You haven’t heard it much in the media, but this election is likely to have large consequences for how the United States, and perhaps the world, addresses climate change. And that is simply because the candidates’ positions contrast sharply on the matter, and because the world has begun an ambitious emissions reduction regime under the Paris climate accord that only one of the candidates wants to continue.

Donald Trump, in an interview with the Washington Post’s editorial board in March, said he is “not a big believer in man-made climate change.” And Trump has said that, if elected, he would “cancel” the Paris Climate Agreement – which enters into force on Friday, Nov 4. He has also stood up strongly for the U.S. fossil fuel industries, and especially the struggling coal sector.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, wants to continue and extend Obama’s climate policies, including striving to reach the U.S.’s Paris Agreement target of cutting the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent or more below 2005 levels by 2025. She also wants to, as she has put it many times, make the U.S. a “clean energy superpower” by stoking growth of the solar and wind industries.

That’s quite a contrast. But at the same time, and as many have noted, the mainstream presidential election discussion of the past two months, and especially the presidential debates, has tended to ignore all of this. (I was fortunate enough to participate in an exception to this trend Wednesday on the “Diane Rehm Show.”)

So let’s look more closely at how it is that Earth’s most momentous and depressing environmental problem has somehow stayed mostly out of what some would say is Earth’s most momentous and depressing election – and what the implications for climate and energy would be, depending on who wins on November 8.

Climate silence?

First let’s think back about two weeks. (I know it’s hard.) Environmentalists, and liberal pundits, were aghast. The third presidential debate had ended, concluding a presidential debate season in which the topic of climate change wasn’t asked about by any of the moderators, and only came up relatively briefly as a Hillary Clinton talking point.

The real subtext here: A lot of people on the left wanted to see Donald Trump try to defend his stance of climate change doubt; even as Clinton prosecuted the case that such a view is denying science, etcetera, and etcetera. Bring popcorn, right?

But I would assert to you that even if it had happened, that would not have been a major moment in this election. Here’s why.

The truth is that, in this race, Hillary Clinton has made much of the climate issue, brought it up repeatedly, campaigned with Al Gore in Florida and linked a changing climate to ferocity of Hurricane Matthew, and much more. That’s far more than President Obama did in 2012. Unlike Obama, apparently, Clinton saw it as a political winner for her, particularly with millennials and Bernie Sanders followers.

All in all, you could argue it’s a very substantial change for the issue of the climate in recent U.S. elections. It’s an elevation and a prioritisation. It’s just that it has happened during a race that has been extremely scandal-focused, extremely negative, and obsessed in all ways with Donald Trump – and that has been a unique aspect of this election.

If Clinton had been running against Marco Rubio, or John Kasich, or Ted Cruz, it’s likely the subject would have come up even more. So as I wrote earlier, in this election, there’s just really “no oxygen left for a serious debate about carbon.”

Climate and energy under a President Clinton

So what might we have heard, if the debates had explored these topics more extensively?

The truth is that we actually kind of know: While energy and environment matters barely came up in the presidential debates, the University of Richmond School of Law recently hosted an energy and environment debate between Clinton and Trump campaign advisers, and it was pretty illuminating. And indeed, there’s a huge gap between the contenders, especially on the existence and seriousness of human-caused climate change, although there are also interesting areas of agreement, like on nuclear power. (For a more thorough rundown of this debate, read Brad Plumer here.)

If Clinton wins, let’s face it: We know it’s going to be more of Obama. This is certainly one case where she represents the status quo.

Under Clinton, we can assume that the Paris process goes full speed ahead, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan advances (assuming it survives its current legal challenges), and much more. Clinton has also made extremely bold clean energy pledges, such as her promise (as her campaign website explains) to, within 10 years, “generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of Hillary’s first term.”

In this scenario, many fascinating questions arise. For instance, it’s far from clear that generating all of our home electricity from intermittent renewables (wind and solar) is going to be feasible, given the nature of power grids and the fact that you can’t always count on the sun shining and the wind blowing. We will have to start asking, for instance, how much wind and solar power can grids handle in the U.S., especially in states like California, and how much will they need to back that up with energy sources that can fire up quickly when renewables slump. Those sources could be either natural gas, or, in the future, enormous grid batteries.

Another major question will depend not only on whether Clinton is elected president, but also the composition of the Senate and the House, and therefore, what is politically feasible. But the truth is that a centrist policy consensus has been emerging in recent years on how to fix climate change, in the wake of the political failure of cap-and-trade early in the Obama years.

Let’s not forget that the EPA’s Clean Power Plan arose in a context in which it seemed impossible for Obama to actually get a piece of major climate legislation through Congress. But beyond EPA regulatory action, there seems to be general agreement, especially among economists, on the need to set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. This would likely take the form of what is known as a revenue-neutral carbon tax, in which emissions are taxed but that revenue to the government is offset with tax reductions elsewhere, or paid back to citizens in the form of dividends.

The question is whether Clinton would pursue such a policy, if she finds herself with a Congress at all favorable to it. And it’s important to note that this is closely tied to another key energy question: What happens to two key low carbon energy sources – nuclear power and coal plants that have been designed so that their emissions can be captured and stored underground (so-called “carbon capture and storage”) – which many analysts believe will be needed to supplement wind and solar. Both electricity sources have been struggling – and both would be more competitively priced with a tax on carbon.

The politics of taxing carbon could get pretty interesting, as we see in Washington State, which has a carbon tax on the ballot as an initiative and actually, we’re seeing that some environmentalists and denizens of the political left are uncomfortable with it. One key divisive issue is the revenue-neutrality: These groups would like to use emissions reductions policies to also promote clean energy investments, rather than return revenues to taxpayers.

“If it passes, it’s going to be important, it’s going to be path-breaking, it’s going to set an example that will get attention in other states and importantly in Washington, D.C.,” Dallas Burtraw, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, told me recently of the Washington state carbon tax push. But if that push fails, it may suggest that even the coalition of interest groups behind climate action is too fractious for certain policy approaches. So we’ll have to very closely watch this initiative and how it fares.

Finally, if Clinton is elected, perhaps the biggest battle is going to be over natural gas and fossil fuel infrastructure, as she draws pressure from the left and the anti-fracking crowd, which believes that the transition away from fossil fuels has to be super fast and that even relying on lower-emitting natural gas is a luxury we can’t afford. “The climate movement has to elect Hillary Clinton – and then give her hell,” writes the movement leader and journalist Bill McKibben.

Because of this push, we can expect continuing debates over whether or not natural gas is a “bridge fuel,” and how much fugitive methane emissions undermine that role, and whether regulating those away will be enough. In general, the question of methane – how much we’re emitting from fossil fuels, as opposed to from other sectors, like agriculture, and how much that matters – will continue to be a major debate in coming years, in significant part because the issues here remain more uncertain than are those surrounding the principal greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

Thus, under Clinton, we should expect the U.S. executive branch to take every step that it can to try to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and advance the global climate process – but we should also expect a series of hard questions to arise when it comes to the precise nature of the transition to less carbon-intensive energy in the U.S., and what that means for natural gas, nuclear energy, and just maybe, a cleaner way of burning coal.

It’s worth noting, incidentally, that this runs in an interesting parallel to what other countries that are committed in a major way to grappling with climate change through their energy systems, like Germany, are now facing.

Climate and energy questions in a Trump presidency

Trump is expected to try to withdraw from, or simply not participate in, the Paris process. One question is precisely how Trump would attempt to extricate the U.S., given that the agreement will be in force and its language states that a party cannot withdraw for three years, followed by a one-year waiting period. A lot of analysts have spun out scenarios for how this would occur.

In a video, Trump energy adviser Kevin Cramer, a U.S. representative from North Dakota, argued that a Trump administration would submit the agreement for ratification to the Senate – something the Obama administration argues is not required for this type of agreement – and that it would likely fail there. Yet it isn’t clear what happens in this case, since the U.S. has already, in an international context, formally joined the accord.

Legal points aside, it’s pretty obvious that a Trump administration could simply fail to participate in the Paris process – just not engage – and there’s not much that the world could do about that, other than very loudly disapprove. At that point, a key question would be whether there is so much global perception of urgency that we would see other nations move forward anyway, even without the United States, with the hope of waiting out a Trump administration and banking at least some emissions cuts in the meantime.

Meanwhile, back at home, Trump has repeatedly pledged to try to help the domestic coal industry. And an enormous question is how he would actually go about doing that. Given that Trump has tended to misdiagnose that industry’s problems – pinning them rather exclusively on EPA regulations, rather than also crediting the surge in competition from natural gas, which has changed the economics for utility companies – it’s not clear that he could succeed.

Interestingly, Trump often talks about “clean coal.” And it’s true that the climate concerns about burning coal would lessen greatly if large percentages of the emissions were being captured and sequestered in some way, but the industry just isn’t ready to do that at a large scale at this point. Would Trump invest further in clean coal technology and even consider carbon pricing, to help carbon capture-and-storage compete?

Trump would also presumably try to thwart the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, if it survives the courts – though it’s not entirely clear how that scenario plays out either. Based on some analyses of what this would look like, it sounds like most courses of inaction, such as trying to create a new and different regulation that would be weaker, or failing to enforce the plan, would probably end up with environmental groups suing the EPA and throwing matters to the courts.

But let’s remember that the compliance period under the Clean Power Plan doesn’t start until 2022 anyway. And renewables and natural gas have so much momentum right now that U.S. emissions could actually continue to decline without it ever taking effect – perhaps even more so if electric vehicles continue the kind of growth we’ve been seeing.

After all, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have been declining during the Obama years, without any Clean Power Plan in place, in part because of more burning of natural gas and also, increasingly, more renewables:

To see why renewables could advance even under Trump, consider the state of Texas, a state that regularly votes Republican in presidential elections, but also leads all of the United States in the amount of wind energy generating capacity that it has installed. And in fact it’s not even close: Texas has over 18 gigawatts (or billion watts) of wind capacity right now, with another five on the way. The second two states, Iowa and California, were around five to six gigawatts.

So it’s quite possible that Trump could come into office, reject climate change, reject the international climate process, and we could still actually see U.S. emissions tick down at least somewhat over the course of four years, thanks simply to the free market and technology.

Granted, it’s dubious this would be at a rate that would match Paris climate targets, or anything like what Clinton would achieve by actively trying to produce such an outcome. And given that the world is in urgent need to ramp up its pace of emissions cuts, those differences could have major implications for international climate cooperation (to say nothing of the physical climate system).

And there’s perhaps one more thing to point out. Today we’re seeing a pretty dramatic conflict over a piece of fossil fuel infrastructure: the Dakota Access Pipeline. In recent years a “keep it in the ground” movement has arisen that has increasingly targeted such projects. Under Trump, it seems likely that such demonstrations would increase, perhaps markedly, as a lack of climate action through policy would spur more attempts to push climate action through protests.

Most of all, we should expect climate change to be a far more salient political issue under a Trump presidency – a major source of sharp conflict – simply because of the obvious high-profile political and international conflagrations that would ensue if he keeps his campaign pledges.

Oh, and one more thing: We’ve had a run of very hot years lately, but we can also expect that the years of the next presidency will likely keep pace with the warmth of the 2010s so far – if not bringing still more records.

In that case, maybe by 2020, a debate moderator would indeed ask about climate change.

This article draws on remarks Chris Mooney gave on Oct. 31 at the 2016 annual meeting of the National Association of Science Writers.

By Chris Mooney (The Washington Post)

As the Paris Agreement enters into force on Friday (November 4, 2016), Patricia Espinosa, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, and Salaheddine Mezouar, President of COP22 and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Kingdom of Morocco, say that while the world can celebrate a new dawn, it is also a moment to look ahead with sober assessment

Humanity will look back on November 4, 2016, as the day that countries of the world shut the door on inevitable climate disaster and set off with determination towards a sustainable future.

The Paris Climate Change Agreement – the result of the most complex, comprehensive and critical international climate negotiation ever attempted – comes into force today.

The Agreement is undoubtedly a turning point in the history of common human endeavor, capturing the combined political, economic and social will of governments, cities, regions, citizens, business and investors to overcome the existential threat of unchecked climate change.

Its early entry into force is a clear political signal that all the nations of the world are devoted to decisive global action on climate change.

Next week’s UN climate change conference in Marrakech represents a new departure for the international community, and the first meeting of the Paris Agreement’s governing body, known as the CMA, will take place during it on November 15.

This is a moment to celebrate. It is also a moment to look ahead with sober assessment and renewed will over the task ahead.

In a short time – and certainly in the next 15 years – we need to see unprecedented reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and unequalled efforts to build societies that can resist rising climate impacts.

The timetable is pressing because globally greenhouse gas emissions which drive climate change and its impacts are not yet falling – a fact which the Marrakech meeting must have at the front of its concerns and collective resolve.

The World Meteorological Organisation has now confirmed that the average global concentration in the atmosphere of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, reached the symbolic and significant milestone of 400 parts per million for the first time in 2015 and broke new records in 2016.

This means that the world is not nearly on track to meet the Paris Agreement’s primary goal to limit global warming well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible to prevent dangerous climate tipping points, beyond which we may lose the ability to control the outcome.

Paris delivered a gift of hope for every man, woman and child on the planet. Yet today’s celebration can also rest on the assurance that the policies, technology and finance to achieve these goals not only exist, but are being deployed as never before.

The Paris Agreement swept into force on an unprecedented wave of action and pledges to build a global renewable energy industry, clean up existing power, production, construction and agricultural sectors and re-engineer economies and societies to be more resilient to the climate impacts already in the system.

Our collective ability to enact rapid change has changed for good because of the Paris Agreement, and particularly for the following reasons:

• In Paris, Governments formally accepted to lead climate action and presented a global set of national plans for immediate action, pledging never to lower efforts and to raise their ambition over time. They are now accountable and have the means to drive change even faster through more, stronger, climate-friendly policies and incentives.
• Within a few short years – ideally no later than 2018 – governments and parties will have completed the details of a rulebook which will measure, account for and review global climate action. This will ensure transparency on all sides needed to accelerate climate action by making sure that everyone is involved in the effort and is delivering to the best of their abilities.
• Furthermore, Governments agreed to strengthen adequate technology and financial support to developing nations so they can build their own sustainable, clean energy futures.
• Finally and importantly, non-party stakeholders are showing increased interest and commitment to lowering the carbon emissions and supporting governments and parties in their fight against the dire effects of climate change.

We expect the Marrakech COP 22 conference to accelerate work on the rulebook and to see emerge a definable pathway for developed countries to materialise the flow of $100 billion per year by 2020 in support of climate action by developing ones.

Very large-scale reallocations of investment are necessary. UN estimates show that achieving sustainable development will require $5-7 trillion a year, a large slice of which must fund the transition to a low-carbon, resilient world economy. To fulfill these investment needs, we will need to look at creative funding options, beyond the traditional ones and in which both public and private sector flows are aligned and scaled-up.

This, too, is happening but needs to speed up. UN data show global financial flows over the past few years ratcheting up to the point where one trillion dollars a year should be achievable in the near future. This means governments, the multilateral and the private sector raising and allocating tens of billions of dollars at a time towards climate investments.

The foundations of the Paris Agreement are solid and other key features of humanity’s new home are starting to rise. Yet, we cannot and we must not rest until the roof is in place. This November in Marrakech we will make sure it will be in place, sooner rather than later.

Dr Godwin Uyi Ojo, Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) in an address at the opening of the group’s National Environmental Congress in Abuja on Thursday (November 3, 2016), urges the government to eschew its false step towards diversification and, instead, break free from fossils

Our nation is passing through trying times. Will this country overcome as a nation? The economy, we are told, is in recession due to sliding oil prices. Yet, every day, the media is awash with reports of monumental corruption, wastage and unbridled abuse of the commonwealth. Nigerians are suddenly at a loss about the paradox of a nation so rich, yet so poor. Nigerians now ask questions without expecting answers because no one is providing any. How did we get into this trap?  How did Nigeria end up in the resource course conundrum? There exist strong nexus between natural resource governance, corruption, wastage, violent conflicts and wanton destruction of the environment, be it in the Niger Delta, the middle belt, the south west, and the east or in northern Nigeria. The connecting thread is that the environment sustains and nurtures us hence it must be managed in a sustainable manner.

Break Free From Fossils

The oil dependent economy fuels corruption and wastage and contributes to climate change hence the national and global call to break free from fossils. Indeed, Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves make it the 10^th most petroleum-rich nation. Natural gas reserves are well over 187 trillion ft³ (2,800 km³), three times as substantial as the crude oil reserves which stands at 37.2 billion barrels (5.91×109 m3) as of 2011. Nigeria is also endowed with a variety of precious metals such as Barites, Gypsum, Kaolin and Marble.

Despite cheap revenue from oil, vast agricultural lands, and solid minerals spread across the entire landscape, the country has found itself in a cul-de-sac due to resource mismanagement, corruption, lack of foresight total disregard of the environment and the relegation of local communities and local livelihoods to the background.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently made startling revelations about funds meant to redeem the environment are stolen outright.  Between 2011 and 2015, over N432 billion received from the Ecological Funds  were  pilfered by some governors. The EFCC and Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) say that the Ecological Funds were diverted to other use by many of the ex-governors of states affected by environmental disasters and the livelihoods and lives of their people in need of dire attention. The states include Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kogi, and Enugu. Others are Delta, Cross River, Plateau, Benue, Jigawa, Ondo, Sokoto and Abia states.

False Steps Towards Diversification

The recurrent jingo in government circles these days is economic diversification yet there is no clear blueprint to achieving this. It is sad that, rather than look towards sustainable resource management, the government is looking the way of another round of reckless extraction of natural resource. This government, through its new National Policy on Solid Minerals, said it would commence full extraction of Bitumen, Nikkei and just everything under the earth. A break from fossil has indeed become the option for sustainable development and as a response to climate change. By favouring large scale agribusiness and encouraging land grabbing, local farmers are displaced, leading to food production and supply deficit in our local staples. We want to caution that the environment, local communities and sustainable pathway is key to avoid another circle of resource jinx.

Long Wait For CHANGE

Just few days ago, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, disclosed that the federal government would increase the penalty for gas flaring, and end the obnoxious practice by 2020. Speaking at the 10th International Conference and Exhibition of the Nigerian Gas Association in Abuja, Kachikwu stated that the hike in penalty would be driven by the National Gas Flare Commercialisation Programnme which would commence in the first quarter of 2017.

The government said there are $51 billion investment opportunities in gas processing and transmission and general infrastructure development, noting that $35.4 billion of the opportunities exist in flare gas commercialisation, gas exploration and production, and virtual pipeline, among others. Kachikwu added that $16 billion investment opportunities are expected from Free Trade Zones infrastructure development and concessioning of gas transmission pipelines and Liquefied Petroleum Plants, among others.

Flares-for-Cash Is No Solution

While this might seems a welcome development, it should be stated that gas flaring is illegal by virtue of a 2005 High Court judgment which has not been appealed or repealed till date. Flares-for-cash is a false solution. Ending gas flaring has been a moving target with over a dozen times and government demonstrating less than feeble attempt at enforcement. Government requires the political will to act to contend with corporate impunity and maintain our national sovereignty.

While corruption thrives, the environment suffers. The Federal Government flagged off the clean-up of Ogoni communities but once the cameras lights went, nothing has been heard. There is no holistic plan and no funds from the initial $1 billion has been released. The entire Niger Delta clean up would require a clean-up fund of $100 billion. Shoreline communities are sinking. Tremors are more frequent. Whole communities have lost their ancestral homes to erosion. The Sahel is losing its flora. thereby driving the herdsmen southwards.

What responses have we gotten from our policy makers? It does appear that that CHANGE we need in resource governance and environmental management has not come.

Let’s transit from oil dependency to renewables alternatives of community controlled energy systems. Let’s protect the environment, because the environment is our life.

Decision-makers gathering in Marrakech, Morocco for the UN’s Climate summit (COP22) next week have been asked to act with the urgency commensurate with recent climate-related events – from Hurricane Andrew to record-breaking carbon emissions – which are causing significant human, economic and environmental harm.

The Climate Investment Fund (CIF), which made the submission in a statement, emphasised that the entry into force of the Paris Climate Agreement underscores the global efforts to embrace a low-carbon, climate-resilient world.

According to the CIF, the Paris Agreement compels political and financial leaders to move from the intention of global agreements to the implementation of sustainable development plans and commit financing for a climate-smart groundswell. The funds needed amount to trillions, not billions, it adds.

“The private sector – many of whom are already factoring climate change into their business models, investment decisions and disclosure statements – will play a crucial role in driving climate-smart investments. Private sector capital can be attracted by targeted concessional or de-risking public financing which lowers costs and crowds in new partners,” spokesperson Susan Tonassi, said in the statement.

She notes that, despite progress, current climate financing available falls far short of national climate plans (or NDCs) laid out by countries as part of the Paris Climate Agreement. Over the next 15 years, based on preliminary NDC analysis, sub-Sahara Africa alone will need about $1.8 trillion for mitigation, including clean energy access, and another 500 billion for adaption investments, stresses Ms Tonassi.

The CIF is believed to be the largest source of below-market-rates and de-risking climate finance to Africa, with $2.8 billion allocated to the region. This funding, according to the organisation, is essential to unlock climate-smart investments in renewable energy, forestry and adaptation. In Africa, for every CIF dollar, another $9 is being invested by others.

In Morocco, the CIF is supporting the Noor Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) complex – the world’s largest and so big it can be seen from space – to achieve over 500 megawatts (MW) installed capacity, reduce carbon emissions by 760,000 tons per year and provide clean energy to 1.1 million households. The CIF has channeled $435 million towards the plant, alongside about $3 billion from other multilateral and private investors.

Also, the CIF is providing $90 million for renewable energy mini-grid projects in Mali, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Ghana, allowing energy access to hundreds of thousands of people. With $110 million in CIF backing, Niger has developed a climate-resilient economic growth plan which supports, among others, community-led projects such as rehabilitating 60 hectares of pastoral land.

Financing needs are much larger than available public resources and therefore trillions of private capital should be unlocked with innovative green financial products. Based on the value added of the CIF model, the fund is currently exploring options for a new financing vehicle that will bring a unique value proposition to the capital markets for investments in resilient, low-carbon growth in developing economies.

Commitment and investments are key to avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable, adds the CIF.

History will be made at the 22nd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) holding in Marrakech, Morocco as, for the first time, both the Facilitative Sharing of Views (FSV) for developing country Parties and the Multilateral Assessment (MA) for developed country Parties will be conducted during the same Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) session.

Both of these forums, which are open to all Parties and observers, allow Parties to engage in interactive discussions regarding their climate change mitigation actions and their associated effects.

The SBI also advises the COP on budgetary and administrative matters.

In Marrakech, seven developing country Parties will undergo FSV, after successfully completing and submitting their biennial update reports (BURs) earlier this year, as well as participating in the technical analysis for their BURs. The FSV workshop provides a unique opportunity to developing country Parties to showcase their efforts to implement climate action and also share the challenges encountered in the process, in a transparent, constructive and positive interaction with other Parties. It also allows developing countries to present the identified support needed to implement their mitigation actions and enhance their MRV framework.

During the MA, 24 developed country Parties will be assessed, focusing on the progress in achieving their 2020 quantified economy-wide emission reduction targets. Inputs for the discussion during this SBI session include Parties’ biennial reports, annual greenhouse gas inventories, and relevant technical reports.

The FSV will take place on 10 and 11 November 2016, and the MA will take place on 12 and 14 November 2016. Both of these forums will be webcast.

More information can be found here (for FSV) and here (for MA).

Four hundred and fifteen companies have more than 700 supply chain commitments addressing mostly palm oil and timber; fewer focus on cattle, the primary driver of deforestation, and soy

On the eve of the Paris Agreement’s entrance into force, the first report to show the global “state of play” of private sector efforts to sustainably produce and source raw materials for countless products – from floorboards to ice cream – finds that companies worldwide have started to make good on promises to eliminate forest destruction from their supply chains.

Released by a coalition of leading think tanks and research organisations, the report analyses 600 companies engaged in the production of the big four globally traded commodities responsible for 40 percent of deforestation – palm oil, wood, cattle and soy. It finds that companies are already taking concrete steps to scrutinise their supply chains while corporate forest protection commitments continue to surge – since December 2015, 108 companies made 212 commitments. However, it cautions that, across the board, commitments are not time-bound and progress is mixed on implementation.

The report is part of a multi-year effort to track progress on the 10 goals laid out in the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), a pledge by 190 national governments, sub-national governments, multi-national companies, indigenous groups and NGOs to halve natural forest loss by 2020 and end it by 2030. The assessment provides new, concrete details about action companies along the entire supply chain – from farmers and loggers to manufacturers and retailers – are taking to end the loss of forests, which store carbon and emit it when destroyed. Meeting the New York Declaration’s 10 goals – which call for both forest protection and restoration, key tactics for tackling climate change identified in the Paris Agreement – would cut between 4.5-8.8 billion tons of carbon pollution each year, which is as much as the United States’ current emissions.

“Tomorrow, as the Paris Agreement comes into force, nearly 200 governments shift focus from climate commitments to action,” said Charlotte Streck, co-founder and director of Climate Focus, a climate change think tank that led development of the report. “We need this same shift in corporate sustainability commitments. But action has to be fast as natural forests are still disappearing at an alarming rate, posing the risk that supply chains may only become ‘deforestation-free’ once forests are gone.”

“What we now need, if forests and the climate are to be saved, is action on commodities with the biggest forest impacts, and an increase in partnerships between companies and governments, and among retailers, traders and producers that pool resources to save forests,” continued Streck.

From using satellites to monitor forest loss to training cocoa farmers to grow sustainable crops, the report highlights innovative private sector strategies designed to keep forests in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa standing. It also sheds light on the barriers and setbacks facing companies as they attempt to translate their ambitious pledges into actual impact on deforestation. In doing so, the report provides evidence of how this sector is seeking to implement sustainability commitments.

The report aggregates, cross-references and interprets data from a range of data sources that dive deep into corporate practices and forest-floor developments to provide the most comprehensive assessment of corporate supply chain commitments to date. Drawing on and consolidating data from 12 initiatives by leading think tanks and research organizations engaged in monitoring forest commitments and incorporating insight from original interviews with corporate sustainability officers, this year’s report focuses on Goal 2 of the New York Declaration on Forests, which calls on companies to end deforestation associated with the production of key agricultural commodities. A second report released at the same time provides an update on all ten goals of the New York Declaration on Forests.

In providing a snapshot of the status of these commitments across 600 companies, the Goal 2 report reveals:

• Implementation has begun. Almost all companies assessed in the report have put their commitments into motion. Between 84-87 percent have identified if and where their operations put forests at risk. And most companies (56-70 percent of producers, processors and trades and 64-87 percent of retailers and manufacturers) have established rules about how goods are produced and sourced that are in line with their commitments. Most companies use certification–where available and tested as a strategy for sourcing sustainable goods.
• Progress is (too) gradual. The report cautions that commitments are piecemeal. Nearly all company commitments only address one commodity or a specific geography. Only 43-10 percent – of the 415 companies with commitments have set company-wide targets that cover all commodities relevant to the company’s portfolio.
• Soy and cattle lag. Nearly 60 percent of the companies that source or produce palm oil and 53 percent of those engaged in wood have made commodity specific commitments. For soy (21 percent) and cattle (12 percent), the proportion of companies with commitments is considerably lower. “Only 12 percent of cattle companies engaged in cattle rearing, which feeds our appetite for beef and leather, have commitments in place,” Streck said. “Raising cattle is one of the leading causes of deforestation, but it’s difficult for the sector to make commitments as cows change hands multiple times over their lifespans. Tracing deforestation to the specific animal is a major challenge.” Brazil has nonetheless made some progress on efforts to remove deforestation from beef and soy production, the report suggests. This progress is often achieved not through commitments, but through collaborations among producers, the government and NGOs. In the Brazilian State of Pará, for example, nearly 90 percent of federally inspected slaughterhouses have signed agreements with Greenpeace that commit them to avoiding the purchase of cattle from ranches that contribute to deforestation. And Brazil’s Soy Moratorium is a public-private initiative that has led to drastic reductions in deforestation.
• Focus on forest hotspots. Encouragingly, more than 90 percent of the commitments come from companies sourcing or producing from deforestation hotspots in Southeast Asia, South America and West Africa. Of these, 32 percent target Brazil, 32 percent focus on Indonesia, 26 percent address Malaysia and 10 percent deal with Paraguay.
• Western companies dominate. Nearly 90 percent of deforestation commitments come from companies based in North America, Europe and Australia. Corporations in emerging markets are lagging behind their western counterparts, the report says. The report includes notable exceptions: palm oil and timber producers and processors in Southeast Asia – such as Musim Mas and Asia Pulp and Paper – and meat processors and slaughterhouses in Brazil have engaged in forest protection efforts.
• Suppliers and producers less committed. Significantly, the players who operate closest to the forest floor – such as producers, processors and traders – have fewer commitments than companies “downstream,” such as manufacturers and retailers. Only 17 percent of producers, 20 percent of processors and 13 percent of traders have commitments. This is in contrast to 67 percent of manufacturers and 30 percent of retailers. Here, too, palm oil companies in Southeast Asia and meat processors in Brazil offer examples of “upstream” corporate commitments. “While engagement of companies higher up in the supply chain is significant, it is the actions from companies directly involved in production that show the greatest impact on deforestation,” Streck said.
• Transparency is key. About half of the companies examined don’t publicly disclose their successes or shortcomings in adhering to their own sustainability policies. In interviews, companies said that compliance with their deforestation policies range from between 50 and 100 percent. However, a lack of specific details about compliance makes independent monitoring of implementation efforts a sticking point, the report finds.
• Monitoring is difficult. Most companies have monitoring systems in place that enable them to trace their commodities along part of the supply chain. But they said in interviews that tracing these commodities – particularly soy and palm oil – all the way back to the farm level is challenging. About a third of the companies interviewed have a system in place for monitoring compliance along the entire supply chain. These include satellite mapping systems that provide up-to-date information and quickly expose sources of deforestation. “Ultimately, it is not pledges, but realising those pledges that will end deforestation,” Streck said. “Implementation and monitoring are key. More action by both public and private sector players – and sooner – is needed to have a meaningful impact on deforestation by 2020 and to ultimately end it by 2030.”

Companies can’t do it alone

The report identifies the four stages companies go through to realise their commitments. Companies first adopt supply chain commitments, and then implement these commitments through company policies and operational plans. To successfully realise these plans, companies need the firm support of governments, non-supply chain private actors such as financial institutions, and NGOs. Finally, companies must determine the overall impact of their efforts on deforestation.

Governments, in particular, the report finds, are essential for helping companies to deliver on their forest commitments. For example, companies interviewed for the report said that poor land-use planning, weak law enforcement and insufficient monitoring and accountability systems in forest countries where they operate make it difficult for them to achieve their goals.

“The private sector can’t deforest alone; some governments enable deforestation by making it possible for companies to do so without impunity,” Streck said. “Governments must get a firm grip on what’s happening in their forests, establish policies that keep illegal activity at bay and protect the rights of indigenous and local communities to avoid land conflicts so that businesses can operate on the ground without risk.”

Tackling deforestation in Indonesia and Brazil, the report asserts, is most urgent, due to a spike in forest fires in Indonesia (associated with the production of palm oil and timber) and a recent increase in deforestation in Brazil (due to soy and cattle production). The report finds that Southeast Asia has the highest rates of deforestation in the period 2010-2014 (Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Laos). Most of the forest loss there is linked to palm oil, timber and, more recently, rubber.

Deforestation is also on an upswing in West Africa. In Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Cameroon, deforestation rates have more than doubled or tripled from 2001 to 2009. The expansion of palm oil, sugar and cocoa is leading to forest loss.

Some companies are choosing to work with only those countries showing a commitment to eliminating deforestation. In 2015, for example, Unilever and Marks & Spencer committed to preferential sourcing from the 50 tropical forest countries engaged in the reduction of deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) – a policy included in the Paris Agreement.

Twelve think tanks and research organisations contributed to the two reports: CDP, Climate Focus, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Forest Trends, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC), Global Canopy Programme (GCP), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Rainforest Alliance, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), World Resources Institute (WRI) and Global Forest Watch.