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Federal Government pledged one billion euros for a new fund to protect rainforests at the UN climate conference in Brazil. Germany will contribute this amount over the next ten years, Federal Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan (SPD) and Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) announced on Wednesday evening in Belém, Brazil. “This is about protecting tropical rainforests, the lungs of our world,” said the two SPD politicians.
The fund, called the Forever Tropical Forest Facility (TFFF), provides financial rewards to countries that preserve their rainforests. This is a new funding mechanism Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched COP30 in Belém ahead of the UN climate conference and called on countries to take part.
Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva welcomed the announcement. Germany’s commitment shows that the TFFF is a “very well-designed, very well-structured instrument” for climate protection, he said in Belém.
The fund collects money from states
TFFF functions like a traditional investment fund, with a return of between four and 5.5 percent, and a portion of the proceeds goes to rainforest countries. They receive four dollars per acre of protected vegetation.
A total of $125 billion is targeted for the fund. Brazil itself has pledged $1 billion, as has Indonesia. Portugal wants to mobilize one million euros. The fund so far has 47 political backers, including Germany, Britain, China, France and the European Union. Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Monday that the goal is… COP30 reaching ten billion dollars.
How much money Germany will give is eagerly awaited. During his brief visit to Brazil, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) initially only announced “significant numbers” without providing specific figures.
Whoever conserves the forest will be rewarded
For the Brazilian government, the new forest protection fund is a prestige project that, as host of the UN conference, they want to help publicize. Countries that conserve their forests should be rewarded according to this new model. Instead, they have to pay fines for every hectare of forest damaged. This will be checked using satellite imagery.
Rainforests are critical for climate and species protection because they bind large amounts of climate-damaging greenhouse gases, cool the climate through water evaporation and are also home to many species of animals and plants. In many places, they are threatened by deforestation to create farmland or pasture or to mine for gold.
