July 1, 2019

A new report published today by the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) on the Green Climate Fund finds that one of the world’s largest climate adaptation and mitigation funds for developing countries may actually do more harm to tropical forests and people on the frontline of climate change unless it is reformed.

The Green Climate Fund is a central key fund for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement which has committed industrialised nations to channelling US$100 billion USD to developing countries by 2020. However, RFUK’s report Good Money After Bad? Risks and Opportunities for the Green Climate Fund in the Congo Basin Rainforests finds that the fund’s potential to deliver its stated intention of inducing a “paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development” in tropical forests is being compromised by weaknesses in its institutional design and safeguards systems. As with previous funds supporting REDD, it risks becoming as well as an apparent fixation on convoluted market-based REDD+ approaches to forest conservation that have yielded few results over the past decade.

Joe Eisen of the Rainforest Foundation UK said:

“Rather than propping up failing carbon offset schemes that serve only to shift responsibility for addressing climate change away from the biggest polluters, the Green Climate Fund should invest in those on the frontline of climate change – local communities and indigenous peoples – by helping them to secure and manage the forests they depend on.”