Climate finance has potential to foster the forestry industry, agricultural commodities and sustainable territories

On September 13, IDH brought together, in Cuiabá, capital of Mato Grosso State, several partners from Brazil to address the climate finance agenda. The event took place at the State Secretariat for the Environment of Mato Grosso (SEMA) and was attended by more than 60 representatives of the public and private sectors, and civil society. The purpose was to present IDH's climate finance strategy and explain the actions that are being implemented in Brazil under this agenda.

Marcela Paranhos, IDH's global carbon finance manager, explained that in 2021 IDH launched its global climate finance strategy, which was developed based on the assessment of the effects and impacts generated by IDH's programs worldwide, focusing on agricultural commodity chains and landscapes, and their contribution to the climate action agenda of governments and companies. The strategy combines mitigation and adaptation actions, considering three key axes: forests, agriculture and more resilient territories and chains.

"IDH sees carbon as a means to scale up financing for the transition to a low-carbon economy, where the positive socio-environmental impacts of field interventions can be translated into a language that is already understood and incorporated worldwide by private sector strategies, thereby increasing the flow of resources to low-carbon agriculture and more resilient production systems," added Paranhos.

During the event, the consultants presented the advances and results of analyses commissioned by IDH throughout 2021 and 2022.

Forests

The study conducted by climate change and global carbon market specialist Marcelo Theoto Rocha brought an update on the construction of the scenarios for jurisdictional REDD+ in the states of the Legal Amazon, in relation to the Brazilian NDC. Rocha explained the progress of the negotiations on the global carbon market under the Paris Agreement, and what his expectations are for the COP27. In addition to this scope, IDH is also cooperating with SEMA to develop a socio-climatic vulnerability index that can be used in the design of the REDD+ benefit-sharing mechanism – to ensure a fair distribution of benefits among land users. In Mato Grosso, the study supports the drafting of the REDD+ Jurisdictional Scheme and for the second phase of the REM Program.

Agriculture

In 2021, IDH, with support from the WayCarbon consultancy, started to assess the carbon footprint and the potential to reduce emissions of the Sustainable Production of Calves Program. The assessment will include the 561 farms that are already part of the program and in the second stage, it will connect the carbon results achieved by the program with the commitments of the partners in the value chain (meatpackers and retail).

This same axis also includes the establishment of a monitoring platform that will incorporate the measurement of GHGs in all IDH co-financing projects. "ABC Facility will land the field agenda through three main fronts: platform for monitoring and managing property data, access to credit for small and medium producers and management of GHG emissions," illustrated Manuela Maluf Santos, investment manager at IDH Brazil.

More resilient landscapes and chains

Another effort that was launched in 2021 and being concluded in 2022, was the climate vulnerability analysis of the municipalities covered by the landscape governance models promoted by IDH (or PCI Regional Compacts). The analyses were conducted by the scientist, researcher and professor specializing in climate change, Eduardo Assad. The result will be used as guidance for the drafting of a land development plan in the North-eastern semi-arid region, and also for revising the targets of the PCI Compacts in the Balsas-Maranhão region, the Juruena Valley, Sorriso and Barra do Garças, in Mato Grosso.

Videos (only in Portuguese) of the event are available here