The UK government has just announced £400 million for the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), and I'm encouraged to see another country helping advance this bold vision for nature finance. Conserving tropical forests is not only an environmental imperative. It is an investment in climate resilience, economic stability and a safer future for communities around the world. Today's announcement is an important step forward, and I hope it helps catalyze further investment in the forests - and the people who steward them - that sustain us all. https://lnkd.in/e_jhiY4C
✅ The Tropical Forest Forever Facility - TFFF gets the incentives right. ❌ Its funding is where it breaks. If speculating with a loan on financial markets reliably made billions — the core claim behind the TFIF — donor countries could be solving their budget crises the same way. Yet, unfortunately, capitalism is more complicated than that. 🔬 Arild Angelsen, professor of economics at NMBU - Norwegian University of Life Sciences: "This is an attempt to create a money machine by speculating in financial markets. If something is too good to be true, then perhaps it isn't true." 🎓 Stanford's Bård Harstad, in Project Syndicate: "there is no 'free lunch' in international capital markets." 🏛️ Governments see it too. The UK helped design the TFFF and put in nothing at COP30. Its £400m has now arrived — as a loan, still subject to "completion of the usual due diligence". 🎯 If you want to know why the TFFF might go bankrupt before relevant money ever reaches the forests, how the promising proposal could be put on firmer ground, and especially if you think I have it wrong, follow and comment on [Missing Billions]. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tfff-july-2026-stocktake-max-alexander-matthey-uzibe/
✅ The Tropical Forest Forever Facility - TFFF gets the incentives right. ❌ Its funding is where it breaks. If speculating with a loan on financial markets reliably made billions — the core claim behind the TFIF — donor countries could be solving their budget crises the same way. Yet, unfortunately, capitalism is more complicated than that. 🔬 Arild Angelsen, professor of economics at NMBU - Norwegian University of Life Sciences: "This is an attempt to create a money machine by speculating in financial markets. If something is too good to be true, then perhaps it isn't true." 🎓 Stanford University's Bård Harstad, in Project Syndicate: "there is no 'free lunch' in international capital markets." 🏛️ Governments see it too. The UK helped design the TFFF and put in nothing at COP30. Its £400m has now arrived — as a loan, still subject to "completion of the usual due diligence". 🎯 If you want to know why the TFFF might go bankrupt before relevant money ever reaches the forests, how the promising proposal could be put on firmer ground, and especially if you think I have it wrong, follow and comment on [🗞️ Missing Billions]. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tfff-july-2026-stocktake-max-alexander-matthey-uzibe/