Brazil Has $167b Plan to Make COP30 Talks a Rare Success

Brazil plans to launch an ambitious US$125 billion (S$167 billion) fund to protect tropical forests when it hosts the COP30 climate summit in November.

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SAO PAULO -

The investment vehicle is part of a broad strategy to turn the talks into action after a US withdrawal from climate diplomacy threatens to slow progress.

Discussions are advanced, and some countries have already expressed interest in joining the list of anchor contributors, including Germany, France, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, according to Dr Rafael Dubeux, executive secretary at Brazil's Finance Ministry. The new fund should be ready to receive contributions by the time the summit starts in the city of Belem, Dr Dubeux said.

The idea behind the initiative dubbed Tropical Forests Forever Facility is to pay nations a fee for every hectare of forest they maintain.

Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among the heavily forested countries that stand to benefit. The World Bank is helping to develop the fund and is expected to manage it.

Brazil's forestry fund is just one way officials are looking to make COP30 a landmark event - with plans to also kick off discussions on a multilateral carbon market and a common framework for defining sustainable investments.

The summit, being held in Belem, marks the 10th anniversary of the historic Paris Agreement, a global accord that commits nearly every country in the world to keeping warming to well below 2 deg C, and ideally 1.5 deg C, relative to pre-industrial levels. Yet, COP30 follows a recent series of lackluster UN summits that has added to a sense of backsliding.

US President Donald Trump is pulling the world's second-largest emitter out of the Paris accord for the second time and slashing international aid. Europe has begun to focus more of its foreign aid on defense spending to support Ukraine's war against Russia.