Pathways to value
Achieving a breakthrough for international climate finance for tropical forest conservation
By Rupert Edwards View PublicationReversing the global trend of tropical forest loss remains the largest barrier for natural climate solutions contributing to climate goals at their fullest potential. This paper looks at past challenges to scaling finance to end tropical deforestation and restore degraded forests. We then consider a set of core “pathways to value” for REDD+. Within these pathways, we conclude that support for forest countries in the form of results-based finance from international governments remains an essential tool. And that public results-based payments combined with private sector demand for high integrity carbon credits (based on jurisdictional baselines) has the highest potential for mobilizing finance at scale. We examine how to achieve a breakthrough for REDD+ through a set of strategies to increase credit prices; improve access to upfront finance; utilize donor government support to set price floors and create demand signals; and use “Offers for Sale” from forest countries to support price discovery and leverage concessional finance from multilateral development banks. Offers for Scale are contractually binding commitments for large-scale sales of high-integrity jurisdictional and nested credits with minimum volume and value targets.