Plenary Akdeniz was ringing with applause and chants of “Olé, olé, olé, olé, Lula, Lula!” as Brazil’s president approached the stage for the forest leaders’ summit yesterday evening.
Lula – who told the crowd he had lost his voice – handed the mic over to Brazil’s new environment and climate minister, João Paulo Ribeiro Capobianco, saying: “You don’t need to pretend that you’re hoarse like me, but please use the tone of someone who is doing a lot for environmental protection, preservation and planet Earth.”
There was a lot of speculation that yesterday’s forest leaders’ summit would yield major pledges for the Brazil-led Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). [Read Carbon Brief’s in-depth explainer on the fund here.]
However, new money, when it appeared, was slight.
Capobianco told the gathering the TFFF had so far mobilised $7.8bn from different international partners. Furthermore, the fund has gained the endorsement of the EU and 66 countries that hold “around 90%” of the world’s rainforests.
This leaves it $2.2bn short of a $10bn target for public and philanthropic capital for this year. The facility’s original $125bn ask of funds is now being pitched as a $50bn version in its first tranche.
Only $88m from philanthropies emerged as new contributions yesterday, with several countries reiterating past and recently made pledges.
The Netherlands re-announced its $500m pledge that it made at COP17, underlining that this would be “over the next 10 years”.
The UK pointed to its £400m loan to the fund, announced this September, and told the audience: “We have a saying in Britain, which is ‘better late than never’.”
Indonesia reaffirmed its commitment to invest $1bn once “Brazil moves forward with its own contribution”, adding that they had been “waiting for President Lula to be re-elected”. Interestingly, Indonesia called for financing from the fund to recognise national forest monitoring systems, even as those attempting to download the country’s own forest data have been threatened with prison time, according to Mongabay.
Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, said: “I am hopeful we can reach our collective goal of mobilising the initial $10bn dollars and to increase from there through next year, and with this, Norway is ready to contribute up to 20% of that total.”
Norway’s “up to $3bn” loan to the fund is conditional upon it hitting the $10bn mark by the end of the year. That leaves the fund 49 days to raise the remaining 2.2bn.
At the same time, Støre acknowledged that “it will take some time before payments reach the tropical forest countries and the key people who we want to support”.