Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged support for a Brazilian initiative to support the conservation of the world’s endangered forests, at international talks on the edge of the Amazon rainforest ahead of the annual United Nations climate conference, COP30.
The initiative, dubbed the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, drew $5.5 billion (€4.7 billion) in pledges, with Norway and France promising to join Brazil and Indonesia in investing.
Merz said that Germany would make a “considerable” pledge, but didn’t specify an amount.
The fund eventually seeks to leverage investments into $125 billion (€108 billion) that can be used to pay 74 developing countries for every hectare of forest they conserve.
Dozens of governments have expressed support for the fund and are engaged in talks to learn more about it, Brazil’s Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said, including China and the United Arab Emirates.
China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said that the country “stands ready to strengthen cooperation with all parties on tropical rainforest conservation and make greater contributions,” without elaborating on a pledge.
The absence of pledges from some countries that praised the initiative, including the United Kingdom, was noticeable as governments face political and budget constraints.
‘Autonomous governance to support tropical forests’
Financed by interest-bearing debt instead of donations, the fund would invest its assets to generate returns that would be used to pay back the creditors and reward countries for curbing deforestation.
Rather than relying on goodwill, the scheme aims to make it more lucrative for governments to keep their trees standing than to cut them down for industrial farming or mining.
The fund’s rules call for governments to set aside 20% of the compensation they receive to Indigenous peoples, who for millennia have managed and preserved lands.
“With that, we can overcome government policy fluctuations and secure a structure, an autonomous governance to support tropical forests,” Brazil’s Indigenous peoples minister, Sonia Guajajara, told reporters.
The climate talks are expected to have a large presence of tribes, particularly from Brazil and surrounding countries.
Forests, including the Amazon, where Brazil is hosting this year’s COP conference, play a crucial role in regulating the climate by absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats the planet when it’s released into the atmosphere.
Unifying global carbon markets
The European Union said on Friday it was joining Brazil and other countries in a coalition aimed at unifying global carbon markets and incentivising nations and companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Brazil has said it wants COP30 to produce an international carbon pricing framework in which no one country sets the standards for emissions trading, which allow companies that pollute less than their assigned emission limits to sell credits to those that exceed theirs.
Rather than trying to get nearly 200 countries to join one unified market, which has failed at past summits, Brazil and the EU say they’re aiming for a basic set of rules to integrate the world’s different carbon pricing systems.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said carbon pricing was “one of our best assets for the climate.”
“Together with Brazil and other partners, let’s do it right, and let’s do it together,” she said.
Additional sources • AP