EU pledges $1.1 billion to protect forests, finance programme for climate innovation

The EU has pledged $1.1 billion to help protect the world's forests and launched a finance programme for breakthrough in climate innovation

The landmark figure was announced by European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen in a speech at the COP 26 summit in Glasgow on Tuesday, reports the CNN.  

Worth one billion euros, the EU Catalyst Programme will finance new technologies and allow them to be used on the ground in Europe.

As a part of the pledge, $290 million will be reserved for the Congo Basin pledge, a fund established to protect the world's second largest tropical rainforest against the threats posed by industrial logging and mining.  

Von der Leyen made an impassioned case for looking after the world's forests, calling their protection "our shared priority."  

This follows a declaration earlier on Tuesday from over 100 leaders -– accounting for more than 86% of the world's forests – to work together to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. 

Not only do forests safeguard the stability of the climate, they also provide an economic and cultural wealth to millions of people around the world, Von der Leyen said.  

A sense of "tradition, culture and craftsmanship" remain "very alive" in forest communities across the globe. The "heritage" of these communities needs to be protected, she stressed. 

"We need to better listen to indigenous communities, producers, consumers and traders. It is crucial for the EU to reduce its "consumption footprint on land and forests around the world," Von der Leyen said. 

To push this forward, the EU will soon propose a regulation designed to address EU-driven global deforestation, according to Von der Leyen.  

US President Joe Biden also made a firm pledge on Tuesday to tackle deforestation, placing it on a par with the decarbonisation of economies.