Commonwealth takes a bold step towards climate resilience

The Commonwealth Living Lands Charter adopted on 25 June 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda, at the conclusion of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is a bold step to build the resilience of nearly 2.5 billion Commonwealth citizens, or one-third of the global population.

The Commonwealth Living Lands Charter: A Commonwealth Call to Action on Living Lands (CALL) expresses the will by leaders of the 54 member states of the Commonwealth to “voluntarily dedicate a ‘Living Land’ to future generations of every country with assured prosperity, sustenance and security.” It will be backed by CALL implementation plans to be developed by all Commonwealth nations.

The Charter makes the strongest commitment yet to work on the global challenges of climate change, the loss of biodiversity and land degradation in a coordinated and synergistic way. Commonwealth leaders underlined the need to build natural resilience through biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change.

The Charter also represents a significant contribution towards the achievement of global voluntary commitments to restore 1 billion hectares of degraded lands by 2030, with half of these pledges made under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Already, under the Land Degradation Neutrality targets, 21 Commonwealth countries committed to restoring 110 million hectares.

Speaking on behalf of UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw at the high-level launch event in Kigali, Louise Baker, Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, said: “The Living Lands charter offers Commonwealth countries a roadmap for greater resilience. In the face of climate change, it offers adaption and hope. In the face of environmental degradation, it offers restored ecosystems. In the face of food insecurity, it offers more production without more costly inputs. And in the face of economic turmoil, it offers reward. For every dollar invested we are seeing rates of return of at least 7-30 dollars from restoration.”

Ms Baker acknowledged the leadership roles Commonwealth members are playing in large-scale land restoration projects, such as the Great Green Wall in the Sahel and the G20 Initiative on Land and Terrestrial Ecosystems. She also stressed that finance and a multisectoral, all of government approach will be key to getting “a tough job” done of restoring degrading land, saving biological diversity and limiting the Earth’s warming.

“The Global Mechanism of UNCCD has launched a partnership for project preparation to work with strategic partners like the Commonwealth and with its Climate Finance Access Hub – and climate finance advisers – to deliver a pipeline of viable and bankable projects – that deliver for land and climate at the same time. The Global Mechanism is there to help nations put land at the heart of climate action,” Ms Baker added.

According to UNCCD's flagship Global Land Outlook 2 report released in April 2022, up to 40% of all ice-free land is already degraded – meaning its benefits have been lost to varying degrees, with dire consequences for climate, biodiversity and livelihoods. Business as usual will, by 2050, result in degradation of 16 million square kilometers (almost the size of South America), with 69 gigatonnes of carbon emitted into the atmosphere. Land restoration is a powerful and cost-effective tool to address the interconnected climate, biodiversity and land crises, with economic returns estimated at US$ 125-140 trillion every year - as much as 1.5 times global GDP in 2021 (US$ 93 trillion).