The global movement to conserve natural areas and prevent species extinction has garnered considerable momentum in the past year — and there is money to match. Since 1991, the Global Environment Facility, or GEF, has funded environmental projects in the low- and middle-income world as the official financial mechanism for several international conventions that cover biodiversity, climate change, chemicals and waste, land degradation, and international waters.
Over that over 30 years span, GEF has financed more than $22 billion, a larger sum than the better-known but beleaguered Green Climate Fund has put toward climate action. But GEF’s obscure profile is quickly changing in the wake of the landmark COP 15 biodiversity agreement inked last December in Montreal. Formally known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, this set of 23 targets includes the so-called 30x30 pledge to conserve 30% of the world’s lands and waters by 2030. In conservation circles, the pact is hailed as akin to a Paris agreement for nature.
As extreme weather events from floods to wildfires wreak havoc even in high-income nations, donor countries have put considerable money toward the cause. GEF operates in four-year funding cycles, the most recent of which was approved in 2022 for a record $5.33 billion, the largest in the fund’s history.