Carolina Pasquali is executive director of Greenpeace Brazil and Jasper Inventor is executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
In times like these, we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions. Why is war perpetual? Why do so many people lack the basic necessities of life while oligarchs burn a billion dollars to travel to space for a few seconds? Why do we value dead trees but not living forests?
Something is very wrong in the prevailing global logic and systems. For one, we reward the destruction and degradation of the Earth. Reigning economic logic sees value in logs, gold, palm oil, meat and dairy – but none in the Amazon rainforest, or the great forests of Indonesia or the vast Congo Basin in Africa. This green belt of life crosses oceans and sustains all of us – providing clean air, regulating the weather, storing carbon, and basically ensuring a livable Earth.
Yet we allow these forests to be razed, burned, mined or auctioned for carbon credits while a small minority reap the spoils. This plunder that has hurt Indigenous communities for centuries continues to this day, and now threatens all life on Earth with runaway ecological and climate breakdown.
Globally, we lose the equivalent of 11 football fields of forest with each passing minute, resulting in the release of 2.7 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere—as much as India’s annual fossil fuel’s emission.
Reward those who protect forests
All this could change if a planned new ecologically-minded investment mechanism, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), is successfully developed. Proposed in Dubai at COP28, the Facility is expected to launch when Brazil hosts the next COP in November.
In simple terms, the Facility proposes to help correct the basic illogic of our global economic system. Instead of rewarding the destruction of the forests, we will reward those who protect them. It is an idea supported by Global South nations around the world.
Global forest loss hits “frightening” record high with climate-fuelled fires
With an initial investment of $25 billion raised through high-income countries and philanthropic sources, the Facility will act as an investment portfolio, intending to yield returns for loan providers and eventually generating $4 billion annually for nations that protect their tropical forests.
Initial versions of the TFFF concept have been shared publicly and are now in a period of review. As executive directors of Greenpeace offices in tropical forest regions, we welcome the initiative with caution. For too long we have seen empty commitments from companies and governments alike to end deforestation, without success.
Fighting corporate capture
To succeed where so many have failed, the Facility must effectively prevent corporate co-optation and greenwashing. As long-time members of the environmental movement, we have witnessed the steady and alarming pace of corporate capture of our public institutions everywhere.
The last three climate COP negotiations were flooded by polluting corporations. Meanwhile civil society, Indigenous groups, and local communities were sidelined in the halls they built—and none of the powerful nations delivered on any of their promises.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can be successful in his administration’s proposed Facility if it genuinely centres Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This means recognizing that although they make up just 5% of the world’s populations, Indigenous Peoples safeguard at least a fifth of all land on Earth.
“It’s shameful”: Amazon Indigenous people call for oil drilling ban at COP30
After years of advocacy by tribes in Papua, Indonesia, local governments have begun issuing formal recognition of Indigenous land rights, a true milestone for climate and biodiversity protection.
In Africa, meanwhile, the Congo Basin is gravely threatened by oil drilling, industrial logging, and agribusiness. Its carbon-rich peatlands, crucial for climate stability, face uncertain futures. And in Brazil, the National Congress seeks to advance bills that open Indigenous lands for exploitation and threaten their very existence.
Put forest communities at the centre
Communities across these forests are gravely threatened by violent and insatiable plunder. Yet they have not turned their backs on the forests. Simply put, this Facility must provide the people connected with tropical forests the necessary respect, audience, and funds to protect their ancestral homes.
We need to see mechanisms for direct access of funds to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, along with their strong participation in governance and decision-making structures.
The Facility must also ensure strong monitoring of deforestation and forest degradation methods, and ensure that destructive industries are ineligible for investments. Investments must not further drive biodiversity loss and the climate crisis, or fuel armed conflicts.
Cobalt and nickel-free electric car batteries boom in “good news” for rainforests
New opportunity to fund forests
Critics of the Facility have cited its controversial origins as well as its potentially misguided attempt to protect forests through assigning monetary value (often too low). They have raised questions about funding sources, monitoring, and mechanisms.
Yet we urgently need to find ambitious means to preserve our great forests. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are short trillions of dollars and TFFF will not be able to fill this gap on its own. But it is a start – an opportunity and a new model that can ultimately halt deforestation and forest degradation globally.
Set to be launched at November’s COP30 in the heart of the Amazon forest, what better homage to the biggest rainforest in the world than for Brazil to announce a truly effective initiative for a change?
In times like these, at our darkest hour, change isn’t just possible—it’s necessary and inevitable. Brazil’s offering is a sign of the change that is to come. This Facility has a critical opportunity to forge a new path that can benefit all life on Earth.
The post Brazil’s new funding initiative can help bring rainforests back from the brink – if done right appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazil’s new funding initiative can help bring rainforests back from the brink – if done right
Climate Change
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.
This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.
Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.
The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.
As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.
Flood defences
Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.
This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.
There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.
However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.
The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.
The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.
By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.
He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.
Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.
Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.
Reform funding
While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.
Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.
Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.
Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.
Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:
“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”
While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.
The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
Proposed Endangered Species Act rollbacks and military expansions are leaving the Pacific’s most diverse coral reefs legally defenseless.
Ritidian Point, at the northern tip of Guam, is home to an ancient limestone forest with panoramic vistas of warm Pacific waters. Stand here in early spring and you might just be lucky enough to witness a breaching humpback whale as they migrate past. But listen and you’ll be struck by the cacophony of the island’s live-fire testing range.
US Government Is Accelerating Coral Reef Collapse, Scientists Warn
Ice loss in the Antarctic Ocean may be killing the sea birds during their molting season.
Each year for millennia, emperor penguins have molted on coastal sea ice that remained stable until late summer—a haven during a span of several weeks when it’s dangerous for the mostly aquatic birds to enter the ocean to feed because they are regrowing their waterproof feathers.
-
Greenhouse Gases7 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change7 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits