The 29^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) is bringing together diverse public and private sector leaders at a moment when the impacts of climate change are accelerating in alarming ways. It also occurs against the backdrop of the recent U.S. federal elections and other elections worldwide with potential implications for the future of climate action. 

American Forests is an official UN-accredited observer to the COP process and will be represented by its President and CEO Jad Daley in a Blue Zone event at the U.S. Center with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. In recognition of his longstanding role in forests and climate change and the leadership of American Forests in this area, Daley has been named to the 2024 TIME Climate100 list. 

Daley issued the following statement outlining American Forests’ goals and priorities for this critical COP: 

The results of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Elections have created uncertainty about the U.S.’s continued participation in the COP process. As a leader in U.S. forest conservation since 1875, American Forests is here to demonstrate sustained U.S. leadership on climate issues, underscore the vital roles of trees, forests, and forest products in our economy and society, and foster global collaboration on forest-climate solutions. 

During 2024, the world has seen climate change advance faster than many leading models predicted, including record heat, drought and wildfires. We must leverage the natural carbon capture that trees and forests can provide to slow climate change and use their ability to protect human and natural communities from such climate threats. 

This rapid deterioration of our climate is weakening, killing, and burning forests with unprecedented scale and intensity just when we need them most – requiring us to adopt an “offense and defense” approach to forest-climate solutions. This means putting equal attention to our actions that help existing forests remain resilient in the face of climate change alongside actions focused on increasing the rate of carbon sequestration from trees.  

Winning against wildfires 

An immediate priority is responding to the escalating global threat of wildfires. Climate stressors are causing our forests to burn in ways that release more carbon and impede natural regeneration. We must accelerate treatments that make our forests resilient to climate-fueled fires using tools such as prescribed burning.  

To win on wildfire we must also accelerate post-fire reforestation to help reduce the loss of soil carbon from burned areas and restart carbon sequestration in regrowing forests. Post-fire reforestation done right is an opportunity to “pre-store” forests for future wildfire resilience, using special reforestation techniques that draw on science and Indigenous knowledge to adjust the composition and structure of forests to match future conditions. American Forests has helped to pioneer these techniques with partners such as the U.S. Forest Service, and we are eager to engage with others at COP29 to successfully recover forests on burned areas around the world. 

We are proud that the U.S. government is using America’s public lands to lead on climate-resilient reforestation, including rapid reforestation of burned and degraded lands across America’s National Forests with over 500,000 acres reforested in the past three years using new funding from the bipartisan REPLANT Act. Similar efforts are underway on America’s National Parks, Wildlife Refuges and other public lands using funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and other new sources. We are eager to share these successes as part of a session with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the U.S. Center on November 19. 

It’s time to turn up “nature’s air conditioning” 

As we combat the forest health and wildfire crisis in our natural landscapes, we must use urban trees as “nature’s air conditioning” to confront a dramatic rise in life-threatening extreme heat in our cities. Heat-related deaths are already increasing, including projections in The Lancet that we will see a further 370 percent increase in heat-related deaths among seniors worldwide by 2050. 

Trees can potentially cool homes and neighborhoods as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit or more, making them a critical solution to protect health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from air conditioning. Given International Energy Agency projections that AC-related greenhouse gas emissions could double or even triple by mid-century, it is clear we need cooling from urban trees to save lives and save our climate.  

American Forests was a proud signatory to the Global Cooling Pledge launched at COP28, and we are here at COP29 seeking to engage with other leading nations and private sector actors who share our interest in nature-based cooling with urban trees. We have tools and best practices to share, including our Tree Equity Score tool that maps urban tree canopy neighborhood-by-neighborhood across the U.S. and in select parts of the United Kingdom and Canada to guide data-driven climate and equity-focused urban forest investments.  

The historic $1.5 billion investment in urban forestry through the Inflation Reduction Act is being granted to cities and frontline organizations in all 50 U.S. States, two U.S. territories, three U.S. affiliated Pacific islands, and in several tribal communities for tree planting, tree care, and tree protection focused on lower-income urban neighborhoods and communities of color that systemically have less tree cover. Working with The White House, U.S. Senator Cory Booker and U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow to secure the funding, American Forests is proud to demonstrate the impact of such investments to other countries that also experience similar challenges among underserved communities.  

Making forests work for climate 

Across cities and public lands, the U.S. is also leveraging private working forests and wood products as a key climate solution. Scaling these actions is made possible with help from billions of dollars of new public investments in climate-smart forestry provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and USDA Climate-Smart Commodities Program. These historic investments include $700 million for permanent forest conservation through the Forest Legacy Program, $450 million to help private landowners and Indigenous landowners undertake climate-smart forestry practices through the USFS Forest Landowner Support Program, and billions invested in climate-smart forest products innovation, enhanced forest products production and manufacturing, and sustainable procurement.  

Through these collective efforts, we are showing how to conserve working forests, optimize forest management and enhance products for resilient carbon sequestration and lower-carbon outcomes in high-emitting industries such as the building sector. We believe this is a global opportunity for forest-climate solutions and come to COP29 eager to connect with nations seeking to collaborate on these global opportunities. 

Building a global community for forest-climate solutions 

Our final COP29 goal is to convene a robust global community to enact these forest interventions. American Forests is proud to partner with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to host an inclusive and technically rigorous global partnership platform on forest-climate solutions called 1t.org. At COP29, we seek new ways to use 1t.org to learn from each other in the global community and catalyze new partnerships to tackle wildfire resilience and reforestation, advancing Tree Equity in cities, and fostering climate-smart working forests. 

As co-chair of the 1t.org U.S. Chapter with WEF, American Forests supports our member governments, companies, NGOs, and civil society leaders in advancing their pledged commitments that include conserving, restoring and growing almost 60 billion trees around the world by 2030 and mobilizing billions in additional private finance. We are proud to bring these commitments to COP29 as fodder for collaboration with the global community, and the U.S. Chapter is ready to advance shared learning among all COP actors interested in forest-based climate solutions. 

American Forests looks forward to making COP29 a springboard for accelerating impactful forest-climate solutions worldwide. Given 2024’s unprecedented climate events, we must invest in the natural infrastructure of trees and forests to meet the urgency of this moment.