Brazil has been meeting with several countries to promote its Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) initiative, a fund to preserve global tropical forests.
The country plans to launch TFFF prior to the UN Cop 30 summit, which it will host in November in northern Para state. The fund would help pay around 80 developing countries — including Brazil — $4/hectare (ha) for preserved tropical forests. The goal is to raise about $125bn for the fund, to preserve roughly 1bn ha of tropical forests globally.
Roughly 20pc of the fund's resources would come from long-term loans from developed countries and philanthropic entities. The remaining 80pc would come from institutional and retail investors, who will be able to buy debt issued by the fund.
The latest TFFF meeting took place last week in London, with representatives from Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway and the UK. World Bank and NGO community representatives also attended.
Although it is not clear yet whether any country has officially joined the initiative, the fund has received some support.
"We believe [TFFF] can be the missing piece of the puzzle with the potential to solve the long-standing problem of how we finance the world's most intact forests," said Kerry McCarthy, the UK's undersecretary of state at the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.
"Ghana wholeheartedly supports TFFF," the director of climate change in its forestry commission Roselyn Adjei said, adding that it offers a "unique approach" to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. "It will help us build a forest-positive economy to achieve a 1.5º C world," she added, alluding to the Paris accords agreement to limit global warming by 1.5º C above pre-industrial levels.
