China refuses to back Brazil’s crucial rainforest fund

China has reportedly declined, for the time being, to make a financial contribution to Brazil’s flagship rainforest protection mechanism, arguing that developed nations should take the lead in global climate financing.

The position, reported by Brazil’s newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, frustrated hopes in Brasília that the world’s second-largest economy would become a major early backer of the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, or TFFF.

Chinese negotiators told their Brazilian counterparts that Beijing supported the fund in principle but referred to the idea of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, according to people involved in the negotiations.

The concept, enshrined in the UN climate framework since 1992, holds that wealthy nations should bear the primary burden for financing and emissions reductions because they built their prosperity on fossil fuels.

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That argument has long guided China’s approach to international climate talks. Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, Beijing has argued that its developing-country status exempted it from donor obligations. It has often resisted joining multilateral funds as a donor, preferring to say that its role lies in domestic emission cuts and technology transfers rather than direct financing.