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Negotiations in Poland at the focused on a set of decisions required to operationalise the Paris Agreement – the – amid recent and on climate change and the urgency for greater levels of ambition to tackle it. During COP24, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ mobilised its unique convening power to bring members and partners together to showcase how nature-based solutions, such as the forest landscape restoration approach, are available and essential strategies for achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement – aimed at limiting global average temperature increase to well below 2ËšC, while increasing the ability of countries to adapt through low-greenhouse gas emissions and climate resilient development.

Building low carbon and climate resilient landscapes

In collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme, WWF, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the government of Norway, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ took the lead in organising the Marrakesh Partnership event on forests and land: . This event brought together for the first time under the , a joint discussion on climate action in the forests and land use sector, demonstrating a shift in global narratives toward the importance of integrated nature-based solutions to climate change.

By recognising the complex nature of the governance transformations needed to reduce emissions and enhance land-based carbon sequestration through changing the way we manage our land, and produce and consume food and other land-use-based commodities, the event brought together experts and high-level representatives from the public and private sectors to reflect on progress toward achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the .

The event showcased encouraging initiatives:

• The State of Yucatan, Mexico, has begun implementing an investment plan to tackle forest loss and degradation through public-private partnerships.
• Through the , Ghana is already catalysing public-private collaboration in partnership with Cote d’Ivoire and 30 companies to halt deforestation from cocoa production throughout forest and agricultural landscapes.
• El Salvador continues to champion forest landscape restoration, demonstrating how nature-based solutions can maximise synergies between mitigation and adaptation while simultaneously meeting its commitments under the and the . Improved territorial planning and cross-sectoral coordination under the Ecosystem and Landscapes Restoration Roundtable have allowed El Salvador to bring over 108,000 hectares of degraded lands into restoration with mitigation benefits of over 531,321 tCO2e sequestered through improved land uses, and enhanced resilience in over 30,000 hectares of key biodiversity areas.
• Indigenous peoples’ representatives from the Amazon Basin are engaging in the , bringing concrete understanding in their roles to collaborate with national governments for implementing (NDCs).
• In Argentina, the Regional Consortium for Agriculture is uniting over 2000 producers to partner with Buenos Aires, other municipalities, banks, universities, and global companies like Patagonia to decrease emissions from production, and to incentivise others to increase their climate ambitions.
• The World Farmers Organization launched a climate change action plan, confirming their member organisations’ commitments to multi-stakeholder approaches to guide climate action by farmers.

Forest landscape restoration and climate change ambitionÌý Ìý

As part of the ’s thematic event, Climate Action in the Landscape, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ led a discussion forum that brought together representatives from the public and private sectors to discuss progress, opportunities and challenges to advancing nature-based solutions and forest landscape restoration as part of their efforts to meet the global objectives of the Paris Agreement. Drawing from their experience in developing climate change mitigation strategies under REDD+, Ecuador and El Salvador reflected on the role of nature-based solutions and the restoration of forest landscapes in their future NDCs, while considering the needs, opportunities and remaining barriers for the definition of science-based, actionable and measurable targets towards meeting the of the Paris Agreement.

All speakers underscored the importance of trade-offs between land uses across landscapes in a comprehensive and integrated manner, not only for policy alignment, but for developing optimal transition and business models for low-emissions, and resilient food and commodity production systems. Understanding trade-offs is also essential for leveraging blended finance to scale-up land-use transformations like forest landscape restoration, as emphasised by when reflecting on the case of cocoa production under the Cocoa and Forests Initiative in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.

Link to the

It was widely acknowledged that improving national capacities to fully capture the carbon storage and carbon sequestration potential of the land sector beyond reduced deforestation – to include land uses that provide nature-based solutions like forest landscape restoration – will be essential for the definition of more ambitious, science-based and actionable land-based targets in 2020 NDCs.

Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ will continue to work with its members and partners to highlight the value of nature-based solutions as a logical component of efforts for fulfilling the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

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For a complete summary of Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥â€™s climate change engagement, see Climate Change Bulletin 2018 Ìý

Article contributors: Maria Garcia Espinosa andÌýCorbett Nash