Over 100 world leaders vow new drive to save forests at COP26

World leaders meeting at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow will on Tuesday issue a multibillion-dollar pledge to end deforestation by 2030 but that date is too distant for campaigners who want action sooner to save the planet's lungs.

According to summit hosts the British government, the pledge is backed by almost $20 billion in public and private funding and is endorsed by more than 100 leaders representing over 85 percent of the world's forests, including the Amazon rainforest, Canada's northern boreal forest and the Congo Basin rainforest.

Nearly 90 countries have joined a US- and EU-led effort to slash emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, a pact aimed at tackling one of the main causes of climate change, a senior Biden administration official said.

The partnership will be formally launched later on Tuesday.

Methane is the main greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. It has a higher heat-trapping potential than CO2 but breaks down in the atmosphere faster — meaning that cutting methane emissions can have a rapid impact on reining in global warming.

The plan was being announced on Tuesday as President Joe Biden wraps up a two-day appearance at a United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Biden pledged during the summit to work with the European Union and other nations to reduce overall methane emissions worldwide by 30% by 2030.

The Global Methane Pledge, which was first announced in September, now includes half of the top 30 methane emitters accounting for two-thirds of the global economy, according to the Biden administration official.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the agreement on deforestation was pivotal to the overarching ambition of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"These great teeming ecosystems — these cathedrals of nature — are the lungs of our planet," he was expected to say in Glasgow, according to Downing Street.

"Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supply, and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. They are essential to our very survival," said Johnson, who is chairing the summit.

"With today's (Tuesday's) unprecedented pledges, we will have a chance to end humanity's long history as nature's conqueror, and instead become its custodian."

Among the new signatories that will be announced on Tuesday is Brazil — one of the world's five biggest emitters of methane.

China, Russia and India, also top-five methane emitters, have not signed on to the pledge. Those countries were all included on a list identified as targets to join the pledge, previously reported by Reuters.

Since it was first announced in September with a handful of signatories, the United States and European Union have worked to get the world's biggest methane emitters to join the partnership.

There were roughly 60 countries signed up only last week, after a final diplomatic push from the United States and EU ahead of the COP26 summit.

While it is not part of the formal UN negotiations, the methane pledge could rank among the most significant outcomes from the COP26 conference, given its potential impact in holding off disastrous climate change.