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A bold new plan to protect tropical forests, which aims to raise $125 billion US and directly pay developing countries to halt deforestation, is taking shape at the COP30 UN climate conference in Brazil this week.
Brazil is leading the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, which will essentially reward countries that can limit deforestation in their territory, while also generating financing for clean energy in developing countries. The facility is a kind of investment fund, with capital put up by donor countries and the private sector.
“We really need to go from reducing deforestation to permanently protecting the tropical rainforests,” said Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, Norway’s environment minister, in an interview with CBC News at COP30 in Belem, Brazil.
“The idea behind the TFFF is to create a permanent revenue stream, making it more profitable to allow forests to stand rather than to cut them down.”
Norway has pledged $3 billion US, so far the biggest contribution announced to the forest facility. Brazil has pledged $1 billion, Indonesia another $1 billion, and France about $500 million.
Brazilian officials, who have been working on the proposal for over a year, are hoping to raise an initial $10 billion US in the first year of the fund proposal. With over half of that pledged already, they are optimistic about reaching their goal.
“The fundamental idea behind the TFFF is that it’s also an investment. And that is what is smart about the TFFF,” Eriksen said, referring to the fund’s model that would drive investment into some of the same developing countries that have the forests it wants to protect.
World leaders are gathering in the heart of the Amazon for global climate summit COP30 in Belém, Brazil, with Earth set to surpass 1.5 C of warming in the next decade, a climate change skeptic in the White House and worry that global co-operation to fight climate change is collapsing.
The effort comes as tropical forest loss hit record levels in 2024. The rainforests are some of the most biodiverse regions in the world and essential carbon sinks that can help stabilize a warming planet. Deforestation in tropical forests has continued despite decades of pledges and initiatives to stop it, and the new fund aims to take a fresh and more direct approach to address the problem.
The current proposal is that the fund will invest in bonds issued by developing countries to fund clean energy and related projects — and the interest the fund makes off those bonds will be used to pay countries for the amount of tropical forests they can preserve.
“In the global imagination, there is no greater symbol of the environmental cause than the Amazon rainforest,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known popularly as Lula, in an impassioned speech at the opening of COP30 on Thursday.
“Therefore, it is only fair that it is now the turn of those who inhabit the Amazon to ask what is being done by the rest of the world to avoid the collapse of their home.”
Brazil leads the way
Lula is hosting the summit in Belem, a city in the Amazon rainforest, to bring world leaders and delegates up close with what they’re trying to protect. Brazilian officials have been working on the proposal for over a year. While countries have been making big pledges, many details about how the fund will operate and how exactly the money will be spent are yet to be finalized.
But Brazil has some experience with using financial mechanisms to protect forests. Since 2008, Brazil has maintained the Amazon Fund, which is a fund that receives donations from abroad and pays out funds to Brazil depending on how well the country can reduce deforestation.
The Amazon Fund operates at a much smaller scale — it has raised $853 million US, mostly from Norway, Germany and the U.S. The new fund will expand that to much more ambitious levels. Brazil wants donor countries to put up $25 billion US as an initial investment into the new forest facility, which will then serve as a base for a further $100 billion from other sources like the philanthropic and private sectors.
And the fund will support over 70 tropical countries that collectively host over one billion hectares of tropical forest. Crucially, 20 per cent of the funding is supposed to go directly to Indigenous communities in those forests. Once fully funded, the forest facility is expected to generate about $4 billion US every year for conservation efforts.
“This is a pressing issue and it’s an issue that should concern all of us. It’s not only beneficial to Brazil to reduce deforestation, it’s also beneficial to countries like Norway because we also are dependent on the world being able to save our tropical rainforest,” Eriksen said.
Canada has not announced a contribution to the forest facility yet. Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin will be at COP30 this week.
