Cash finance package for Indigenous groups backed by Peers

Cool Earth Chair Tony Juniper CBE was joined by Conservative peer and former Chair of the Climate Change Committee Lord Deben, and former Green Party leader Baroness Natalie Bennett, at a high-profile Westminster event hosted by international NGO Cool Earth and political commentary platform Comment Central last week.

Addressing a room of NGO leaders and finance professionals, the panel explored Cool Earth’s bold proposal for the UK government, allocate one per cent of its International Climate Finance budget, around £115 million, to direct payments for rainforest communities on the frontline of climate protection.

According to Cool Earth, this targeted investment could prevent the release of 33 million tonnes of carbon annually- roughly equivalent to the yearly emissions of Greater London.

Setting out the benefits of cash payments, Tony Juniper, Chair of Cool Earth said: “The communities in Brazil or Peru have a totally different view than the bureaucrats focused on commodity markets.

“These are the people with the mindset and motivation to do what’s needed to stop concentrations of C02 in the atmosphere from going to catastrophic levels and empowering them is in our direct interest.”

Rejecting traditional market-based mechanisms such as carbon and nature credits—which the charity says have repeatedly failed both the climate and frontline communities—Cool Earth advocates a model of unconditional, direct cash payments.

Over 17 years, it has supported Indigenous communities in safeguarding two million acres of rainforest, with 99 per cent of that land remaining intact.

Baroness Natalie Bennett highlighted the importance of this work for both local communities and international understanding, stating: “Climate is just one of the crises we’re facing… we have to preserve cultural diversity; we have a very monocultural world.

“We need people who are living differently, who are preserving different knowledge, we have to protect that because it's crucial to all our futures.”

Questions from the audience included concerns about the possible breakdown in international support for climate change initiatives.

Here, Lord Deben responded: “Whatever Mr Trump says, he is going to find that climate change is happening, and there will be fewer but very much worse hurricanes and he may put that down to the Democrats feeding fish, but the fact of the matter is it's becoming more and more obvious.”

With COP30 set to take place this November in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, Cool Earth and its backers are urging the UK government to embrace the initiative.

Commenting on the event, John Higginson, founder of environmental consultancy Higginson Strategy and Editor-in-Chief of Comment Central, said: “Imagine a world where indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest are paid to maintain it rather than selling it to loggers and ranchers as soon as they need money for medicine and other essentials. And imagine if every penny of any donation went straight to them with nothing skimmed off by middlemen.

“The climate crisis is a global problem that requires global solutions, and working with the experience of front-line communities to tackle pressing issues, including deforestation, is an approach that deserves serious debate and consideration.”

Find out more about Cool Earth here: https://www.coolearth.org/