A groundbreaking analysis released at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil has revealed a troubling reality: countries around the world, including major developing nations, are betting heavily on unrealistic carbon removal schemes like massive tree-planting projects while simultaneously failing to protect the forests that already exist.
The Land Gap Report 2025, led by the University of Melbourne and a global consortium of experts, warns that national climate plans are fundamentally flawed. Instead of halting deforestation and protecting existing forests—proven methods to combat climate change—countries are pushing land-based carbon removal to levels that experts say are simply unachievable.
The findings are particularly relevant for India and other developing nations in the Global South, which face mounting pressure to balance economic development with environmental protection. The report doesn’t just identify the problem; it exposes the underlying economic forces—debt burdens, unfair tax policies, and exploitative trade rules—that trap countries in a cycle of forest destruction.
The Double Gap: Land and Forests
The report identifies two critical failures in the climate plans submitted by countries for COP30. The first is the “land gap”—the massive chasm between what governments promise to achieve through land-based carbon removal and what’s actually possible on the ground.
According to the analysis, countries would need to devote just over 1 billion hectares of land—an area larger than Australia—to carbon removal projects to meet their climate targets. This represents a slight increase from the 2022 assessment, suggesting that nations are doubling down on an already unrealistic strategy.
Even more concerning, much of the promised carbon savings would take decades to materialize, making them ineffective in addressing the urgent climate crisis. The report also warns that commandeering such vast amounts of land would threaten the survival of Indigenous peoples, local communities, and smallholder farmers who depend on these lands.
The second failure is the “forest gap.” Despite firm commitments made at COP28 in Dubai to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, the current national pledges fall woefully short. The report projects that by 2030, the annual global deforestation rate would still be 4 million hectares, with another 16 million hectares of forests being degraded—creating a forest gap of 20 million hectares.
Why Are Countries Ignoring Forest Protection?
“Why are so many countries ignoring forest protection as a key pillar of climate targets?” asks Kate Dooley, the report’s lead author and researcher at the University of Melbourne. Her answer is stark: “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.”
The bitter irony, Dooley notes, is that healthy forests are essential to healthy economies over the long term. They provide climate benefits, create job opportunities, and deliver crucial ecosystem services. Yet the current global economic system pits economic development against ecosystem preservation, forcing countries to choose short-term survival over long-term sustainability.
For nations like India, which is home to significant forest cover and biodiversity hotspots while also pursuing rapid economic development, this tension is particularly acute. The report suggests that the problem isn’t a lack of finance for forest protection, as commonly believed, but rather a global economic system that makes forest exploitation a financial necessity.
The Triple Threat: Debt, Tax, and Trade
The report dives deep into three interconnected economic forces driving forest destruction, offering a framework that could reshape how we approach both climate action and economic development.
Debt Relief: Countries in biodiversity hotspots, including the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia, face crushing debt payment schedules and austerity measures that force them to rapidly expand exports. For many, this means sacrificing forests for commodity production. The report cites Cameroon as a cautionary example, where debt burdens and IMF austerity requirements over the past 20 years have driven dramatic increases in forest loss through expanded hardwood production and clearing for cotton and cocoa plantations.
While debt-relief initiatives are underway, the report warns they have been too slow and lack necessary ambition to provide countries with the “fiscal breathing space” needed to regulate commodity production in ways that protect forests.
Tax Reforms: Cross-border tax abuse and illicit financial flows deprive Global South countries of essential revenue, undermining their ability to protect forests and biodiversity. International financial secrecy shields multinational corporations from accountability and facilitates environmental crimes, including illegal logging and land conversion.
The report highlights the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation as a historic opportunity to reorganize global taxing rights and combat abusive tax practices. It also points to Brazil’s G20 proposal for a “wealth tax” that could generate $200 to $500 billion annually—far exceeding the $3 to $4 billion expected from mechanisms like the Tropical Forest Forever Facility.
Trade Rule Revisions: Current trade policies focus narrowly on limiting trade in illegal wood products and those causing land conversion. However, they ignore trade rules that encourage industrial-scale agricultural expansion—the single largest driver of deforestation. These rules reinforce the power of global commodity traders at the expense of local producers and smallholder farmers, while undermining national governments’ authority to police environmentally harmful practices.
The report advocates for shifting agricultural trade policies from protecting commodity traders to prioritizing sustainable food systems, smallholder farmers, and resilient ecosystems.
The Path Forward
Dr. Rebecca Ray of Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center emphasizes that reshaping economic rules could immediately relieve pressure on forests while freeing up large amounts of money for forest investment. The Forest Declaration Assessment estimates that countries need $117 to $299 billion per year to achieve their 2030 forest protection goals—amounts that seem achievable through comprehensive economic reforms.
“There is an urgent need for leaders at COP30 to acknowledge that we will not make progress in the fight against climate change—especially when it comes to protecting forests—if we don’t address the fundamental elements of our economic system that are impeding change,” said Kate Horner, co-lead author of the report.
The analysis examined pledges from less than 40% of Paris Agreement parties that submitted new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) before COP30. This low submission rate itself signals the challenges countries face in committing to meaningful climate action within the constraints of the current economic system.
For India, which has submitted ambitious climate pledges while also managing complex development priorities, the report’s findings offer both a warning and a roadmap. The consequences of failure—continued destruction of the world’s remaining forests and a planet on a collision course with climate catastrophe—should be sufficient motivation to pursue the difficult but necessary economic reforms outlined in the report.
