Ahead of COP30, the high-level opening session of this year’s Green Growth and Sustainable Development Forum will explore how to harness the potential of forests and agriculture to advance climate action. The panel will provide a range of perspectives from governments, business and civil society on reducing GHG emissions from the agriculture, forest and other land-use sectors and enhancing their capacity as carbon sinks. This includes discussing opportunities and challenges related to policy design and implementation, data and measurement, and synergies and trade-offs across environmental goals.

Sustainable forest management (SFM) plays a vital role in protecting essential ecosystem services, supporting rural livelihoods, and achieving international climate objectives. Well-managed forests can significantly contribute to climate action by increasing carbon sequestration and enhancing ecosystem resilience. However, afforestation and deforestation patterns are influenced by a complex interplay of economic, policy, and environmental drivers. This session will explore how forests contribute to both climate mitigation and adaptation, and how to balance demand for forest resources with climate and biodiversity objectives. It will examine key policy instruments such as regulatory frameworks, economic instruments and voluntary initiatives that promote SFM. The discussion will also highlight distinctions between managing private and public forests, as well as the role of corporate strategies in fostering sustainable forest practices.

Agriculture is both a major contributor to climate change and one of the sectors most vulnerable to its impacts. Agricultural production (including emissions from land use change due to agricultural expansion) contributes to around one-fifth of global GHG emissions. At the same time, agriculture faces mounting challenges due to rising temperatures, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, and variations in rainfall patterns, among others. Agriculture is also a major consumer of fresh water globally and is closely linked with global biodiversity loss, particularly through deforestation. This session will explore what can be done to make agriculture more productive, sustainable, and resilient, including through sustainable productivity growth, regenerative practices such as agroforestry, and nature-based solutions. It will also examine how innovation (e.g. smart technologies that improve forecasting, feed additives to reduce methane emissions, etc.) and increased productivity can help reduce the sector’s emissions, and the role of policies to address climate change and other environmental objectives.

Transparent and internationally agreed methods to measure greenhouse gas emissions and removals are essential for effective climate policy. However, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of GHG emissions and removals from the AFOLU sector—such as from afforestation, deforestation, and land-use changes—present numerous challenges. Sound MRV requires assessing complex natural and human-driven processes that vary spatially and temporally. Uncertainty around future climate impacts (including potential feedback effects from climate system tipping points) adds complexity. Interactions between agricultural inputs such as fertilisers with soils and the atmosphere also create measurement challenges. In other cases, multiple methods exist and can give different results, creating confusion. This session will discuss challenges and possible solutions to improve GHG estimations in the AFOLU sector, including the use of satellite imagery to track land-use changes, the impacts of wildfires and other extreme weather events on AFOLU GHG emissions and stocks, and how to better align methods across contexts. It will also discuss best practices for aligning approaches and knowledge sharing, including addressing knowledge gaps in developing countries.

With COP30 in Belem approaching, scaling-up finance for, and investment in, forests and nature has become a core focus of climate policy discussions. Forests provide vital and undervalued ecosystem services – such as carbon storage and sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and water and soil protection – that remain largely underpriced. Consequently, investments that enhance and protect forests are at a disadvantage compared to investments that put these benefits at risk. While a wide range of tools (e.g. REDD+ payments, carbon credits, biodiversity offsets, and payments for ecosystem services) have been developed to better price positive externalities, obstacles remain to scaling them effectively. This session will explore the challenges, best practises and innovative financing instruments involved in mobilising finance for sustainable forest management (SFM) to amplify forests’ climate mitigation impact. It will examine the viability and challenges of various instruments, such as the integrity, effectiveness and additionality of actions they promote, and how to ensure their long-term impacts.

Forestry is a critical driver of both economic growth and climate change mitigation, yet its complex interconnections with rural development remain underexplored. While sustainable forest management (SFM) has been widely studied in relation to biodiversity and climate change, the spatial and territorial dimensions of forestry bring unique challenges and opportunities. This session will delve into the diverse roles of forestry across geographic contexts—from urban forests serving recreational and environmental purposes to remote rural forests contributing to the bioeconomy and ecotourism. It will examine forestry’s multidimensional contributions to economic, social, and environmental well-being, as well as the spatial concentration of forests, the role of place-based approaches in balancing trade-offs, and the integration of forestry with broader rural development objectives.