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Billions of dollars in pledges for a high-profile forest protection fund from developing countries – and not just a small group of traditional donors with dwindling aid budgets – represents a ”powerful signal” of aid efforts to help the climate crisis, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has suggested.
Mr Miliband made the comments to The Independent after a high profile event at Cop31 where countries reaffirmed commitments to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF): a new forest finance initiative designed to pay tropical forest countries a recurring, performance-based amount per hectare of conserved standing forest.
Launched by President Lula at Cop30 in Brazil last year, the fund has now been promised £400m from the UK, $500m (£380m) from the Netherlands, and nearly $100m from climate philanthropies.
Norway has promised to fund up to 20 per cent of the facility's initial $10 billion capitalisation target, and it is to receive $1bn from Indonesia and $1bn from Brazil: two rainforest nations that are also developing countries, and therefore do not typically face the same expectations as wealthier Western nations to provide aid
Speaking to The Independent after a period of sweeping aid cuts from developed countries including the UK, Mr Miliband commended the fact that…
