COP28 Week 1 Wrap-up – Nature’s Newsroom Highlights

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The second week of COP28 kicks off today. As ministers arrive, there is some hope that they can reassert  some of the momentum that seems to have faded in the negotiations, which face a long week ahead.

On the nature-front, keep your eyes peeled for a range of announcements during Nature Day tomorrow, December 9th.

NEWS

The Honduran government unveiled an initiative to rescue and conserve the country’s largest forest, the Moskitia, which is one of Mesoamerica’s Five Great Forests and Central America’s second largest rainforest. The new initiative aims, in part, to put an end to deforestation and illegal cattle ranching in the Moskitia forest.

Social enterprise One Acre Fund launched a new reinsurance fund called ‘One Acre Fund Re’ which will provide a financial safety net for 1 million smallholder farmers in 2024, scaling steadily thereafter. One Acre Fund has developed this in partnership with the International Finance Corporation, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the African Risk Capacity. Disasters have caused about $3.8tn worth of lost crops and livestock production over the past three decades globally, yet only 3% of African farmers have insurance coverage.

The World Economic Forum launched a new guide covering some of how companies could support value creation through the use of biodiversity credits. Specifically, this report identifies a set of interrelated use cases for biodiversity credits: to enhance carbon credits for better nature outcomes.

A coalition of 17 countries – Commonwealth of Australia, Canada, Republic of Congo, Republic of Costa Rica, Republic of Fiji, Republic of Finland, Republic of France, Federal Republic of Germany, Republic of Ghana, Japan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Korea, Kingdom of Norway, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Kingdom of Sweden, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America — launched the “Initiative for Greening Construction with Sustainable Wood” under the auspices of the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP).

The Clean Cooking Alliance announced the publication of two new reports launched during COP28: “Clean Cooking as a Catalyst for Sustainable Food Systems” and “The Future of Africa’s Sustainable Cities: Why Clean Cooking Matters.”

The TNFD published additional guidance to help organisations with business models or value chains in the forestry and paper sectors to apply the LEAP approach to their context.

COP28 Week 1 Wrap-up – Nature’s Newsroom Highlights

SPOTLIGHT – DIRECT IPLC FINANCE

The second Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG) annual report, published in November, analyzed progress against the five-year, $1.7 billion commitment to the tenure rights and forest guardianship of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) in tropical forest countries announced at COP26.

In the 2022 calendar year, FTFG members provided $494 million in pledge-aligned funding, a $172 million increase over 2021 funding. Total spending to date exceeds $815 million—almost half of the pledge total. However, the report found that only  $8.1 million directly reached IP and LC organizations in 2022 – representing just 2.1% of the funding delivered.

This is an important theme at COP28 and the subject of numerous events. Addressing this issue will be key for building trust. Earlier at COP, Conservation International joined partners for a discussion of direct access to finance for Indigenous people and local communities.

During the event, Conservation International CEO Dr. M Sanjayan proposed designing a new facility — the Community-Led Solutions Partnership — to house and expand the experiences for the Dedicated Grant Mechanism, Inclusive Conservation Initiative and others. The partnership would closely with Indigenous partners, and large donors, to:

1. Mobilize at least $500 million in new climate and biodiversity finance;
2. Support more than 100 community-led environmental initiatives;
3. Mitigate 400 million tons of emissions
4. And support community-led management of 100 million hectares of land.

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