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The Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF) is an environmental organization that works with subnational governments to promote low emissions rural development and reduced emissions from deforestation and land use (REDD+), linking these activities with emerging greenhouse gas (GHG) compliance regimes and other pay-for-performance opportunities. The GCF works with 22 member states in and provinces in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Spain, and the United States. GCF states and provinces encompass more than 20% of the world’s tropical forests, including more than 75% of Brazil’s and more than half of Indonesia’s. GCF members include states and provinces that are early actors in building comprehensive, jurisdiction-wide approaches to low emissions development and REDD+ as well as the only jurisdiction in the world (California) that is considering provisions that would recognize offsets from REDD+ as part of its GHG compliance system.

Approach
The GCF focuses on all aspects of the efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and establish lasting frameworks for low emissions development. It facilitates the exchange of experiences and lessons learned across leading states and provinces; synchronizes efforts across these jurisdictions to develop policies and programs that provide realistic pathways to forest-maintaining rural development; supports processes for multi-stakeholder participation and engagement; and seeks financing for jurisdictional programs from a range of sources, including pay-for-performance public finance, emerging carbon markets, and ongoing efforts to de-carbonize agro-food supply chains.

The overarching rationale of the GCF is that any successful effort to address the complex relationship between forests, land use, and climate change requires multiple efforts at multiple levels of governance, and that state and provincial governments, together with their civil society partners, are among the most important actors in building viable programs for low emissions rural development. The GCF aims to provide leverage to states and provinces that are in a position to be early movers in the effort to build robust jurisdictional programs for REDD+ and low emissions development.

History
On November 18, 2008, the U.S. states of California, Illinois, and Wisconsin (no longer a member), the Brazilian states of Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Pará, and the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and Papua signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) at the Governors’ Climate Change Summit in Los Angeles, California. The MOUs provided a foundation for future cooperation on a number of issues related to climate policy, financing, technology exchange, and research. The parties focused the MOUs on forest sector provisions, with an overall objective of promoting technical cooperation and capacity building. Another primary objective was the development of recommendations for policymakers and regulatory authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere on the incorporation of reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and sequestrations from other international forest carbon activities into their emerging GHG compliance systems.

The MOUs expressly call for a Joint Action Plan to guide implementation efforts. Accordingly, a Joint Action Plan was developed that provides a framework and recommendations for implementing the MOU forest sector provisions during 2009-2010. A draft of the Joint Action Plan was presented for formal adoption by the MOU states and provinces at their first follow-up meeting in Belém, Pará on June 18-19, 2009. At the meeting in Belém, the MOU states and provinces made a number of important decisions regarding the MOU implementation effort, which are reflected in the Joint Action Plan.

The forest sector activities proposed in the MOUs and the Joint Action Plan represented the first effort (at any level of governance) to move into what might be called the “proof of concept” stage in the ongoing effort to bring REDD into existing and emerging GHG compliance regimes. As such, the MOU implementation effort carried global significance as a signal to other governmental entities and to the broader climate policy community that incorporating REDD is achievable. It also highlighted the fact that there will be a meaningful process of transnational cooperation among the MOU states and provinces to develop and implement workable frameworks and mechanisms for generating compliance-grade assets from REDD and other forest carbon activities in tropical forest jurisdictions.

The Joint Action Plan identified three primary objectives for 2009-2010. The first objective was to establish the Governors’ Climate & Forests Task Force (GCF) as the primary body responsible for developing recommendations for implementing the MOU forest sector provisions. As approved at the meeting in Belém, the GCF is composed of representatives from each of the MOU states/provinces, (now known as founding members of the GCF) with an annual rotating chairmanship, and is responsible for making executive decisions regarding implementation of the MOU forest sector provisions. The second objective was to establish a process for nongovernmental organization (NGO) and other stakeholder participation in the MOU implementation efforts, which also was accomplished in Belém. This process included joint meetings between the GCF and NGOs/stakeholders and NGO participation in the three working groups established in Belém to focus on key substantive areas of the MOU forest sector provisions. The third objective was to develop recommendations for implementing the MOU forest sector provisions, focusing on these same three areas:

1.Project-level standards and criteria for REDD activities, which included a Protocol Assessment Report; 2.Forest carbon accounting frameworks and coordination mechanisms, and the eventual integration of sub-national baselines and targets with project-based activities; and 3.Needs assessment, including technical, legal, institutional, and financial needs in the MOU states and provinces for moving toward compliance-grade REDD activities.

GCF Fund
The GCF Fund is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established by the GCF Task Force in 2012. The GCF Fund will operate as a nimble and transparent climate finance facility that supports common needs in the GCF’s tropical forest states and provinces and “proof-of-concept” efforts designed to build and demonstrate realistic pathways to forest-maintaining, low emissions rural development. The Fund seeks to enhance training, capacity building, and exchange among GCF states and provinces, in the context of broader alignment with national REDD+, climate, and rural development programs. The GCF Fund began operations in 2013 through a generous $1.5 million grant from the United States Department of State.

The fund supports initiatives (full project list) through two umbrellas of funding: collective needs and proof of concept. Support for collective needs strengthens efforts to address issues related to low emissions development and REDD+ which are shared among jurisdictions. This strategy allows for capacity building to be deployed with economies of scale, promoting initiatives which share information and work across sixteen tropical forest GCF jurisdictions, located in five countries, and four continents which are home to over 22 percent of the worlds’ tropical forests and 26 percent of global forest carbon stocks. Current collective needs identified by member states include improved forest carbon assessment and capacity, enhanced stakeholder processes, REDD+ program design and capacity based on a common GCF subnational REDD+ platform being developed by the GCF members, and reference level development.

Training Program
The GCF Training Program, made possible by funding from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), and implemented in partnership with IDESAM, Kemitraan, IPAM, Pronatura Sur, and other key civil society actors in REDD+ and low-emissions rural development, trains government and non-government actors and decision-makers in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Peru (the GCF’s tropical states and provinces) on capacity-building, policy development, technology, and implementation. Under this initiative, GCF regional centers host a series of week-long intensive trainings, focused on key design and implementation challenges for subnational REDD+ and low-emission rural development, including:

Legal and Institutional Frameworks; Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of Forest Carbon; Social and Environmental Safeguards; Financing; Registries; and Performance Tracking.

At its core, the GCF Training Program empowers subnational civil servants and their civil society partners to build subnational REDD+ programs and embed these efforts into larger ongoing processes of low emissions rural development and market transformation. It fills the knowledge gaps impeding or undermining the efforts to establish REDD+ programs at the subnational level, where most of the activity around REDD+ and low-emission rural development is taking place.

Knowledge Database
The GCF launched the [http://%20www.gcftaskforce-database.org. Knowledge Database]in June of 2012 as a web-based source of information provided by GCF members from tropical forest countries on current trends regarding REDD+ and low emission sustainable development and deforestation activities; forest carbon accounting efforts and methodologies; REDD+ implementation activities; and REDD+ related financial flows. The Knowledge Database is the primary vehicle through which the GCF tracks and evaluates members’ activities and capacities and identifies members' immediate collective needs.

Secretariat
The GCF Secretariat is based at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder, Colorado, where GCF Senior Advisor and Project Lead William Boyd is an Associate Professor of Law. The Secretariat has the authority to coordinate GCF work and to ensure the continuity of its efforts. Secretariat responsibilities include fundraising, grant administration, project management, coordinating and facilitating GCF events including the Annual Meeting, implementing decisions and strategic planning approved by the GCF, retaining consultants to implement activities when necessary, interfacing with stakeholders on behalf of the GCF, and generally keeping the GCF members informed of issues in broader policy debates that could impact the GCF process.

Current Member States
Brazil
 * Acre
 * Amapá
 * Amazonas
 * Mato Grosso
 * Pará
 * Tocantins

Indonesia
 * Aceh
 * Central Kalimantan
 * East Kalimantan
 * Papua
 * West Kalimantan
 * West Papua

Mexico
 * Campeche
 * Chiapas

Nigeria
 * Cross River State

Peru
 * Loreto
 * Madre de Dios
 * San Martín
 * Ucayali

Spain
 * Catalonia

United States
 * California
 * Illinois

Funding
The GCF is principally funded by: The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; The ClimateWorks Foundation; Climate and Land Use Alliance; Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation; and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.