SCMP writes: "China backs Brazil’s US$125 billion fund to protect tropical forests"

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3326605/china-backs-brazils-us125-billion-fund-protect-tropical-forests

China has officially endorsed Brazil’s proposed US$125 billion Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), a landmark climate finance instrument designed to reward tropical nations for conserving their forests. The backing came at a sideline event at the UN in New York, ahead of COP30 in Belém. The fund, co-developed by Brazil with support from the World Bank and other partners, will invest in low-risk assets and funnel returns to tropical countries — paying up to US$4 per hectare of standing forest — contingent on keeping deforestation below 0.5 percent annually, with penalties for forest loss or degradation. Notably, at least 20 percent of the funds will be earmarked for Indigenous peoples and local communities.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that Brazil would make the first commitment, putting US$1 billion into the TFFF, and urged other nations to match the ambition before COP30. He framed the fund not as charity but as an investment in humanity amid escalating climate threats, noting that the Amazon, Congo, and Borneo-Mekong basins together host roughly 80 percent of Earth’s remaining tropical forests. Over 1.1 billion hectares of tropical forest are spread across 73 developing nations, and Lula argued that stable, predictable funding could be transformative for these countries’ conservation efforts.