Forest defenders disappointed by the lack of agreement on a roadmap to tackle deforestation at COP30 say voluntary initiatives and funding promises set in motion in Belém are at least a step in the right direction.

Indigenous people and campaigners hoped the first UN climate summit held in the Amazon would define a concrete plan for saving the world’s forests. But COP30’s “Global Mutirão” decision makes only passing mention of the COP28 target adopted by all countries to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030 – a goal data shows is way off-track.

A decision on cutting carbon emissions – part of the broader package of COP30 outcomes – also made short shrift of the issue, referring only to the “challenges in addressing drivers of deforestation” while also being “mindful of pursuing sustainable development and food security”.

“Our expectations were far higher than what this COP in the heart of the Amazon ultimately delivered,” Fernanda Carvalho, head of policy for climate and energy at WWF, told Climate Home News.

Panama’s head of delegation at the talks, Juan Carlos Monterrey, said in a social media post that “a Forest COP with no commitment on forests is a very bad joke”.

Off-course on ending deforestation

In the run-up to the talks, Brazil’s COP30 presidency made much of the Amazon venue, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for negotiators to deliver a roadmap to end deforestation by the end of the decade, alongside another roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.

The world is way off-track to meet the COP28 deforestation target, first set at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. Forested areas the size of England were lost last year as agricultural expansion continued to fuel deforestation, according to a global assessment by experts and NGOs released just before the Belém summit.

But despite winning backing from all 56 members of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations and 27 European Union member states, a deforestation roadmap – like the roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels – was relegated to a voluntary initiative to be drawn up by the COP30 presidency in time for COP31 in Türkiye next year.

COP observers blamed the weak outcome more on a lack of political will than overt opposition, but some countries did balk at giving forests stronger support.

Argentina – an agricultural powerhouse – pushed back even on a brief reference to deforestation in the mitigation text, saying mention of the drivers of deforestation “should be analysed from a historical perspective” and take into account developing countries’ differentiated responsibilities.

“Better than nothing”

Yet while the results of the “Amazon COP” were “disappointing”, COP30 did summon up “both money and political will” from countries supporting broader efforts to end deforestation, said Toerris Jaeger, executive director of Rainforest Foundation Norway, an NGO.

Carvalho said the presidency’s voluntary roadmap initiative “is better than no signal on forests”, adding that what really matters is the inclusion of forest policies in national climate plans – something that is still lagging.

A WWF analysis found that of the 39 nationally determined contributions (NDCs) filed by September’s deadline – which accounted for 42% of the world’s forests – only Brazil explicitly commits to achieving zero illegal deforestation by 2030, although implying that legal deforestation could still occur. Just 14 of the NDCs set any forest-related targets.

Outside of the official COP process, which “failed to deliver anything meaningful on deforestation”, according to Felix Finkbeiner, founder of Germany-based NGO Plant-for-the-Planet, several voluntary funding initiatives were welcomed by campaigners.

European nations pledged cash to protect rainforest in Africa’s Congo Basin and aid traditional and Indigenous communities living in forested areas, while Brazil’s brainchild, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), also secured several donor promises of support.

Tropical forest fund takes off slowly

The TFFF, which aims to pay tropical countries that conserve their forests with income from financial investments, was also left out of the “Global Mutirão” decision after being featured as an option in an earlier draft.

And despite receiving pledges of funding, almost entirely from countries so far, there are questions over how the fund will operate in practice and whether it will secure the political and financial backing it needs.

“The funding model is realistic in principle”, said Chris Dodwell, head of policy and advocacy at Impax Asset Management – one of the financial firms involved in the fund’s design, adding that investors still needed information on the fund’s reporting process, how the debt will be structured and demonstrated results protecting forests.

“The reality is that the premier investment will only flow once you have got bonds that are being issued, with all of the detail and documentation that you need. The whole concept is always going to have this idea of building over time,” Dodwell told Climate Home.

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Still, the TFFF has already received pledges totalling about $7 billion from a handful of countries, though some of them are conditional on it reaching a threshold of support.

That dwarfs the $500 million disbursed by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for REDD+ forestry projects since 2017, but remains short of the target set by Brazilian officials for the first year of $10 billion in pledges.

Some multilateral banks are considering an investment in the fund, while some donor countries involved in its design – among them Canada, the United Arab Emirates and China – are yet to pledge a contribution.

New Congo Basin finance

In a major financial boost, European nations also pledged to raise $2.5 billion over the next five years for the protection of the Congo Basin, the second-largest rainforest on the planet and the last remaining strong carbon sink.

The pledge scaled up a previous $1.5-billion initiative launched at COP26 in Glasgow to protect the Congo Basin, which trained local populations in sustainable management, helped them secure land rights and funded protected areas, according to implementation reports.

Signatories include France, Germany, Norway, Belgium and the UK, as well as multilateral banks, including the World Bank, African Development Bank, Global Environment Facility and the GCF.

In a similar voluntary initiative, the UK, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands renewed a $1.8-billion pledge to scale up land tenure for Indigenous people and Afro-descendent communities by 2030, which was one of the main Indigenous demands at COP30.

Rachel Pasternak, global lead for forests at The Nature Conservancy, said that these voluntary initiatives are “steps in the right direction”, despite the formal negotiations lagging behind on forests. “While we need to do more, given the geopolitical realities that we’re in, there’s still a lot to celebrate.”

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With no COP30 roadmap, hopes of saving forests hinge on voluntary initiatives