Brazil Seeks to Raise $10 Billion for Forest Protection Initiative

SadaNews - Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad stated that mobilizing $10 billion in public resources for the "forever tropical forest initiative" will be an ambitious yet "possible" goal in its first year, as part of an effort to secure a total of $125 billion later on.

The Brazilian Forest Financing Fund project is considered a pioneering initiative as the host country for the "COP30" climate talks, aiming to raise $125 billion to support the global preservation of endangered forests.

Haddad confirmed, on the sidelines of an event in São Paulo, that other countries may announce their contributions to the fund during the United Nations climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém next week.

Regarding the initiative, Haddad said, "To reach $10 billion, the participation of a few G20 countries will be sufficient, allowing us to start compensating the countries that maintain tropical forests, especially those burdened with debt."

Haddad declined to name the countries that have expressed interest in contributing to the fund, which aims to gather $25 billion from governments and charitable institutions to attract $100 billion from the private sector.

Last September, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that Latin America's largest economy would contribute $1 billion to the fund and urged other countries to make equally bold contributions, so the fund could be operational for the UN Climate Change Conference.

Haddad also mentioned that the Indonesian government has agreed to contribute to the fund, which will be managed like an endowment and will provide annual payments to countries based on the amount of remaining tropical forests.

At the end of October, the Brazilian Finance Ministry announced that the World Bank had agreed to act as a financial manager and trustee of the fund.

Forests play a crucial role in stabilizing the global climate and absorbing carbon dioxide. The Amazon rainforest is known as the lungs of the world, housing about 400 billion trees, and scientists estimate its age to be around 55 million years, covering about 6% of the Earth's surface.

Its total area is about 5 million square kilometers, spanning across the territories of 9 South American countries, with 60% located in Brazil. It absorbs approximately 1.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually.

However, deforestation, increased temperatures, and both natural and man-made fires have turned some of its areas into sources of carbon that trees store, exacerbating global warming and climate change.

A new study conducted by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre confirmed that fires affected 3.3 million hectares (33,000 square kilometers) of the Amazon rainforest last year alone.

Researchers found that 2024 fires released about 791 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, equivalent to nearly the emissions produced by Germany in a whole year.

Source: Reuters