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Leading philanthropists have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to save the increasingly small rainforests that yearn for carbon dioxide trapping heat from the atmosphere, on the eve of a world summit on climate change in San Francisco.
Nine foundations announced a commitment of $ 459 million, to be delivered over the next four years, one day before the World Summit on Climate Action, which is expected to attract about 4,500 delegates from municipal and regional governments.
"As the world heats up, many of our governments have been slow to act. So we have to do philanthropy, "said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, to reporters at an event announcing the commitment.
The commitment roughly doubles the funds that groups currently spend on forest protection, said David Kaimowitz, director of the Ford Foundation, one of the donors.
Charlotte Streck, director of Amsterdam-based think tank Climate Focus, said the size of this commitment makes groups major players in supporting anti-deforestation programs.
Norway has led donor efforts by pledging up to $ 500 million a year to help tropical countries protect their forests, Streck said.
But new funding from foundations could be more "flexible and agile" than government money, she added.
"Money promised by governments like Norway and Germany, the United Kingdom, is mainly in trust funds with the World Bank and the United Kingdom and it does not come out so quickly," was she said.
"Often 20,000 dollars or 50,000 missing are missing, just to do one thing or develop a study or work with one person or one consultation – and the foundations can do it," Streck said.
Other groups participating in the new initiative include the MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Assistance to indigenous people
The funds will mainly help indigenous people living in forests, including helping them obtain title to the land on which they live.
"Companies come to our village, to our forests and say," You have to leave because I have the government license, "said Rukka Sombolinggi, who heads the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN), based in Indonesia.
The world is losing the equivalent of 50 football fields every minute, the organizers said.
Yet forests absorb a third of the annual greenhouse gas emissions from global warming – and these emissions need to be drastically reduced to meet the goals set in the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Climate Agreement, adopted by nearly 200 countries in 2015, aims to limit warming to "well below" a rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over the preindustrial period. degrees C.
The three-day World Climate Action Summit was organized by the California authorities and the United Nations to support the leadership of mayors, governors and other sub-national authorities in the fight against climate change. against climate change.
VOA
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