UNHCR launches first large-scale refugee-led carbon finance projects at COP30

BELÉM, BRAZIL - UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today launched the Refugee Environmental Protection (REP) Fund, the world's first large-scale, refugee-driven carbon finance initiative. The Fund will support reforestation, cleaner cooking and green jobs that link environmental recovery with sustainable livelihoods and protection outcomes.

"The REP Fund allows us to invest in the environment, create safer conditions and give communities a real stake in protecting the land they depend on," said Siddhartha Sinha, Head of Innovative Financing at UNHCR. "Refugees often live on the front lines of extreme weather, facing floods, droughts and the loss of vital natural resources."

The Fund's first projects, launching in Uganda and Rwanda, mark the first step toward the initiative's 10-year goal of restoring over 100,000 hectares of land and expanding clean energy access to 1 million people.

In Uganda, Africa's largest refugee-hosting country, the REP Fund plans to restore around 6,000 hectares of degraded land across the Bidibidi and Kyangwali refugee settlements, engaging local cooperatives in seedling production and forest management, and introducing cleaner household energy solutions to reduce reliance on wood fuel. These efforts are expected to cut over 200,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually, strengthen food and water systems, and create thousands of green jobs for refugees and members of the host community.

In Rwanda's Kigeme refugee camp, sitting within the Albertine Rift - one of Africa's key biodiversity hotspots - the programme is expected to rehabilitate roughly 600-800 hectares of degraded hillsides and buffer zones, introduce cleaner, safer cooking solutions to more than 15,000 people, and create long-term green jobs in nursery management, soil conservation and household energy services.

The environmental and social gains will be monitored and verified, tracking carbon reductions and biodiversity, soil, water and livelihood outcomes. Revenues from the sale of carbon credits will be transparently reinvested in community-driven projects, ensuring that refugees and host communities share in both the environmental and economic benefits, and that the Fund's impact continues to grow over time.

Refugees and host communities will lead implementation, gaining skills and employment in tree planting, nursery management and clean stove production. These projects will reduce smoke in homes, save time and restore soil and water systems while building local green economies and reducing protection risks linked to firewood collection and environmental degradation.

In addition, the Fund is already exploring opportunities to expand this work in Brazil (Roraima) and Bangladesh (Cox's Bazar). In Brazil's far north, the Fund is rolling out a project in the São Marcos Indigenous Land, a 650,000-hectare area of savanna and Amazon forest. Home to 21,000 Indigenous people and Venezuelan Indigenous refugees, the area is losing trees and topsoil fast. Without action, fragile ecosystems and livelihoods could collapse. The project will restore land to protect both nature and community life in the Amazon.

"By integrating forcibly displaced communities into verified financing markets, the REP Fund demonstrates that humanitarian settings are not just beneficiaries of financing but active participants in global solutions," said Pilar Pedrinelli, REP Fund Lead at UNHCR.

Across refugee-hosting areas, almost 25 million trees are cut down each year for cooking fuel. This deforestation weakens soil, worsens floods and droughts and makes farming less productive. Women and children also walk farther to gather wood, often at personal risk. The REP Fund aims to reverse this trend by restoring forests, expanding cleaner energy and using carbon finance to support families working to rebuild the land they depend on.

Note for editors:

The Refugee Environmental Protection (REP) Fund is a flagship innovative finance initiative under UNHCR's Sustainable Responses Strategy. By mobilizing carbon finance and impact investment, it integrates displaced populations into national systems and delivers combined environmental, livelihood and protection outcomes. Implementation of pilot projects in Uganda and Rwanda will be led by specialized consortia with expertise in reforestation, clean-cooking technologies, and carbon market development, under the oversight of national authorities.

Supported by Norway, Denmark, and private sector partners including DLA Piper and Oliver Wyman, the REP Fund blends public and private investment to unlock new financing for environmental recovery in displacement settings. Revenues from the sale of verified carbon credits will be reinvested in community-led projects, ensuring that both refugees and host communities benefit directly from environmental and financial gains.

For more information, please contact:

• In Geneva, Eujin Byun, [email protected], +41 79 747 8719

• In Belém, Joelle Eid, [email protected], +34 605 98 13 21

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