The 28^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will bring together diverse private sector leaders at a pivotal moment for action on climate change. Over the course of 2023, climate change impacts have accelerated in dramatic and sometimes unexpected ways.

American Forests is an official UN-accredited observer to the COP process and will be represented by President and CEO Jad Daley in a range of Blue Zone events as well as side convenings led by the media, philanthropies and others. Daley issued the following statement outlining American Forests’ goals and priorities for this pivotal COP:

“With the pace of climate change accelerating rapidly toward dangerous tipping points, we must also accelerate the deployment of every climate solution that can help to reduce greenhouse gases and protect people and wildlife from climate change impacts.

American Forests has come to COP28 to make the case that reforestation in all forms – from urban forestry and agroforestry to restoration of native forests across iconic natural landscapes – must be a central part of this rapid move to scale on all climate solutions.

The science is irrefutable: while forests alone cannot solve climate change, nature-based carbon sequestration is a must-have piece of any winning climate strategy alongside actions to reduce greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels and other sources. Further, we cannot equitably and effectively protect communities without better distributing the protective services that trees provide such as natural cooling, filtering air pollution, and regulating water flows.

Reforestation in all forms, from direct seeding and tree planting to assisting natural regeneration, is one of the most effective ways to increase the contribution of forests to combatting climate change. As we enter COP28 on the heels of record-setting heat and wildfires in 2023, two forms of reforestation are particularly urgent for global climate goals.

First, nations must commit to dramatically increase tree cover in cities and towns as a way to equitably and efficiently combat the climate impacts of extreme heat. Using trees in tandem with air conditioning to cool our communities will save lives and sequester carbon while reducing air conditioning load in ways that substantially lower home energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions from using AC.

The recent World Forum on Urban Forests revealed a nascent movement and growing interest around the world to bring Tree Equity to cities by planting and caring for trees in lower income neighborhoods and communities of color where they are systemically lacking. This equity focus assures that the natural cooling benefits of urban trees reach those people most at risk from extreme heat and least able to access or afford air conditioning as a defense.

We are proud that the United States government is leading by example with an unprecedented $1.5 billion investment through the Inflation Reduction Act, providing grants that will help city governments and frontline community organizations alike to create equitable tree cover in their communities. American Forests is seeking to help other nations follow suit by expanding our data-driven Tree Equity Score to other nations as guide for this kind of public investment and we look forward to discussing this as participants in the first-ever Local Climate Action Summit that will be part of COP28.

Secondly, we must confront together the reality that climate change is killing and burning our forests with alarming speed and intensity just when we most need forests to help fight climate change. If we fail to keep pace with reforestation in these damaged areas, we will rapidly erode the sequestration power of our forests as a carbon sink and lose other critical benefits forest landscapes provide such as filtering water supplies and providing habitat.

That’s why we must urgently step-up reforestation of severely burned lands and other degraded forests and do this work using specially selected tree species, genetics and reforestation techniques designed for long-term resilience and sustained biological diversity in a changing climate. American Forests has helped to pioneer these techniques, synthesizing climate science and traditional ecological knowledge, and we are eager to learn and share with other actors at COP on these critical details of reforestation done right for climate resilience and biodiversity.

The U.S. government has already set the scene, showing the way with billions of dollars in new public investment provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act to reforest America’s treasured public lands using this rigorous reforestation approach for resilience and biodiversity. We also commend the many other nations in the Forest and Climate Leaders Partnership who have made large-scale reforestation commitments. As co-chair of the 1t.org US Chapter, we will help align our more than 100 private, public and NGO member organizations to help the U.S. Government and other nations to implement these historic reforestation efforts.

We do not have a moment to lose when it comes to climate and we embrace the COP28 theme that we must “unite, act and deliver.” American Forests looks forward to engaging with other COP actors to make COP28 a springboard for rapid acceleration on reforestation and other forest-climate strategies deployed the right way. Throughout my time in Dubai, I will be championing the countless benefits of nature-based solutions and the critical need for nations to invest in the vital green infrastructure of trees and forests with an urgency that meets the moment.”