From The Independent · · 2m
Forest fund pledges signal shift in climate aid
Developing nations including Indonesia and Brazil are pledging billions to protect tropical forests, marking a change in how climate finance is shared.
In brief
Developing nations including Indonesia and Brazil are pledging billions to protect tropical forests, marking a change in how climate finance is shared. Developing countries are contributing to a forest protection fund alongside traditional donors, signalling broader participation in climate finance as wealthy nations…
Forest fund gets billions in pledges
Countries have reaffirmed commitments to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility at Cop31. The UK pledged four hundred million pounds, the Netherlands five hundred million dollars, and climate philanthropies nearly one hundred million dollars.
Developing nations are major contributors
Indonesia and Brazil, both rainforest nations and developing countries, are each pledging one billion dollars. Norway has promised to fund up to twenty percent of the facility's initial ten billion dollar capitalisation target.
Miliband calls it a powerful signal
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told The Independent that the breadth of support shows growing global momentum to protect forests. He said the City of London has a crucial role in mobilising private capital.
“The breadth of support behind the TFFF is a powerful signal of the growing global momentum to protect forests.”
Indonesia sees a new way forward
Hashim S. Djojohadikusum, Indonesia's special presidential envoy for climate and energy, said developing countries providing forest finance shows a new way of doing things. He welcomed the UK's involvement in the fund.
“This is a big moment because we have the developing world now coming up with money and showing that there is a new way of doing things.”
Forest progress amid wider deadlock
Forest finance pledges contrast with deadlock over wider climate funding.Wealthy countries are cutting aid budgets, the US is absent, and the 1992 donor list remains unchanged, leaving out China, the UAE, South Korea and Singapore.
Brazil records lowest deforestation in decades
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Brazil recorded the lowest Amazon deforestation in four decades. He called for recognising the value of standing forest and the people who preserve it.
“We need to recognise the value of the standing forest and the people that preserve it.”
Solomon Islands calls for broader responsibility
Prime Minister Matthew Wale of the Solomon Islands said the G7 must lead on climate finance but industrialising countries including the Brics must also contribute. He called for reopening the 1992 donor settlement.
“The G7 have profited on the back off the atmosphere and polluting it for the rest of us, and they must front climate finance.”
Solomon Islands pledges to Green Climate Fund
The Solomon Islands became the first small island developing state to pledge money to the twenty two billion dollar Green Climate Fund, committing four hundred thousand dollars.
“Our message is clear: we have stepped forward, and now we call on the world's largest economies to do the same.”
At a glance
Developing countries are contributing to a forest protection fund alongside traditional donors, signalling broader participation in climate finance as wealthy nations cut aid budgets.
