By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | 15 January 2025 (IDN) — A new study has slammed the growth of carbon offset markets for fuelling a fresh scramble for African land and “perpetuating colonial-era exploitation”. This instrument of emissions trading was introduced by the Kyoto Protocol in 2005 to confront the unrelenting challenge to limit global warming to below 2°C, as accentuated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Thelma Arko, currently a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, pleads—in paper published in Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE)—for moving beyond market-based solutions to embrace strategies that centre on social equity, ecological integrity, and the rights of local communities. “It is becoming clear that the pursuit of market-based climate solutions, beyond addressing pressing climate change concerns, inadvertently propagates social injustice and human rights violations that deserve urgent redress.”
Carbon markets also enable greenwashing, where polluters make false claims of emission reduction achieved, maintains the report. “Wealthy nations and corporations in the Global North are effectively outsourcing their emissions reduction responsibilities to the Global South through offset projects. Whether these projects provide an added value to emission reduction is often questionable, and the promised benefits to local communities often do not materialise.”—a view supported by White & Case, a global law firm.
The prioritization of market mechanisms and the neoliberal foundation on which it is based, undermine collective action and democratic decision-making, perpetuating global inequalities while serving as a pretext for economic expansion, which overshadows genuine environmental progress, declares Arko.
“This dynamic perpetuates the historical extraction of resources and labour from the Global South, fuelling the consumption patterns and development agendas of the Global North.”
Akor’s plea is backed by Carbon Market Watch, an independent, not-for-profit watchdog and research organisation with unique expertise in carbon pricing and a track record of shaping and influencing international and European climate policy.
In its view, carbon markets also enable greenwashing, where polluters make false claims of emission reduction achieved. Wealthy nations and corporations in the Global North are effectively outsourcing their emissions reduction responsibilities to the Global South through offset projects. Whether these projects provide an added value to emission reduction is often questionable, and the promised benefits to local communities often do not materialise.
Complexities
The study explains that land rights in Africa are inherently tied to a complex historical narrative of colonial exploitation, dispossession, and ongoing struggles for justice and recognition. The legacy of colonial land grabs, where Indigenous communities were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, continues to cast a long shadow over present-day land tenure systems.
Customary land tenure, prevalent in many African societies, is rooted in unwritten rules and cultural practices that recognize collective community rights. This system is deeply intertwined with cultural identity and traditional ways of life, writes Akor.
As Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) Research Portal points out, customary land tenure frequently comes into conflict with statutory or formal land tenure regimes imposed during the colonial era and perpetuated in the post-independence period.
In fact, the interplay between customary and statutory land tenure regimes has resulted in tensions and insecurity for local communities. Customary systems provide a sense of communal ownership and connection to the land but are often not formally recognized or protected by national laws and policies. Statutory systems, on the other hand, are typically based on individual land ownership and privatization, which often marginalizes traditional land use practices and excludes communities from decision-making processes.
As a World Bank study highlights, many African countries inherited unequal land distribution patterns and a history of dispossession from their colonial past, perpetuating social and economic inequalities. This has fuelled ongoing land reform movements and demands for the recognition of customary land rights, as well as the redistribution of land to address historical injustices.
Women face discrimination
Women play a pivotal role in African agriculture yet face significant discrimination in land rights. Customary laws often restrict women’s land ownership and inheritance rights. According to the UN, women own less than 20% of the world’s land, with the disparity particularly acute in Africa. Efforts to address this, such as Kenya’s 2010 constitution recognizing women’s equal rights to land, have faced challenges in implementation.
Akor adds in her paper: Land rights in Africa are further complicated by contestations over natural resources, particularly in regions rich in minerals, oil, or valuable ecosystems. The extraction of natural resources has often led to the displacement of local communities, environmental degradation, and conflicts over land ownership.
Furthermore, as an article in IISD, stated: The entry of foreign investors and the establishment of conservation areas or carbon offsets exacerbate these tensions, marginalizing and excluding local communities from decisions about their own land.
The Dubai-Africa carbon deals
“The imposition of conservation or renewable energy projects without the free, prior, and informed consent of local communities, as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is leading to the destruction of biodiverse ecosystems, disruption of water cycles, and loss of habitat for endangered species,” writes Akor.
She cites the World Rainforest Movement as a case in point: In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, families were kicked off land they had owned and farmed for generations to make way for a carbon offsetting project for oil giant Total Energies.
Equally of concern is the surge in carbon offsetting agreements between African nations and Middle Eastern investors, “the Dubai-Africa carbon deals”, raising pressing questions about equitable benefit distribution and the potential for greenwashing.
Projects centred on reforestation, afforestation, and conservation demand vast tracts of land, intensifying competition and pitting local communities against investors. The rights of indigenous peoples, who constitute a small global population yet safeguard a significant proportion of global biodiversity, are often disregarded, leading to land disputes, arrests, and property confiscation.
The implications of carbon market agreements, which can span decades, are profound and far-reaching, declares Akor. Drawing on an article in the African Climate Wire, she writes, many of these transactions have occurred without the knowledge of governments in many African regions. Instances of “carbon cowboys” employing violence and deception to expel Indigenous people from their territories have surfaced. The vast expanse of land and labour devoted to tree-planting initiatives has often resulted in food shortages and unequal benefit distribution.
Indigenous communities’ livelihoods
REDD+ projects aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation have had mixed outcomes. While they attract funding for forest conservation and infrastructure, they have also constrained Indigenous communities’ livelihoods and, in certain cases, led to forced evictions and harassment, notes Akor.
East Africa’s largest forest development and wood processing company, Green Resources, manages 38,000 ha of plantation forest in Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. It operates East Africa’s largest sawmill in Tanzania, a sawmill in Uganda and electricity pole plants in Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. In Tanzania the company manages a briquetting plant.
The Green Resources’ operations, funded by Nordic countries, capture the troubling trends within carbon market projects. In Uganda, Green Resources’ endeavours have directly impacted over 8,000 people, including instances of forced evictions and restricted access to essential resources.
“With a long-term lease to sell carbon credits, the company has worsened food insecurity, caused the loss of land access, and contributed to environmental degradation through the use of agrochemicals,” declares the study.
Image by Aurélie Marrier d’Unienville/IFRC. Source: znetwork.org