Targeting climate finance for global forests

Abstract Comprehensive data on the costs of climate change mitigation are needed to direct the scale and distribution of climate finance to the sectors and regions where it will be most cost effective. We estimate finance needed to achieve regional forest-based mitigation targets aggregated from Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, submitted between 2015 - 2021. We compare the costs of achieving these regional targets to a Global Coordination scenario in which a similar level of finance is available as is required to meet upper bound NDC targets, but which allows mitigation to occur in regions where it is lowest cost. We find that regions accounting for 70% of global forest carbon stocks can meet or exceed their forest-based NDC targets with carbon prices less than $100 / ton CO2. Total investment required to meet these goals is $28-70 billion annually by 2030. Under a Global Coordination scenario, we project nearly 3x the quantity of mitigation as in the upper bound NDC scenario, under similar levels of investment, in 2030. These findings demonstrate an opportunity for increasing mitigation action among regions with low-cost abatement potential that is not reflected in current NDCs, as well as substantial cost savings via policy solutions that target low-cost mitigation opportunities. This assessment provides insight into the magnitude and distribution of forest climate finance needed to reach current mitigation targets and informs the development of the next generation of NDCs.