Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Goal 8 Assessment

The assessment finds that green finance for forests is severely insufficient, totaling under USD 22 billion since 2010, and represents only 1.5% of total climate mitigation commitments from developed countries and multilateral institutions. While some domestic initiatives and Green Climate Fund projects show progress, private sector investment remains dominated by traditional 'grey finance' with few mandatory safeguards to prevent deforestation in commodity supply chains.

• Green finance for forests is significantly lower than its potential for climate mitigation and is dwarfed by other sectors. Since 2010, just under USD 22 billion in green finance for forests has been committed, whereas the renewables sector received over USD 280 billion in commitments in 2018 alone.
• International public finance for forest mitigation in tropical countries is a very small fraction of overall climate mitigation funding. Between 2010 and 2017, developed countries and multilateral institutions committed USD 3.2 billion to forests in tropical deforestation countries, which is less than 1.5% of the USD 256 billion total committed to climate change mitigation.
• There is a significant imbalance between 'green finance' (aligned with conservation) and 'grey finance' (no stated objective to positively impact forests). Development finance for agriculture in countries with high deforestation is 15 times higher than climate mitigation finance specifically targeting forestry.
• Private financial institutions largely lack mandatory safeguards to prevent investments from driving deforestation. An assessment of 150 financial institutions showed that only 20% on average have policies to protect priority forest areas across commodities, and mandatory traceability requirements are even rarer, such as only 0.6% for cattle and 3% for soy.
• The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved several specific projects to reduce deforestation, including a USD 84 million co-financed grant for Ecuador's REDD+ Action Plan, a USD 69.8 million project in Madagascar, and a USD 158 million project for climate-smart agriculture and forestry in Mexico and Guatemala.
• Domestic finance varies widely across countries implementing REDD+ strategies. For example, Mexico has planned or invested USD 7,990 million, while other countries like Costa Rica (USD 1,413 million) and Vietnam (USD 185 million) have provided significantly lower domestic contributions.

APA

Forest Declaration Assessment (2019). Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Goal 8 Assessment. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2019NYDFGoal8.pdf

Chicago

Forest Declaration Assessment. Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Goal 8 Assessment. 2019. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2019NYDFGoal8.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Forest Declaration Assessment |title=Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Goal 8 Assessment |date=September 2019 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2019NYDFGoal8.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{forestdeclarationassessment2019progress, author = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, title = {{Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Goal 8 Assessment}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2019NYDFGoal8.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }