COP26: Climate change and the other global crisis - nature loss

The destruction of the natural world is the ‘other’ global environmental crisis, but it is entwined with climate change. Global warming is the number-one cause of that destruction, and the loss of forests and other ‘carbon sinks’ is increasing the pace of climate change.

At COP26, world leaders agreed to  halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, pledging  $19 billion in public and private funds. Among the countries to sign up were  Brazil, Indonesia and Democratic Republic of Congo, which collectively account for 85% of the world’s forests.

In this episode we speak to Tabi Joda, a forester in Cameroon who is helping plant the Great Green Wall - reforesting a strip right across the southern edge of the Sahara desert. We hear from Natura, a major cosmetics company on how businesses can make money from forests without destroying them, and Elizabeth Mrema, the head of the UN’s biodiversity convention - the person driving global efforts to protect nature - on a new plan to get companies to report on their impact on the natural world.