Government response

Joint statement on REDD+

Joint Statement on REDD+ by Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Nations Climate Summit, 23 September, 2014

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Our three governments have agreed to, and strongly support, the New York Declaration on Forests. The Declaration reflects a common vision and commitment by leading forest countries, donor governments, private sector and civil society to halve deforestation by 2020 and end natural forest loss by 2030, as well as to significantly increase the rate of forest restoration. Delivering on this will be an indispensable contribution to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, and critical to long-term economic and social development, for poverty reduction, increasing climate resilience, and conserving biodiversity.

In that spirit, we are committed to strengthening existing and creating new partnerships with forest countries designing green growth strategies, with leading private sector companies taking deforestation out of their supply chains, and with the financial sector, civil society and other donor governments to align incentives, transform markets and tip the balance against forest destruction. We recognize the stewardship of forest dependent and indigenous peoples in protecting forests and support their and local communities’ participation and engagement in REDD+. We also strongly support the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from REDD+ actions, and social and environmental safeguards supported by forest stakeholders and agreed by the international community.

We are encouraged by countries that have successfully improved their forest protection and applaud those countries that have set ambitious national targets to reduce deforestation. Since 2008 we have collectively provided over US $3 billion in bilateral and multilateral support to over 50 countries for programmes that support efforts to slow, halt and reverse deforestation, including significant support for results-based payments for verified emissions reductions.

Reducing deforestation requires a long-term commitment. We recognise the significant effort it will take to halt global forest loss. For this to happen, forest countries need to decide that it is in their development interests. We welcome the contribution of the New Climate Economy report, which highlights the range of policies and actions available to scale and accelerate change. As acknowledged by the report, continued international climate finance will need to play a key supporting role in this process, as will private sector efforts to buy and sell sustainably produced, deforestation-free goods.

Forests provide global and local benefits, and protecting them requires cooperation among multiple global and local actors. For these reasons, we support the inclusion of REDD+ as part of a new global climate change agreement that will enter into force by 2020, in addition to the inclusion of forests within the post-2015 development framework and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Up to and beyond 2020, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom will increase our efforts to work together, and with other governments, to provide coordinated finance:

  • We are encouraged by the progress made through a diverse set of channels that provide opportunities to reward action leading to measured, reported and verified forest emission reductions. In this regard, we stand ready to scale up results-based finance for large-scale, REDD+ emission reduction programmes, if countries put forward robust proposals. This includes funding for up to 20 new, credible programmes proposed by 2016 through a range of funding mechanisms. This could be through bilateral or multilateral channels, noting that appropriate agreements would need to be put in place. We will also consider payments for results from additional, credible programmes thereafter, responding to the level of ambition and results by REDD+ countries.

  • We will maintain support for countries’ REDD+ readiness, and increase support for those showing strong signs of moving from readiness to implementation. We welcome the fact that over 50 countries are developing national REDD+ strategies and creating the enabling conditions to reduce emissions from deforestation. We will continue to support efforts to address drivers of deforestation and improve land tenure and governance issues through initiatives such as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, the BioCarbon Fund, the Forest Investment Program, UN-REDD and bilateral finance, including the REDD Early Movers programme.

  • We support the creation of a funding window in the Green Climate Fund to ensure appropriate allocation of funds for reducing deforestation.

  • We will provide support to accelerate pledges to meet or exceed the Bonn Challenge goal to restore 150 million hectares globally by 2020 and to significantly increase the rate of restoration thereafter, which would restore at least an additional 200 million hectares by 2030. We are inspired by the pledges to date of Governments, companies, civil society, forest dependent and indigenous peoples on scaling up ambition to restore deforested and degraded land.

  • We recognise that achieving our collective goal of halting the loss of natural forests by 2030 will require comprehensive actions that address the drivers of deforestation.

  • We applaud the lead taken by the private sector towards eliminating deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, paper and beef products by 2020. We will continue to support public-private partnerships, including the Tropical Forests Alliance 2020, to demonstrate how companies, communities, smallholders and governments can work collaboratively to reduce deforestation.

  • We will work with other consumer countries to promote national commitments that encourage deforestation-free supply chains, including through public procurement policies to sustainably source commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef and timber.

Published 23 September 2014