COP30 report finds nations favor land-based carbon removal over real emission cuts, risking progress on global climate goals.
A new analysis of national climate strategies, unveiled today at the COP30 summit in Brazil, reveals a troubling global trend: countries are falling far short in the critical effort to cut emissions by stopping and reversing deforestation and forest degradation. ()
Relying on Tree-Planting Alone Won’t Offset Forest Carbon Losses
Instead of prioritizing proven, land-based solutions, many governments are increasingly leaning on unrealistic carbon-removal proposals—most notably large-scale tree-planting schemes that cannot compensate for the massive carbon losses caused by ongoing forest destruction.
The report warns that these “paper solutions” risk diverting attention, funding, and political will away from the hard but essential work of protecting existing forests, which remain one of the world’s most effective natural defenses against climate change.
Land Gap 2025: Why Countries Overestimate Land-Based Carbon Solutions
The Land Gap 2025 report, led by the University of Melbourne alongside a global consortium of experts, explains why countries are relying on impractical levels of land-based efforts to achieve net-zero emissions, rather than pursuing more realistic climate solutions that involve protecting existing forests and phasing out fossil fuels.
While forest advocates often link the lack of action to a lack of finance for forest protection, authors say the real impediment is a global system that pits economic development against preservation.
Lead author, University of Melbourne Dr. Kate Dooley, explained the new report outlines a series of reforms, many of which are already underway, that can resolve this fundamental conflict and align critical climate and biodiversity goals with economic goals.
“Why are so many countries ignoring forest protection as a key pillar of climate targets? The answer is that they live in a world where heavy sovereign debt burdens and industry-friendly tax and trade policies force many of them to exploit forests to keep their economies from crashing,” Dr Dooley said.
“Yet the bitter irony is that, over the long-term, healthy forests are essential to healthy economies due to the climate benefits, job opportunities and ecosystem services they provide.”
The 2025 Land Gap covers climate pledges from all countries, with updates based on new submissions to the United Nation’s climate secretariat leading up to COP30 (as of Oct 31, 2025), including climate plans known as “nationally determined contributions,” or NDCs, and long-term strategies for 2050.
The report identified two essential flaws in national climate plans submitted for COP30.
Unveiling the Land and Forest Gaps in Global Climate Pledges
Firstly, a “land gap” between governments’ reliance on land to achieve their carbon mitigation goals and what is achievable, and secondly, a “forest gap” between global commitments to halt deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 and the likely outcomes of country pledges.
The report focuses on country pledges to use land-based carbon removal initiatives, such as large-scale tree planting, forest restoration, and bioenergy capture and storage projects, to meet obligations under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
It warns the land required to achieve such levels of carbon removal would put lands critical to marginalized groups at risk, like Indigenous Peoples, local communities and smallholder farmers.
The annual rate of deforestation globally would still be four million hectares in 2030, with another 16 million hectares of forests being degraded – a forest gap of 20 million hectares.
Dr Dooley said it was hugely disappointing to see that less than 40 per cent of parties to the Paris Agreement submitted a new climate plan and that pledges for reducing emissions through halting and reversing deforestation and degradation were limited in national plans.
“This reflects that countries have not been ambitious enough in their pledges to meet the Paris Agreement of a 1.5C warming threshold, and are now relying on land-based carbon removals which may take decades to materialize,” Dr Dooley explained.
The researchers found that countries would have to devote just over one billion hectares of land – an area larger than the size of Australia – to carbon removal to achieve their targets. This represents a slight increase compared to the Land Gap 2022 report.
Co-author and Senior Research Analyst at Climate Resource Dr Alister Self said based on current assessments, best estimates of future rises in global temperature are between 1.8°C– 2.0°C above pre-industrial levels.
“This is only if countries meet their emissions targets on time and in full, and do not backslide further on current policy commitments, in which case these estimates would rise further,” Dr Self said.
References:
- COP30 climate pledges favour land-based carbon removal over emission cuts – (https://www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/november/cop30-climate-pledges-favour-land-based-carbon-removal-over-emission-cuts)
Source-Eurekalert