GCF workshop to consolidate finance for REDD+

The Green Climate Fund convenes a workshop in Bali, Indonesia, to discuss how the Fund can tap financial incentives to protect forests.

Since more than a decade ago, countries have been negotiating an international policy framework to financially incentivize emissions reductions from deforestation and forest degradation and to conserve and enhance carbon sinks (REDD+) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

With the adoption of the Warsaw Framework for REDD+ at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 19 held in Poland in 2013, there was an emphasis that climate finance should be “results-based.” This recognized that developing countries need finance from funding agencies, like from the then newly established Green Climate Fund.

More recently at COP 21, held in France in 2015, REDD+ results-based finance became a key element of the Paris Agreement (article 5).

This GCF workshop capitalizes on enhanced global convergence in the Paris Agreement, ratified at the end of 2016, on defining REDD+ as a way of using finance to protect forests to reduce global emissions by slowing, halting and reversing forest carbon loss.

The GCF workshop will bring together a wide range of stakeholders and experts, including civil society and representatives of indigenous people. They will explore thinking on how the Green Climate Fund can channel REDD+ to funnel new flows of climate finance. The discussions will converge around previous UNFCCC decisions, mainly the Warsaw Framework for REDD+ and the Fund’s own procedures and mandates.

In October 2016, the GCF Board requested its Secretariat prepare a Request for Proposals (RFP) on REDD+ results-based payments. The Board also called for further guidance on how to support efforts by National Designated Authorities and focal points in developing countries to engage with GCF in these countries’ early phases of REDD+ implementation.

The workshop is designed to achieve these goals, as set by the GCF Board, by seeking input on how to design the Request for Proposals. RFPs are used by the Fund from time to time to seek project ideas that help address current climate finance gaps.

A major focus of the workshop will be on sharing participants’ experiences and lessons learned in implementing REDD+ to ensure GCF’s REDD+ support matches those of other organizations.

Advocates for REDD+ point to its potential in achieving relatively low-cost emissions abatement. Social and environmental concerns during the past few years have led to increasing efforts for REDD+ to also cover biodiversity and the rights of indigenous people.

Starting today, the GCF workshop will last until 25 April.