CoP PES LAC webinar: Scaling Access to and Deployment of Climate Finance to Communities through Payments for Environmental and Territorial Services

Webinar
Timeline:
to
Location:
Online
Two people's hands, those of an old lady and a child, plant a tree in the soil
Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are rewards that recognize the efforts done by landholders and communities to protect nature. Research has shown that well-designed PES programs can significantly slow deforestation, enhance tree cover, and protect ecosystems at a low cost. Innovations in PES schemes can offer opportunities to enhance participation, benefit-sharing and impact. While PES have traditionally followed an outcome-based model —rewarding landholders for environmental outcomes such as carbon sequestration or water flow improvements— this approach has failed to recognize communities’ ways of life that lead to intended outcomes, limiting their uptake, scale and impact. This represents a missed opportunity, considering that over $40 billion has already been deployed across more than 550 global PES, funds that could be directed more equitably to nature stewards.

This event will feature a World Resources Institute’s study which examines 129 PES programs across 36 countries, assessing how communities benefit from PES while facing barriers to fair participation, benefit-sharing, and access to finance. The report offers actionable, multi-stakeholder recommendations for achieving more inclusive and scalable PES models. By convening key actors from across the region, this event will advance a shared agenda for scaling both access to and deployment of climate finance through Payments for Environmental and Territorial Services, aligning resources, policy, and practice to deliver lasting benefits for people, nature and the planet.

This event is part of a broader series focused on expanding equitable climate finance access for communities through Payments for Environmental and Territorial Services. This initiative emerged from a collaboration between J-PAL and TNC to rethink Payments for Environmental Services so they better serve communities.

Agenda

  • Welcome remarks
  • Presentation: Expanding Access to Climate Finance for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities
    • Courtney McLaren, Equity Economist, Global Restoration Initiative, World Resources Institute Europe
    • Celine Salcedo-La Viña, Senior Associate at the Equity Center's Land and Resource Rights Initiative and Gender Equity Practice, World Resources Institute
  • Moderated Q&A