First Climate Fund REDD+ payment goes to Brazil

Brazil

Scenes such as this, in Brazil’s state of Amazonas, are what the UN-backed REDD+ strategy seeks to prevent. (Photo by Henrique Saunier)

The Green Climate Fund, the world’s largest financing mechanism for climate action, has chosen Brazil as the recipient of its first-ever payment under REDD+, the U.N.-backed strategy for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in developing countries by improving forest protection. The fund on Feb. 27 announced it was paying Brazil US$96.5 million for keeping 2014 and 2015 carbon-dioxide emissions from Amazon deforestation a total of 1.25 billion tons below average levels prevailing during the period 1996-2010. Such performance-based payments are the incentive at the heart of REDD+, whose acronym stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. With forest destruction estimated to account for 20% of world carbon-dioxide emissions, forest-protection efforts in key woodland regions such as the Brazilian Amazon are considered crucial in the fight against climate change. US$5 billion committed The South Korea-based Green Climate Fund (GCF... [Log in to read more]

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