♪ anchor: time to check the headlines. ukraine says russia has intensified its offensive in the east. ukraine's president has described the situation as challenging and says forces are fighting back. >> [speaking in foreign language] translator: the situation is difficult, but our troops and intelligence have had tactical success. the occupiers are destroying life in the territory. constant bombardments, constant strikes on infrastructure and

residential areas show that they want to make it uninhabitable. that is why the defense of our land and people is the fight of our lives. anchor: russia's defense ministry has claimed to have used a submarine to launch missiles at ukrainian targets. the u.k. defense ministry warned moscow can still reach ukrainian targets from the black sea, despite the sinking of a flagship earlier this month. a powerful blast hit a mosque in western kabul, killing at least 10 in wounding many. it is a minority sunni sect. it is the latest in a series of attacks targeting places of worship and civilians during ramadan. no group has claimed responsibility, but isil has admitted to carrying out several tax. a fighter responsible for the beheadings of several hostages has been sentenced to life in prison in the u.s.

he was part of a so-called group. hostages gave him this nickname because of their british accents. he pleaded guilty last year to murdering for americans. a security guard at an israeli settlement in the occupied west bank has been shot and killed. they said a gunman opened fire and fled the scene. the settlement are illegal under international law. an intense heat wave has hit india and pakistan, record highs for this time of year. parts of india recorded 45 degrees celsius, causing power cuts and straining health services. new delhi reported its second and 72 years. those are the headlines. the news continues with "inside story." thank you for watching. bye for now. ♪

>> the world is losing its trees , spite a decades long effort to stop deforestation. our report says last year's goal of ending the practice by 2030 is out of reach. what is behind this destruction? can it be stopped? this is "inside story." ♪ anchor: hello and welcome to the program. a report by global forest watched says the earth lost 11.1 million in forest last year, wildfires are causing forced to

shrink further. the losses include nearly 4 million of tropical rain forest, which are critical to capturing carbon dioxide. the rate of tropical deforestation last year was equivalent to 10 football pitches every single minute. all that despite a pledge by 140 countries to reverse deforestation by 2030. while some have made progress, that deadline will not be met without a sharp decline worldwide. let's take a look at some of the other findings of this report. tropical rain forest losses resulted in 2.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to india's annual fossil fuel emissions, the third largest polluter in the world. 40% of all tropical rain forests lost was in brazil. wildfires were responsible for under one quter of that.

most of it came from agriculture extension and logging. whilst global tropical forests decreased in 2021, force in other climates had unprecedented losses, 6.5 million hectares lost to wildfires in russia alone. ♪ let's bring in our guests. in north carolina, a distinguishing fellow at the world resources institute, which released this report. in amsterdam, a global communications director at an organization working to re-green africa. oxford, u.k., michael jacobs, an environmental economist. a warm welcome to all of you. you were involved in producing this report. it makes for shocking reading. are you surprised that we are still seeing this much

deforestation across the world two decades after her organization started monitoring these forests? >> you know, disappointed but not surprised. we do now have 24 years of data from satellite imagery monitoring and have seen a steady, persistent, stubborn loss of forests at this level. last year in 2021, more than 11 million hectares just in the tropics, and of that, 3.7 5 million hectares of the primary tropical forests, which of the most valuable from the point of view of carbon sequestration, conservation, indigenous peoples, so it is a catastrophe. for the last 20 years, that lost that human tropical forests is a primary force has covered between 3 million and 4 million hectares for 20 years now, so it

is another step. i would also say that in fact, the pledge to end forest loss was made in november, so most of this had occurred by the time of the pledge, so maybe we can see this as a baseline with which we can judge performance of those pledges. anchor: we will look at those pledges a little bit later. let's focus on the impact of deforestation. we have 10 football pitches of forests being lost every minute. when i was a teenager, 20 to 30 years ago, these figures were being bandied around then, i remember football-sized patches of forest being lost every single minute. what is the impact? >> devastating. i think we are in the midst of a global limit crisis.

especially the panelists, but the majority people are now aware of it. however, what it lacks is the doom and gloom, which is scientifically true, but does not lead to hope and inspiration for people to do something, so we tried to refocus on solutions , nature-based solutions, and even though the numbers are devastating, we believe that rer -preening is possible if we have the will to do it together. we need to do it now, the time to talk is over. anchor: absolutely. i'm glad you are here to provide a beacon of hope. you are active in east africa. we will get more of that later. but keeping with the report, indonesia, for example, is a success story in this report, it has reversed some of its deforestation. why is that happening and how? >> the government opening up to the fact that they have some

natural resources which are valuable and more and more people are starting to recognize these as assets, not as natural resources alone, but economical assets to a country, so i think the fact that indonesia is a perfect example. we can turn the tide if there is a will and the legislation to back it up. anchor: this is a tenuous success in indonesia. there will always be pressure to reuse forested land. what pressures does indonesia face and can it withstand it? >> the pressures are huge. they have grown larger. we are now experiencing a sharp rise in food prices, which of course is causing great difficulties for many poor people around the world, but it increases the incentive for clearing land for agriculture, and in indonesia, there has been

a moratorium on new palm oil forests plantations, one of their principal exports, something consumed in huge numbers of products, not just foods actually, but other products as well that use vegetable oils, and that moratorium has can contribute it to the reduction in the loss, rate of loss of indonesia's rain forests. this is not an absolute decline or absolute increase in forests. rates of loss are slowing, good news, but with the ending of that moratorium and with very high food prices you will see huge pressures to plant more trees, to take more land from forests and turn it into plantation land, and in other parts of the world, for example, brazil and the to grow crops

which are more profitable than they were even last year, so the land pressures, which arise not just within those countries, but from our consumption. we in the northern countries of the major consumers of many of things that come from those places, which is huge, and that is why we have so much deforestation. economic pressures are leading to it. anchor: there has been a campaign against palm oil. most people are aware of it and how widespread it is found in all our products, so why hasn't that caught on more? >> it has caught on a little bit. one of the major successes of the last years has been the number of multinational corporations, particularly northern ones where there is some consumer pressure from consumers in northern countries, global north countries, so that has been a relative success story, but it is not every company, and there are many companies that are not taking

part in that attempt to reduce palm oil from deforested areas. the problem is the pressures are huge, and when a product is very profitable, it becomes much harder to prevent farmers and landowners planting crops, cutting down trees, because they mix much money for doing so, relative to the alternatives. unfortunately, although it is true, that forests are themselves resources in a global market, you are competing against the other things you can do that land, and that is where high food prices will make things more difficult. anchor: absolutely. priscilla, for example, one of the main pressures is agriculture, putting cattle on the land clearing it for beef, which is a huge commodity on the global market. the pressures he is under to create more money for his country is huge. we see that reflected in the

deforestation, or what can be done to stop the domestic pressure? >> so, i think comparing the indonesia and brazil cases over the last 20 years is quite eliminating, in that they have -- illuminating, in that they have diverged twice, even though they face a common international environment. you may recall that in brazil in the early years of the century, the amazon was in flames and had historically high unprecedented deforestation rates, and yet, when the administration came in and mounted a whole of government approach to enforcing the law and providing incentives, disincentives to municipalities to perform in the soy traders association imposed a voluntary moratorium on sourcing soy from recently divorced a plan, the combination of all these things, including recognizing indigenous territories, establishing protected areas, brought the

rate of deforestation down 80%, even while increasing, continuing an increase in the production of the main commodity drivers of deforestation, which then as now were beef and soy, and that success was maintained for about a decade, dramatic reduction in deforestation rates , but then the political economy domestically changed and since then, a lot of that success story has been unraveled in the last few years, and we have seen i think just in the last year an uptick of 9% in the part of the brazilian amazon that is being cleared for this commodity agriculture, but by contrast in indonesia with the century, we had a steady upward march and as has been suggested, that was due to palm oil, but also clearing timber for the pulp and paper industry, but for me, the key factor in indonesia was the catastrophic forest fires in 2015, which all indonesians

suddenly realize the cost of not protecting forests. and that is when the law enforcement moratorium, private sector commitments really kicked in. anchor: if you cannot rely on national leadership to take leadership in deforestation, where does the role of the international community come in? should we be using more of an incentives approach, or even a punitive approach such as sanctions? >> i think it needs to be a mixture of carrots and sticks. the question you have asked is right to the point in terms of how international cooperation is approached. at the outset, we need to recognize that a heavy-handed approach or an approach that could be interpreted correctly or incorrectly as protectionist in nature will have exactly the

opposite effect that we might want, and we have seen again and again a national sovereignty protection response to heavy-handed impositions of restrictions, or worse, a reaction to, for example, putting into place domestic biofuel mandates as an alternative market for, in this case, palm oil in case the european markets or other markets are closed so what we do not want to do is have the reverse effect, so in my view, a mix of carrots and sticks. example, it is reasonable to work with the producer countries and close markets to illegally produced commodities. that has been done for illegal timber, and now we are in the process of seeing how it can be done for commodities produced on illegally cleared land, but in addition, we need to provide carrots. the one we have an international framework for is

performance-based finance for success in reducing emissions from deforestation's, bread plus, agreed to in the paris agreement by 200 countries, and we need to up the finance, the positive reward for doing what countries can do, but need the incentive to do so. anchor: are you seeing any positive rewards in the areas where you are working? you are in east africa, but also another had deforestation rates. are these countries being rewarded for their efforts? >> the countries not per se, but the communities which is where we believe the change really starts, the local communities are being rewarded. one example, we work with agroforestry, focusing on small farmers, combining trees with crops is not only providing more healthier soils, but more

by inspiring communities and helping them to realize sustainable practices on their land, you will see economically they are incentivized. there are over 350 million small rural farmers in sub-saharan africa was so can you imagine the impact if you can inspire and educate those communities to take better care of their land in a more sustainable way in which it will not only economically benefit them, but benefit all of us by carbon sequestration. there are beautiful examples, yeah, the communities benefiting will make sure the countries benefit as well. anchor: ok. 141 countries signed a declaration at the climate summit in glasgow last year to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. signatories agreed to promote sustainable trade development that does not worsen

deforestation, and increase investments in rural and indigenous communities to develop sustainable agriculture and forest management. greenpeace has the pledge of the 2030 goal allows another decade of forest exploitation and is nonbinding. brazil was one of those 141 countries to sign this pledge, and yet, we are seeing no sign of it halting deforestation. it is chopping down trees as it is signing the promise not to do so. how much store do you lay in such pledges? how much optimism do you attach to them? >> it is better to have the pledges than not to have the pledges. there is no question that was countries signed declarations like this in public, and it was also companies and financiers who signed that declaration, they do come under some pressure, usually domestic pressure, but also international

pressure, to abide by those pledges, but of course that pressure may be less than the pressures they have internally mystically, and in the case of brazil and bolsonaro, you get the feeling that frankly he signed that in order to make brazil look good on the international stage, but had absolutely no intention of enacting it at home. in other countries, those pledges do mean something so it is better to have them do not. greenpeace is right, the pledges in themselves are not really enough, and we are seeing this in climate change action in every field. this is true in the german targets with the countries and companies, specific energy targets and so one in which is the targets are the easy part. to say we will achieve something by 2030 or in many other areas 2050 is an easy thing for a politician or a company to do. the hard thing is to enact the policies or behavioral changes

which make those targets realizable, and that is where we need to see much more action, so i am happy that there are targets, but what we need to see is on the ground efforts to make the targets achieved, and in particular in the force revealed, it is not just about the land-use policies, it is about the enforcement of them. the difference between energy and force tree is there are a small number of energy users, but big companies that produce most of the energy in the world and you can regulate and tax them and give them incentives, and they are part of an organized system of policy in most countries. deforestation occurs through thousands and thousands of landowners and people who use other people's land, and it occurs over massive areas. the very size of the areas we are talking about, the size of the u.k. every year divorce did, gives you an idea of how difficult it is to enforce the

law, let alone where there has been no law. this is also about enforcement, and that is where much more money and effort needs to go. anchor: and also i suppose organizations just like that come in, on the ground working with those local communities at the grass roots level. do you think there is enough organizations like your organization working throughout the world? >> there is never enough, to begin with. no, there can be more. one important thing to add is we are talking about legislation and regulations, and i agree it is difficult, it is easy when it comes to the energy sector because there is a limited number of players and you can put roles on them and make them behave accordingly, but when it comes to restoration because not only conservation, the restoration, communication is so important, and again, like i said previously, not only the doom and gloom part where we state the facts and the like the amount of deforestation done, we

need to keep doing it, very important, but people react better to hope and inspirational stories, so not only in africa, but especially europe, we need to tell the stories of how relatively simple and again relative it is to bring this to enormous points of land, low-cost, low-tech, going back to the roots of farming where we came from and not this intense farming, but looking at agroforestry and the potential of the small farms. we really believe positive storytelling goes a long way, that we work with a lot of partners to tell the stories, and what we see is there are so many young people especially reacting to that, getting a lot of positive energy as part of the solution. we are not here to say this is the solution, but what we do see is that people are in dire need of positive stories when it comes to climate change, and not only the big polluters, but positive storytelling goes a long way. anchor: i completely take your

point and agree with you, but importantly, i have to go to the biggest doom and gloom aspect of this report, a crucial bit we have not touched on yet. it is that the amazon rain forest is at tipping point. i found this incredibly scary. what does it mean to be a tipping point?it also says if this happens, it blows out of the water off efforts to contain global warming. can you expand a little bit more on that for us? >> certainly. the idea of a tipping point is that at a certain degree of tree cover lost in a forest ecosystem like the amazon, that one can get into a positive feedback loop in which continuing deforestation leads to warmer and drier conditions, which makes the forests more vulnerable to fire which in turn releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to warmer and drier conditions and more vulnerability to fire and

so on. and scientists have been warning about the possibility of a tipping point in the amazon rain forest for a number of years now, in which if we passed that point, the entire rain forest ecosystem would be converted into a grassland savanna, and if that happened, all of the carbon that is currently contained in the vegetation, which is some of the most carbon-defense -- dense would be released into the atmosphere and that is what would blow the paris agreement targets out of the water, and unfortunately i'm the latest science is showing that tipping point may be closer than we had originally understood, and that it is being driven, not only by the global warming and climate change to which all in the missions -- all emissions contribute, but it causes warmer conditions, dries up the rainfall, such that the whole thing could tip or quickly than we thought.

anchor: michael, your thought on this briefly in the last minute we have left, are we going to reach that tipping point? >> i deferred to the scientists on this come about as she says, they are warning that these points are much closer than they used to be, and that is unsurprising because of the trends in deforestation, and it teaches us a really important lesson, which is the earth is not something that you can simply plunder on a linear scale and say in the end if we lose all the trees, where we lose the trees, because what you lose are whole ecosystems and the climactic balance those ecosystems have created. we live in a world we did not create, and we are totally dependent on that world, the natural world, for regulating the life conditions in which human societies live, and that is a really profound lesson, which human societies used to understand, and extra the people

who live in the rain forest tend to understand that. they have lived in harmony with their natural environments for a long time, and it is industrial societies starting in the north of the world, which have tended to regard the natural environment as something to be exploited in a rather than to be lived within and part of, and that is a profound economic lesson we all need to learn. we need to learn it very rapidly, or else we may hit this tipping points, then we really do not know how catastrophic that could be. anchor: absolutely. well, let's hope this program helps people take that on board and that we do learn it and don't reach a tipping point. thank you very much to all of you for joining our discussion today. and thank you for watching. you can see this program again any time by visiting our website , al jazeera.com, and for further discussion, go to our facebook page.

you can also join the conversation on twitter. from me in the whole team here, it is bye for now. ♪ cccccco7ñ;ñ;?k

♪♪♪ andrew cuomo: the president said this is a war. i agree with that, this is a war. then let's act that way and let's act that way now. karishma vyas: as new york rose from the ashes of 9/11, first responders became america's heroes. now they're under attack again, this time from a hidden enemy. male: yo, mike, close the truck, close the truck. karishma: new york is a key battleground in the global war on covid-19. megan pfeiffer: there's been a lot of deceased people, a lotta people just waiting to die.