It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I add my words of thanks and gratefulness to my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for securing a second debate on this important topic. I thank my predecessor as Minister responsible for Latin America, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), for all her work on protecting the Amazon. I particularly thank her for the important work in the run-up to and during the COP26 meetings.
The importance of protecting the Amazon cannot be overstated, and we must tackle both climate change and biodiversity loss. Tackling deforestation is critical to both those issues, which is why it was at the heart of the UK’s COP26 presidency. In doing so, we must protect the natural environment and respect the rights of indigenous people. The Amazon, as the world’s largest rainforest, has to be at the centre of that effort. The Amazon is not only home to more than 10% of the world’s known plant and animal species but stores up to 200 billion tonnes of carbon—roughly a decade’s worth of global carbon dioxide emissions.
Around 17% of the Amazon has already been lost. If deforestation continues, it will reach a tipping point, potentially in the next decade. Unchecked deforestation will turn the Amazon from a carbon sink to a source of emissions, and the hope of keeping the 1.5° C target alive would slip from our grasp. Most of the emissions are caused by fires, many started deliberately to clear land for agriculture, particularly beef, as has been mentioned, and soy production. Even without fires, hotter temperatures and droughts mean that the south-eastern Amazon has already become a source of CO2 rather than a sink.
In this critical decade, protecting the Amazon while supporting a sustainable economic transition in the region is one of the most urgent challenges that we face. My right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell discussed Brazil, whose Government control two thirds of the Amazon as public lands. We must also remember the countries that are home to the other third of the Amazon. At COP26, much progress was made. As has been mentioned, more than 140 leaders from countries that together host over 90% of the world’s forests pledged to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. That pledge included Amazon countries, such as Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
We know that to turn that promise into a reality will require funding. That is why at COP26 the UK mobilised 12 donor countries to pledge $12 billion of public climate finance through to 2025 in a new global forest finance pledge. The UK is contributing £1.5 billion—approximately $2 billion—to that pledge. We also committed to invest up to £300 million of climate finance towards tackling deforestation and delivering green growth in the Amazon by 2025.
The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned the importance of working with the financial sector. At COP26, 30 financial institutions, with more than $8.7 trillion of global assets, committed to eliminate investment in activities linked to deforestation. I know that that did not include all the banks that have been mentioned in the debate, and I call on other financial institutions to raise their ambitions. Nevertheless, the contribution from the private sector is deeply impressive. Although COP26 mobilised billions to support public sector investment in climate finance, it will be our efforts to mobilise trillions through deforestation-free supply chains that will deliver the substantive impact that we seek to achieve.