An appellate court will determine how to handle the Trump administration’s cancellation of hundreds of climate and environmental justice grants.

By Lisa Sorg

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, heard arguments Thursday on whether the Trump administration’s cancellation of billions of dollars in environmental and climate grants earlier this year violated the Constitution or was merely a contract dispute.

Breach of Contract or Constitutional Crisis?

The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) – a new global fund for rainforest protection led by Brazil – can be launched successfully at COP30 with strong political backing from other countries even without reaching its $25-billion target for capital from donor governments, Brazil’s lead finance expert said.

The hope is that other countries will come forward with pledges at the UN climate summit but no minimum set amount is required for the fund to get off the ground, he emphasised.

The TFFF is being structured as a blended finance instrument that could raise $4 billion per year to help keep tropical forests standing by investing in financial markets. The fund’s concept note estimates that, as startup capital, it would need $25 billion from governments and $100 billion from private investors.

João Paulo de Resende, climate and economics advisor at Brazil’s Finance Ministry and its lead TFFF expert, told a webinar hosted by Climate Home News on Thursday that Brazil is seeking clear political support from both donor and rainforest countries for the TFFF at COP30. It is due to be launched at a leaders’ summit in the Amazon city of Belém on November 6.

“What we need to reach by COP is a certain level of commitment that shows that there is enough interest in the international community to make this happen, because we can carry on in the following months,” de Resende said.

He added that talks are at a mature stage with five potential donor countries – Germany, Norway, UK, France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Discussions with other potential donors – such as Australia, Japan, Canada and China – have only kicked off recently, he noted.

“We don’t expect to get pledges from these countries that we’ve just started talking to. We can perfectly get those at the COP. And the Brazilian presidency [of COP30] runs through the next year. What we do need to get at the COP is a political message that this is the way forward,” he said.

Brazil is so far the only country to have pledged money to the TFFF, with an initial $1 billion investment announced at the UN General Assembly in New York in September. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has personally promoted the fund at meetings with other world leaders and has been “talking about a commitment” with Indonesia during a state visit to Jakarta this week, de Resende said.

Tørris Jaeger, executive director of the Rainforest Foundation Norway which is promoting the fund, said that in his conversations with Germany’s ministry of finance, “they are asking very tough questions about how the fund is configured.” De Resende joked that “it seems Ethiopia may be more willing to commit to this than the UK and France”, suggesting Brazil is getting impatient with some governments’ reservations.

The TFFF achieved a key milestone ahead of COP30 this week, as the World Bank confirmed it will take on most of the fund’s administrative workload, serving as interim secretariat host and trustee.

Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said this transforms the TFFF “from an idea into a fully operational reality”, although de Resende said on Thursday that many of the details will be worked out next year between countries that sign up to the TFFF.

Managing risk in TFFF investments

Despite their vital role in absorbing and storing climate-heating carbon, forests face a $216-billion funding gap for their protection every year, according to a 2025 report from the UN Environment Programme. Existing financing mechanisms like the Global Environment Facility or the Green Climate Fund rely on government development budgets, which de Resende said are unstable.

The TFFF’s approach is to invest initial capital raised from governments and private sources such as sovereign wealth funds and pension funds. The returns would be used to pay developing countries that can demonstrate they are keeping their forests standing and reducing deforestation to an agreed level.

“There is some risk. In very exceptional years like the (COVID-19) pandemic or the 2008 financial crisis you may need to suspend payments,” said the Brazilian government expert. “But it should be a lot more regular than what you see today with government aid.”

Explainer: Can a new climate fund help save the world’s rainforests?

The fund’s main strategy is to invest in emerging market bonds, which are riskier but can generate high enough returns to pay forest countries. The TFFF also has an exclusion policy for investments in polluting industries like oil and gas, which de Resende also said would force investors to take on more risk.

Jaeger highlighted the fund’s role in creating incentives for protecting old-growth forests. At a global level, primary forests have been cleared at concerning rates, with 6.7 million hectares lost in 2024 alone.

“As with any investment there is a risk. But let’s not forget that there’s also a risk on the other end in that we’re not stopping deforestation and these intact forests get lost,” Jaeger told the event.

Indigenous communities call for support

Once TFFF payments are up and running, local communities will need support in building the skills and legal structures needed to access the funds, said Juan Carlos Jintiach, an Ecuadorian Indigenous leader and executive secretary of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities.

“We have to have an equal level of information. This inter-cultural dialogue is sometimes very challenging for some countries, because all the time they come from the top to the ground. This is not acceptable anymore,” Jintiach said during Climate Home’s panel.

The fund’s proposal foresees that 20% of payments to forest countries will be reserved for Indigenous peoples who are often the ones looking after forests on the ground. Some experts have said this devolved funding could be hard to implement in practice due to a lack of legal and administrative capacity.

World failing on goal to halt deforestation by 2030, raising stakes for Amazon COP

“We need to change the narratives,” the Indigenous leader said. “It’s not good to only look at me as a simple beneficiary. You will look at me as a real partner who can do this together with you, because I’m going to be on the ground giving my life protecting you.”

Pakhi Das, public policy advisor with NGO Plant-for-the-Planet, said the TFFF is an “evolving concept”, adding that concerns from observers have been taken into account in shaping its latest version.

Her organisation has developed a platform called TFFF Watch that will track investments and provide estimates of potential payments to countries with tropical forests.

“There is a very positive notion that [the TFFF] will evolve into something that is tailored-made for the greater good,” Das told Climate Home’s event.

The post Political backing more important than money for new forest fund at COP30, Brazil says appeared first on Climate Home News.

Political backing more important than money for new forest fund at COP30, Brazil says

Supporters of the Virginia Energy Reliability Alliance were out in force at an air permit hearing last month for the utility’s controversial natural gas “peaker” plant in Chesterfield County. Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest utility, says it’s been “transparent” with regard to its support for the group.

By Charles Paullin

CHESTER, Va.—A crowd packed a meeting room at the SpringHill Suites here in September for a public hearing on an air permit for a controversial “peaker” plant that Dominion Energy has long been lobbying to build to enhance grid reliability.

A Pro-Dominion Grassroots Group Has Financial Ties—to Dominion