Companies and governments around the world committed US$705 million in new finance in 2014 to enhance the role of forests in combating climate change, according to a report released this week by Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace, Converging at the Crossroads: State of Forest Carbon Finance in 2015. Over the last decade, private and public sector actors have provided a cumulative $5.1 billion to initiatives that aim to keep threatened forests standing, promote carbon-conscious land management, and plant new trees. But last year marked the first time that market-based payments for verified emissions reductions – a record-high $257 million for 34.4 million tonnes of offset greenhouse gases – exceeded the $229 million in new “readiness” payments intended to help tropical forest countries build capacity to halt deforestation under the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism.
