Originally published at Redd-Monitor.org:
The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is supposed to help countries in the Global South reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. It was launched at COP 13 in Bali in 2007. The Fund capital stands at US$850 million, of which US$1.12 billion is for the Readiness Fund, and US$750 million is for the Carbon Fund. But after nine years, the FCPF cannot point to a single country in which it has actually reduced deforestation.
Norway is the largest contributor to the FCPF. Over the years, Norway has handed over a total of about US$275 million. A recent article in the NORAD-funded Bistandsaktuelt questions the effectiveness of all this generosity.
The article quotes Rainforest Foundation UK’s criticism that the FCPF has spent too much money on operations, consulting, methodological support and administration, while the concrete results in terms of forest conservation and purchase of carbon offsets are on hold.
From the beginning, the FCPF was supposed to “jump-start a forest carbon market”.
Rainforest Foundation UK calculates that almost two-thirds of the money spent under the FCPF since 2009 has gone on the World Bank’s own administration, consulting expenses and transaction costs.
Simon Counsell, Executive Director of the Rainforest Foundation UK told Bistandsaktuelt that all this money, “has not saved a single hectare of forest or prevented a single gram of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere”.
