COP 30: How 34 Governments are Ending the Forest Finance Gap

Launched at New York Climate Week in collaboration with Brazil and supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership has unveiled an “Unlocking Forest Finance, A Roadmap for Action” to close a US$66.8bn annual funding gap and end deforestation by 2030. 

The first joint framework bridging the Global North and South, it translates pledges such as the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration into finance-ready solutions aligned with the COP30 Action Agenda. 

The plan centres on six priority actions to unlock public and private capital at speed while supporting national development goals.

A six-point plan for deforestation

According to the report, UNEP estimates that tropical regions need US$66.8bn in annual investment in forests by 2030.

An estimated US$15.8bn for protection, making cost-effective contributions to the goals of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement and the CBD Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework.

Roughly US$33.2bn for tropical restoration, allowing for the restoration of millions of hectares of degraded forest land annually while creating economic opportunities and opportunity for carbon removal.

The final part being US$17.8bn for agroforestry in tropical forest regions, enhancing local livelihoods and supply chain resilience.

The Roadmap sets out six levers for scaling finance:

• Increase demand for high-integrity jurisdictional forest carbon credits
• Establish the Tropical Forest Forever Facility
• Accelerate private investment in the new forest bioeconomy
• Align value chain finance with sustainability, including through increased corporate disclosure of forest related risks
• Target public finance toward rewarding forest stewardship and use fiscal tools to incentivise private investment in sustainability
• Reduce and manage sovereign debt in ways that reward investment in resilience.

Collectively, these measures could mobilise tens of billions of dollars each year by 2030, with clear roles for governments, multilateral banks, corporates and investors. 

“Forest finance must be mobilised as part of the Baku to Belem Roadmap aimed at scaling up US$1.3tn of international climate finance by 2035,” says the report.

“Forests are the lifeblood of our planet – supporting food security, tackling climate change and protecting biodiversity,” says Katie White, UK Climate Minister.

“The UK is proud to support this new framework which will align global efforts to protect forests and will unlock finance at scale. 

“With just two months until COP30, the UK is stepping up on climate action so we can tackle deforestation to protect our children and grandchildren from the climate crisis.” 

Why forests are a high-value climate investment

Forests offer up to 4 GtCO₂e a year of cost-effective mitigation, yet deforestation drives 11% of global emissions and 45% of land-sector emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report. 

The land sector has the largest climate finance gap and needs a 30-fold increase in investment to meet its mitigation potential, says Climate Policy Initiative’s 2025 analysis, with reducing deforestation delivering the biggest near-term gains. 

“Tropical forests hold most of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, supporting 62% of global vertebrate species, up to 29% of which are endemic and 20% at risk of extinction,” the report writes.

The report also writes that biodiversity underpins food security, health and cultural integrity for indigenous people and local communities, while forest disturbance raises near-term malaria prevalence and the risk of animal-to-human pathogen transfer. 

“Forests in the Amazon and Congo Basins transport moisture to globally significant centers of agricultural production,” the report says.

“Congo Basin forests contribute approximately half of the rain that falls in the city of Kinshasa’s watershed.

“Brazil‘s two largest hydroelectric power plants have a combined annual loss of 3,800 GWh of energy due to deforestation.”

In Brazil, soy revenue lost due to extreme heat from native vegetation loss (1985–2012) totaled US$99 per hectare for 2012-2013 growing season.

“We strongly welcome this new forest finance paper, It underlines that real solutions are already within our reach, with a menu of options that can move forward together at speed,” says Vickram Outar Bharrat, M.P, Guyana Minister of Natural Resources. 

“If we want forests to stay standing, finance must be reliable and fair, so that communities and countries can make choices for the long term. 

“Stability of finance is the bridge between ambition and action and through the vital work of the FCLP and our partnerships with Brazil and others, we can help turn the menu of options into results and give the world a real chance of halting and reversing forest loss by 2030.”

The report estimates that 11 million people in Brazil could experience extreme heat-related health risks with continued deforestation and greenhouse warming.

Turning policy into investable pipelines

Governments and companies can embed forest impacts in mandatory disclosures, as well as: 

• Net zero transition plans
• Global and regional standards that can be interoperate
• Technical assistance can help firms move from voluntary to mandatory reporting
• Governments, value chain actors and civil society can educate consumers. 

These can help build demand for sustainable forest products and deforestation-free commodities. 

Companies alone spent US$660m in 2023 on certification for palm oil, coffee, cocoa, soy and rubber, according to UNEP.

At COP26, 30 financial institutions with US$8,700tn in assets pledged to eliminate commodity-driven deforestation.

More than 3,500 companies disclosed to CDP on climate, water and forests in 2024, a 316% increase on 2023. 

Large companies voluntarily reporting have identified US$37bn in financial effects of risks in tropical forest countries related to deforestation and US$730bn in opportunities in those countries to transition away from deforestation risk.

Momentum from real-world examples

Delivery is underway. 

Costa Rica and Guyana are using carbon-credit revenues for conservation and community support. 

Kenya is advancing sustainable wood in green construction, Brazil is expanding rural credit for climate-smart agriculture and Uruguay has issued a deforestation-linked sovereign bond to tie finance to nature outcomes.. 

Private initiatives such as the Brazil Restoration & Bioeconomy Finance Coalition are mobilising multi-billion-dollar commitments toward a US$10bn target by 2030, signalling the Roadmap’s practicality and investability.