Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

The LEAF Coalition is an ambitious new public-private initiative designed to accelerate climate action by providing results-based finance to countries committed to protecting their tropical forests. This initiative aims to mobilize at least $1 billion in financing, kicking off what is expected to become one of the largest ever public-private efforts to help protect tropical forests, to the benefit of billions of people depending on them, and to support sustainable development. 

The Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF) Coalition is an initiative with initial participation from the governments of Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, and leading companies including Amazon, Airbnb, Bayer, Boston Consulting Group, GSK, McKinsey, Nestl , Salesforce, and Unilever. Participants in the Coalition will support high-quality emissions reductions from tropical and subtropical forest countries, enabling efforts to reduce and end deforestation. Emergent, a US non-profit organization, will provide a platform to facilitate transactions and serves as the administrative coordinator of LEAF. 

LEAF was launched at the U.S. Leaders Summit on Climate in April 2021. At COP26 in November 2021, the coalition announced that it had achieved its initial goal of mobilizing $1 billion USD for countries and states committed to increasing ambition to protect tropical and sub-tropical forests and reduce deforestation.

LEAF was the first coalition to require that buyers of carbon credits meet a high-bar set of criteria to participate that has since been replicated by other climate finance initiatives.

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The LEAF Coalition works directly with national and subnational governments who are working to reduce deforestation through large-scale programs. This is one of the initiative‚ key insights. Only governments have the regulatory powers and legitimacy with local communities to enact large-scale stakeholder engagement and benefits sharing plans across entire nations or states. Governments working through a team of local NGOs and ministerial departments are in‚ÄØthe most effective‚ÄØposition to engage Indigenous and‚ÄØlocal‚ÄØcommunities and ensure protection of their rights. 

LEAF uses a new, jurisdiction-only standard for its credits, created by the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART). ART‚ standard, The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES), represents the highest environmental and social integrity and includes strict provisions for the recognition of Indigenous peoples and local communities and protection of rights of all relevant stakeholders. Involvement of all stakeholders with a focus on Indigenous peoples is more likely to result in systemic change ‚ such as the recognition of Indigenous rights ‚ than community-level consultations. 

The standard also accords with the UNFCCC‚ Cancun Safeguards, a set of seven principles that require, inter alia: transparent and effective national forest governance structures, taking into account national legislation and sovereignty; respect for the knowledge and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities; the full and effective participation of these and other stakeholders; and the protection of biodiversity. 

More generally, a market for high-integrity forest protection has the potential to empower women and Indigenous peoples who have been bearing the brunt of climate change and deforestation. Through social safeguards and new policies and enforcement of existing policies, both women and Indigenous peoples can take control of their resources to improve their livelihoods and implement economic progress, developed with cultural identity in the case of Indigenous peoples. In general, uncontrolled deforestation and various associated illegal activities (land grabbing, illegal logging, use of slave labor) have negative impacts on poor and minority populations. This is especially the case for women and Indigenous peoples. Creating financial incentives for reduced deforestation will tend to create broader development opportunities, especially for women and Indigenous peoples. Promoting sustainable economic development is generally supportive of gender integrity and human rights in that it empowers citizens who are typically poorer and less educated to make decisions and choices for themselves, fostering independence and increasing their ability to control their decisions and natural resources.

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