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Over one billion hectares are needed for countries to meet climate pledges, risking community displacement and food insecurity.
It criticises reliance on unrealistic carbon removal projects and calls for forest protection as a priority.
Economic reforms are suggested to bridge the gap between current policies and sustainable forest management.
Countries’ climate pledges will require more than one billion hectares of land — an area larger than Australia — to deliver promised carbon removals, according to a new analysis released at the 30th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) summit on November 12, 2025 in Brazil.
The authors of the report warned that this dependence on vast land-based carbon removal projects risks displacing communities, undermining food security and delaying real emissions cuts by neglecting forest protection.
The Land Gap 2025 Report, led by the University of Melbourne, showed that instead of prioritising the protection and restoration of existing forests, governments are leaning on unrealistic tree-planting, bioenergy and carbon capture schemes to meet Net Zero targets. “Countries are ignoring forest protection as a core pillar of their climate goals,” said Kate Dooley, the report’s lead author. “Heavy debt burdens and trade and tax systems force many economies to exploit forests just to stay afloat. Yet healthy forests are the real foundation of healthy economies.”
The report identified two widening gaps: A “land gap” — between the vast areas required for carbon removal and what is realistically available — and a “forest gap”, the distance between global commitments to end deforestation by 2030 and the likely outcomes of current policies. Even under existing pledges, annual losses could reach four million hectares of forest by 2030, with another 16 million hectares degraded.
Beyond insufficient finance, the study blamed the structure of the global economy for driving forest loss. It pointed to sovereign debt pressures, tax evasion and trade rules that encourage large-scale agriculture and logging. “The biggest threat to forests isn’t lack of green finance — it’s a global economic system that rewards exploitation,” said Rebecca Ray of Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center.
To bridge the gap, the authors proposed reforms that link economic resilience to ecosystem resilience:
Debt relief to give developing nations fiscal space to shift away from commodity-driven deforestation.
Tax reforms to curb illicit financial flows and strengthen public revenues for sustainable development.
Trade rule revisions to prioritise sustainable food systems and smallholder livelihoods.
While mechanisms like the Tropical Forest Forever Facility could generate up to $4 billion annually, the report estimated that at least $117–299 billion per year is needed to meet 2030 forest goals.
“Reform will be difficult,” said Kate Horner, co-lead author, “but the alternative — continued forest destruction and a climate on the brink — is far worse.”
The report concluded that the road to Net Zero cannot be paved with unrealistic land targets. “Forests are not a fallback for fossil fuels,” Dooley added. “They are frontline infrastructure for a livable planet.”