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The great carbon market racket — a drive for the commodification of nature where local communities lose out

The great carbon market racket — a drive for the commodification of nature where local communities lose out
Adam Cruise
By Adam Cruise
3 Oct 2024
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Nature and the people living with nature are exchanged on a market so that polluters can keep polluting and speculators can profit. Carbon reduction and biodiversity protection schemes are simply a corporate money-making racket.

Carbon markets have come under intense criticism in recent years, with entities facing accusations of “greenwashing” and a number of high-profile cases involving phantom credits, exploitation of local communities and human rights abuses.

In a report for the EMS Foundation, it was found that the carbon market, especially the voluntary carbon market, often only benefits the international traders and emitters rather than achieving true carbon emission sequestration, biodiversity protection and local community well-being. The report found that voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) have largely been co-opted by verification and certification companies and traders who have spent much of the past 15 years snapping up and enrolling large tracts of land in Africa, with little care for biodiversity protection and local community rights.

Globally, and especially in Africa, concerns about management of carbon projects are widespread and growing. These include concerns about the ecological integrity of the schemes, with the vast majority of claims found to be worthless. The schemes, which are mostly conducted privately, have also been found to have few to zero checks and balances. In some projects, people have been forced from their homes. Other project developers have promised to establish land rights or provide community benefits, then failed to deliver. 

Junk credits


The majority of offset projects that have sold the most carbon credits are likely junk. According to one analysis, a total of 39 of the top 50 emission offset projects, or 78% of them, were categorised as “likely junk” or worthless due to one or more fundamental failing that undermines its promised emission cuts. Overall, $1.16-billion in carbon credits have been traded so far from the projects classified as junk. A further $400-million in credits bought and sold were classified as “potentially junk”.

Another study has found that only 12% of offsets result in real emission reduction. Verra, which is based in Washington DC, operates a number of leading environmental standards for climate action and sustainable development, including its Verified Carbon Standard that has issued more than one billion carbon credits. It approves three-quarters of all voluntary offsets. Its rainforest protection programme (which includes the Redd+ programmes) makes up 40% of the credits it approves and was launched before the Paris Agreement with the aim of generating revenue for protecting ecosystems. The study found that only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, with further analysis indicating that 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate. The threat to forests had been overstated by about 400% on average for Verra projects. Gucci, Salesforce, BHP, ExxonMobil, Shell, EasyJet and Leon were among dozens of companies and organisations that have bought rainforest offsets approved by Verra for environmental claims.

Local community exploitation and abuse


Other projects have been linked to local communities being forced off their land or failing to receive any meaningful funding they had been promised. 

It is common for entities of carbon offsetting projects to claim that local communities are the main beneficiaries of their initiatives – yet these claims are usually unverifiable given the secrecy reigning over projects’ (which are often with private companies) revenues and expenses. Generally, only companies running the projects really know how much money is trickling down, and how much their executives and business partners are cashing in. The certification standards that dominate the VCM do not actually require developers to equitably share profits with communities on whose land the project may be taking place. 

An African example, which recently made headlines, is a multimillion-dollar forest scheme in Zimbabwe. It is among the largest in a portfolio of forest offsetting schemes approved by Verra. More than a decade on from the project’s inception, however, many local people say the projects, infrastructure and supposed funding have yet to materialise. Only a fraction of the €100-million has been distributed to the villages within the project. Residents are not seeing any finances trickle down to them.

Karpowership controversy


Carbon offsetting issues have manifested in South Africa too. One example is the highly publicised case involving the potential deal with a Turkish power company, Karpowership, which owns a fleet of power ships. Karpowership negotiated a deal with Ezemvelo, the KwaZulu-Natal wildlife authority, to buy a 1,750-hectare hunting farm to offset the damage it would cause to the coastal and marine environment around Richards Bay. 

The deal was supposed to expand the neighbouring Ithala Game Reserve near Vryheid a few hundred kilometres inland. This purportedly enables Ezemvelo to better conserve rhinos and elephants while at the same time allowing Karpowership to destroy a sensitive marine ecology. This gain is offset against a potentially bigger loss. The loss of pristine, irreplaceable wetland, grassland or marine life cannot be compensated for with existing land. It is therefore not a fair trade. The purchase of land ought not to be rewarded by allowing the destruction of something biodiverse-critical and irreplaceable. 

There is no mention of local community benefits in the deal.

Carbon colonialism


Thus, in South Africa and throughout Africa, the carbon market is far from being the win-win solution, where entities that emit carbon as well as developers and verification organisations who claim to promote carbon reduction and biodiversity protection projects, are leaving a track record of exploitation, mismanagement and false claims. These cases show that carbon reduction and biodiversity protection schemes are simply a corporate money-making racket that benefits the developed world over a real intervention sequestering global carbon emissions. 

Furthermore, in the past couple of years, the market has collapsed, mainly due to media and academic reports of “greenwashing” and human rights abuses. This means the future viability of carbon markets and resultant ecological and community benefits is questionable. The people in South Africa and Africa whose natural spaces and livelihoods the schemes are meant to support – and who are the least responsible for climate change – have essentially lost out.

Ultimately, the carbon market is another drive for commodification of nature. Nature and the local communities living with nature have a price tag attached to them. They are exchanged on a market so that polluters can keep polluting and speculators can profit. This opens the door for biodiversity exploitation and finds local communities dispossessed of their land or without tangible means of improving their livelihoods. These offset schemes are nothing short of carbon colonialism that does little to address the climate crisis. DM

Dr Adam Cruise has been a wildlife investigative journalist for 20 years. Decades of reporting on global wildlife issues such as poaching, trade and trophy hunting led him to delve deeper into the mechanisms fuelling such issues. He has uncovered and reported on topics from trophy hunting and poaching, to the trade in endangered species from elephants and polar bears to coral reef fishes. Cruise has a PhD in philosophy specialising in environmental ethics and has contributed to a number of international publications and documentaries.

The Mission of the EMS Foundation is the advancement and protection of the rights and general welfare of wild animals, children, elderly persons and other vulnerable groups in South Africa and Africa, for the purpose of alleviating suffering, disrupting inequality in all of its forms, raising public awareness, and empowering and providing dignity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

 

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