveals a massive gap between global commitments made at COP28 to halt deforestation and degradation by 2030 and the likely outcome of current pledges. The report forecasts a dismal outcome:
The annual rate of global deforestation would still be 4 million hectares in 2030.
An additional 16 million hectares of forests would be degraded.
This creates a terrifying forest gap of 20 million hectares.
Debt, Tax, and Trade: The Triple Threat to Forests
The experts argue that focusing solely on innovative financing, while important, fails to address the powerful underlying forces driving forest destruction. For instance, while the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) might generate $3 to $4 billion per year, the total need to achieve 2030 forest protection goals is an astronomical $117 to $299 billion per year.
The report identifies the rules and financial flows of the global economic system as the single biggest threat to forests. They conclude that meeting climate and forest commitments requires major reforms in three key areas:
1. Providing Debt Relief
Current approaches to resolving debt crises deepen dependence on short-term commodity revenue, pushing plantations, mines, and oil wells into previously intact ecosystems.
Countries in critical biodiversity centers like the Amazon, Congo basins, and Southeast Asia are being forced by austerity and debt payment schedules to rapidly expand exports—often by sacrificing their forests—to avoid credit downgrades.
The example of Cameroon is cited, where debt burdens and IMF austerity requirements have caused a dramatic rise in forest loss to increase hardwood, cotton, and cocoa production.
2. Pursuing Tax Reforms
Cross-border tax abuse and illicit financial flows deprive Global South countries of essential revenue needed for protection efforts.
International financial secrecy shields multinational corporations from accountability and facilitates environmental criminality, including illegal logging and land conversion.
The report singles out the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation as a historic opportunity to create a sustainable development tax system.
It also cites proposals advanced by Brazil to create a "wealth tax" that could generate an estimated $200 to $500 billion annually.
3. Revising Trade Rules
Current trade policies have fallen short by focusing primarily on limiting trade in illegal wood instead of addressing the expansion of industrial-scale agricultural production, which is the single largest driver of deforestation.
Trade rules reinforce the power of global commodity traders at the expense of local producers, undermining the authority of governments to police harmful practices.
Promising reforms involve shifting agriculture trade policies to prioritize sustainable food systems, smallholder farmers, and resilient ecosystems.
A Necessary Reckoning
"There is an urgent need for leaders at COP30 to acknowledge that we will not make progress in the fight against climate change—especially when it comes to protecting forests—if we don't address the fundamental elements of our economic system that are impeding change," said Kate Horner, co-lead author of the report.
The study argues that aligning climate, biodiversity, and economic goals is possible through these reforms. Dr. Rebecca Ray of Boston University notes that reshaping these economic rules "could relieve pressure to exploit forests to meet short-term obligations, which could have an immediate impact on deforestation levels while freeing up large amounts of money to invest in forests".
The consequences of failure—the continued destruction of the world's remaining forests and a planet on a collision course with climate catastrophe—should be sufficient motivation to act.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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