Globally, at least 30 financial instruments support forests by offering incentives for conservation, forest restoration, and combating deforestation—each addressing different scenarios.

The external debt of 12 forest-rich countries reached $913 billion in 2022, and forests could help reduce their debt burden. Regulated carbon markets generated $75 billion in 2023, with minimal involvement of forest credits. Meanwhile, voluntary carbon markets, dominated by forest credits, generated $1.1 billion in 2022 and only $351 million in 2023.

The price of a tonne of carbon in the markets, which reached nearly $100 in 2023, dropped to $60 in 2024, indicating volatility.

This groundbreaking mapping effort by the Brazilian government seeks to understand the role of forests as a global climate solution, providing an economic snapshot of the various instruments worldwide supporting preservation.

“The idea is to arrive at COP 30 in Belém [Brazil] with forests as a solution to the climate crisis,” Ambassador André Correa do Lago, Secretary for Climate, Energy, and Environment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Valor.

He pointed out that President Lula decided to place the Amazon and forests at the center of the climate debate at the climate crisis conference in Egypt in 2022. At that event, President Lula announced Brazil’s desire to host a COP in the forest.

The effort to map global financial mechanisms supporting forests revives the “United for Our Forests” communiqué signed by the governments of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Indonesia, Peru, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Venezuela at the Belém Summit in 2023.

Article 9 of the communiqué calls on “other developing countries that hold significant portions of global biodiversity to advocate that our countries must wield more influence over the management of resources allocated to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.”

The Brazilian government intends to invite “other developing countries with tropical rainforests to come together to establish a shared knowledge base on the possibilities available to reduce deforestation, restore forests, and conserve forests.”

There are at least 65 developing countries with tropical rainforests in very different situations. “Some have a lot of forests with little deforestation pressure, while others face greater deforestation pressure,” said economist Juliano Assunção, executive director of the think tank Climate Policy Initiative CPI/PUC Rio, leading the mapping effort. The think tank has mapped 30 instruments worldwide, which vary greatly—some are small, others larger; some are grants, others loans; some aim to encourage deforestation reduction, like the Amazon Fund, but do not work for countries with low deforestation, Mr. Assunção explained.

“It is important for each country to find a menu of solutions and initiatives that best suits their specific needs,” he added. “Our goal is to understand how international financing mechanisms can contribute to the preservation and restoration of our forests. And to establish a dialogue with these countries so that, by the end of the process at COP 30, they have a menu of options of different mechanisms that are useful for forest management.” He adds, “Today, that is not clear.”

Mr. Assunção explains that, in the climate agenda, “the starting point seems to always be the financial instrument rather than what needs to be financed. It’s frustrating because structures are created that do not fit the reality.”

The Brazilian government’s initiative aims to empower developing countries with tropical rainforests, providing solutions originating from them. Lawyer Kevin Conrad spoke at the forest event through videoconference. “The world is committed to ending deforestation by 2030. The problem is that we are not able to mobilize enough funds, and we have different measures, languages, standards, and instruments competing with each other,” he said.