Skip to main content
Image
Vietnam
Projects

Green Gigaton Challenge

The Green Gigaton Challenge is a coalition led by UN-REDD, Emergent, the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions, Forest Trends, and the Environmental Defense Fund. By mobilizing public and private results-based finance, the Green Gigaton Challenge will build the visible demand signal needed to unlock the supply pipeline of high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ emissions reductions.

This global effort seeks to catalyse funds to transact one gigaton of high-quality emissions reductions from forest-based natural climate solutions by 2025 and annually after that.

So just how ambitious is this target?

One gigaton of annual emissions reductions is equivalent to taking 80% of the cars off American roads. Global climate cooperation can enable double the emissions reductions under current Paris pledges for the same cost as countries acting alone, and REDD+ represents the greatest single part of this opportunity. One gigaton per year could enable about twice as many reductions at the same global cost compared to implementing current Paris pledges without international collaboration on REDD+.  Together, we can meet this challenge and make a real difference in the fight against climate change.

Image
shutterstock_1097836217

The Challenge

The Challenge brings together a coalition of public, private and philanthropic partners to channel funds into efforts led by national and subnational governments to arrest deforestation, while helping companies complement, and not substitute, their internal emissions reductions with the purchase of high-integrity carbon credits.

Image
Tropical

These credits will capture the true value of forests, establishing the future benchmark for forest protection while building on two decades of investment in REDD+. These credits are fully aligned with the global policy framework, the objectives of the UN and the Paris Agreement.

Image
shutterstock_1701764590

How does the Green Gigaton Challenge work?

The Green Gigaton Challenge aims to break the stalemate of needing a significant scale up of climate ambition between now and 2030. By achieving one gigaton a year of emission reductions, it will make a significant contribution to cost-effective implementation of Paris pledges and scaling up global ambition to keep global warming below 2°C. Starting in 2020 with the release of The REDD+ Environmental Excellency Standard (TREES), the Challenge is building toward the one gigaton annual goal, to meet it by 2025.

Image
shutterstock_1997592020

How will partners support the challenge?

UN-REDD will work with forest countries to build their capacity to produce credits while Emergent will work with private companies to structure large-scale transactions of high-quality emission reductions and removals (registered with ART). They will also help companies include forests in their mitigation strategies. EDF, Forest Trends, and ART will contribute their significant technical expertise on REDD+, together catalyzing the finance and partnerships needed to accelerate forest conservation and restoration.