Running Out of Time: Fast-Tracking JREDD+ Investment to Save the World's Forests

The world's three great forest basins are losing forest for different reasons: the Amazon to record fire and degradation, Southeast Asia to expanding legal conversion, and the Congo Basin to small-scale farming and conflict. Yet forest finance remains one-size-fits-all, slow, and thin, moving nowhere near the pace or scale the climate crisis demands. JREDD's premise, that forests deliver climate benefits beyond carbon, only matters if capital reaches these programs fast enough to bank it. The core obstacle is timing. Capital typically arrives at issuance, years after programs are designed, while governments design programs with no certainty anyone will buy. Sovereign authorization risk deters investors; demand uncertainty deters jurisdictions. The programs attracting real capital have succeeded because buyers, jurisdictions, and partners came together at the early stage, not after. During New York Climate Week, CTrees is convening an invitation-only, closed-door roundtable to confront this gap, discussing a model that front-loads JREDD investment so NDC commitments, TFFF, and Article 6 markets can scale together, fast enough to match the pace of loss across all three basins. The session opens with CTrees' new global outlook on deforestation, degradation, fire, and recovery across all three basins, followed by government leaders sharing their vision for forest carbon markets, then a candid, off-the-record discussion with investors, funders, and institutions on how to move from incremental pilots to finance at the speed and scale this decade demands,  before the opportunity to protect these forests, and the climate benefits they provide, is lost. Note: Guests are invited to join at 1:30 p.m., with the discussion beginning promptly at 2:00 p.m. Informal conversation will follow from 3:30-4:00 p.m.