- What timeline options were delegates debating?
- How did the timeline discussions unfold?
- What were the main points of disagreement?
- Why is the IPCC in a ‘serious funding crisis’?
- How have scientists reacted?
- What other issues remain unresolved?
- How are the IPCC AR7 reports progressing?
- How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
COP30 host nation Brazil has pledged $1 billion to a new fund to protect rainforests it will launch at the UN climate summit in Belém this November. The announcement in New York by Brazil’s president marks the first investment in the fund, which is set to receive cash from nations and private investors.
The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), proposed by Brazil, aims to raise funds to keep forests standing in tropical countries by generating returns on investments in financial markets. As initial capital, it is seeking $25 billion from donor countries and $100 billion from private investors such as pension funds, banks and asset managers.
The South American nation is the first to make a contribution to the TFFF, while other countries like Germany, Norway, UK and the United Arab Emirates have expressed support and participated in its design.
“Brazil will lead by example and become the first country to commit an investment in the fund with $1 billion,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told a high-level event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. “I invite all partners in attendance to make equally ambitious contributions so that the TFFF becomes operational at COP30 in November.”
“In Belém, we will live the moment of truth for our generation of leaders. Tropical forests are critical to limit global warming to 1.5C. The TFFF is not charity. It’s an investment in humanity, in the planet against the threat of devastation caused by climate change,” Lula added.
Forest-rich countries currently face a funding gap of up to $70 billion every year to halt deforestation, researchers estimated in July. In August, all eight nations that are home to the Amazon Basin endorsed the TFFF, while the BRICS group of large emerging economies has also voiced support.
Donors urged to step up
Some forest nations at the high-level meeting in New York – including Colombia, Ghana and Madagascar, as well as UN and World Bank observers – gave their backing to the TFFF and praised Brazil’s contribution.
Colombia’s Environment Minister Irene Vélez said the TFFF “should be the beginning of the transformation of financial structures”. “It should be a revolutionary system that provides justice,” she added.
Vélez urged other donor countries to follow Brazil’s lead, warning “we don’t want another dead fund”.
Campaigners also reacted positively to Brazil’s pledge and urged rich nations to follow suit. Toerris Jaeger, executive director of the Rainforest Foundation Norway, said in a statement “it is remarkable that a tropical forest country is the first mover, with wealthier countries yet to commit”.
World Bank to host fund
Speaking in New York, World Bank CEO Ajay Banga confirmed that the bank will serve as trustee and interim host of the TFFF – a role it already fulfills for other climate funds such as the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
“Our job is to lay the rails and maintain them so the trains can run. We want to leave founders, funders and participating countries free to focus on delivery,” Banga said.
The World Bank has been involved in the TFFF’s design, advising Brazilian authorities on how to structure the fund so it will qualify for a top AAA credit rating. This is key for the economics of the fund to work, as it would struggle to deliver on its promised payments with a lower rating.
Banga said Brazil’s leadership on the TFFF is advancing the “right market thinking” around forests. He added that, if scaled up, the fund’s benefits would result in “good economics and good development”.
Some developing countries and campaigners have been critical of the bank’s role in the loss and damage fund, accusing it of charging high hosting fees and compromising the fund’s independence. The US remains the largest World Bank shareholder.
Other pledges to follow
Despite Brazil’s initial contribution, other donor nations involved in the fund’s design did not come forward with pledges on Tuesday but emphasised its importance as a new way to encourage forest protection.
“The TFFF can not only help reduce deforestation, but also maintain incentives to protect forests in perpetuity. A launch at COP30 in the Amazon could be a game-changer for forest finance,” Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, Norway’s climate minister, said during the high-level event.
Bjelland Eriksen noted that some of the fund’s final details are in still process of being worked out, adding “Norway wholeheartedly wants the TFFF to become a reality and to succeed.”
The TFFF is not a negotiated fund under the UN climate convention, which means that richer developing countries could contribute without assuming traditional donor responsibilities under the UNFCCC. Some experts say this could help convince China and Gulf states to chip in for the initial $25 billion in public finance.
China and the UAE attended the event at UN headquarters and expressed support for a TFFF launch at COP30, but fell short of signalling any pledges.
“This mechanism when operational would be groundbreaking for climate finance and has the potential to reshape how we reward nature-rich countries in preserving our common natural habitats,” Razan Al Mubarak, the UAE’s envoy for nature, said in a statement read at the event.
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Brazil pledges $1bn in first contribution to COP30 rainforest fund
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Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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Paris Agreement committee snubbed over missing NDC climate plans
Many governments have still not submitted a nationally determined contribution to the UN, breaching a key requirement of the Paris Agreement
In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
The post Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs appeared first on Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs
Countries have failed – for the sixth time running – to agree on the timeline for publishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) next set of influential reports.
The IPCC’s 65th session (IPCC-65) was seen by many to be the final opportunity for countries to agree on a schedule where its seventh assessment report (AR7) would be published in time for the UN’s second “global stocktake” of climate action.
Before last week’s meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, IPCC chair Prof Sir Jim Skea had warned that releasing the reports in time for the stocktake in 2028 would depend on a timelines being agreed by the end of 2026.
But the week-long meeting descended into fraught disagreements