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carbon markets
Climate Campaigners Demand COP29 Free of 'False' Finance Solutions
"We are hurtling toward 3° of warming; human rights can't withstand dangerous distractions," said one climate justice advocate.
Nov 11, 2024
The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference has been called the "climate finance" conference, with participants expected to establish a new annual target for providing funds for the Global South to confront the climate crisis—but campaigners on Monday expressed concern that on the first day of the summit, there are already signs leaders will push for "false solutions" that only perpetuate planetary heating.
An annual climate finance target of $100 billion was set by policymakers in 2009, but that pledge expires at the end of 2024 and advocates say it's just a fraction of what is needed to help developing countries invest in climate crisis mitigation and adaptation to planetary heating.
Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network, which includes more than 1,900 global civil society groups, told The Guardian that "a down payment of $5 trillion" annually in climate finance is needed, noting that "the debt is much larger."
But Sébastien Duyck, senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law, said the Azerbaijani presidency of the 29th Conference of the Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) is already looking "to speed up the endorsement of new standards on carbon markets."
"This is extremely alarming. If this moves forward, it would be a real cop-out by governmental delegations gathered in Baku," said Duyck, referring to the capital of Azerbaijan, where COP29 is being held over the next 11 days.
Duyck pointed to new standards that were passed ahead of COP29 by a supervisory body with the aim of operationalizing and expanding carbon markets—pricing mechanisms that allow governments and other entities to trade greenhouse gas emission "credits."
"Fully operationalizing carbon markets on Day 1 would set a terrible precedent for the next two weeks, starting COP29 on a disastrous note and eroding the trust needed to achieve a bold, transformative agreement on finance," said Jax Bongon, climate justice policy officer for IBON International.
Proponents say carbon markets allow wealthy countries or corporations to purchase "carbon credits" from countries in the Global South; in exchange, governments in developing countries are paid to build renewable energy infrastructure, plant trees, or take other sustainable steps.
Those steps are thought to "buy time" for the wealthy country or company to cut down on their own pollution. But the scheme has been exposed as allowing companies to continue polluting without the supposed "offsets" actually helping to mitigate the climate crisis.
Lise Masson, climate justice and energy advocacy officer at Friends of the Earth (FOE), emphasized that "carbon markets are not climate finance, and we cannot accept these neocolonial schemes to be propped up as a success of COP29."
"Decisions at COP29 threaten to open the floodgates for a global carbon market that would have devastating impacts on communities in the Global South, on Indigenous peoples, and on small peasant farmers first and foremost," said Masson.
Marta Scaaf, who directs Amnesty International's climate justice program, warned COP29 delegates may "bypass accountability norms on Day 1 and issue recommendations to govern carbon markets, which are essentially pollution permits."
Essop suggested that carbon markets are being pushed as a false solution in order to save wealthy countries from having to provide what is needed for the Global South to mitigate the climate crisis and adapt to the hurricanes, flooding, drought, and other extreme conditions that have been linked to planetary heating.
"Five trillion dollars is what we come here to demand," Essop said. "Governments out there are absolutely capable of finding the money that does wrong in the world. They found the money for military spending. They found the money for the genocide in Gaza. They find the money to subsidize and support the fossil fuel industry. To come here and say that they do not have money is absolutely untruthful and unacceptable."
Meena Raman of FOE Malaysia stressed that climate finance "isn't charity; it's reparations for a climate debt long overdue."
"Grants must replace loans, and loss and damage funding must also be scaled up tremendously to meet the needs of impacted countries in the Global South," said Raman. "Debt cancellation for the Global South is essential to break cycles of injustice. The money exists: redirecting funds from global military spending and climate justice are paths forward."
The international human rights group Global Witness drove home the point by taking over the web address that some might arrive at if they were looking for more information about COP29.
Visitors to cop29.com on Monday were met with the words "Payback Time."
"We've taken over cop29.com to unite the millions of people demanding justice," said Global Witness. "This summer broke heat records again. Wildfires, droughts, and storms are killing thousands and driving up the cost of food, energy, and insurance. Worse is coming."
"COP29 is our moment," added the group. "The loss and damage fund was created to help developing nations that are being hit hardest by climate chaos... Fossil fuel companies rake in billions. They must pay into the fund to help communities rebuild, adapt, and repair some of the damage they've caused."
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The New White House Carbon Offsetting ‘Principles’ Lack Teeth
The administration should find the courage to reverse course and acknowledge that carbon offsets are a dangerous and damaging distraction.
Jun 06, 2024
As U.S. President Joe Biden seeks to regain American leadership in the global fight against climate change, his administration has embraced using “carbon offsets” in international carbon markets.
Acknowledging widespread criticism of the reliability of these offsets, on May 28, the administration issued a “Voluntary Carbon Markets Joint Policy Statement” signed by the secretaries of the Treasury, Agriculture, and Energy, among other officials. However, nothing in the statement overcomes the inherent flaws that make carbon offsets a dangerous distraction.
The urgency of the climate crisis means that the planet does not have time to engage in illusory market-based trading schemes that pretend to counterbalance—rather than actually reduce—greenhouse gases emissions.
The Administration’s Policy Statement lays out a set of aspirational “principles” for certification of carbon credits to allegedly ensure they “meet credible atmospheric integrity standards and represent real decarbonization”:
• Additional. The activity would not have occurred in the absence of the incentives of the crediting mechanism and is not required by law or regulation.
• Unique. One credit corresponds to only one tonne of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent) reduced or removed from the atmosphere and is not double-issued.
• Real and Quantifiable. Claimed emissions reductions or removals represent genuine atmospheric impact that is determined in a transparent and replicable manner using robust, credible methodologies. Relevant activities are designed to prevent emissions from occurring, being shifted, or intensifying beyond their boundaries as a result of the activity (‘leakage’).
• Validation and verification. Activity design is validated, and results are verified, by a qualified, accredited, independent third party.
• Permanence of greenhouse gas benefits. The emissions removed or reduced will be kept out of the atmosphere for a specified period of time during which any credited results that are released back into the atmosphere are fully remediated.
• Robust baselines. Baselines for emissions reduction and removal activities are based on rigorous methodologies that avoid over-crediting, prioritizing the use of performance benchmarks…
However, this list of goals highlights why reliance on carbon credits has only produced illusory benefits and counterproductive results.
The Biden administration is not proposing enforcement mechanisms that would ensure these core qualities are reflected in international credit transactions, because such mechanisms do not exist. Without enforcement these “guardrails” are merely a wish list, tantamount to a store combatting shoplifting only by putting up signs that say, “Do Not Steal.”
It is also clear that the amount of money these carbon markets are poised to generate, bolstered by Biden administration support, is enormous. The temptation to game a multi-billion-dollar system that has no enforceable rules is overwhelming and will help keep us addicted to business-as-usual emissions.
At the same time, the urgency of the climate crisis means that the planet does not have time to engage in illusory market-based trading schemes that pretend to counterbalance—rather than actually reduce—greenhouse gases emissions.
Experts who have studied carbon offsets, like Barbara Haya at University of California, Berkeley, have found they are inherently flawed for a host of reasons and cannot be reformed. A clear indication that carbon offsets are unfixable is that virtually all carbon offset projects created to date are built on activities that were already happening, for reasons other than the generally low and volatile price of offset payments. And, to date, no one has even proposed a reliable way to distinguish those activities that would have happened anyway. In addition, since carbon offsets must be based on activities that are not legally required, they create a perverse incentive to delay appropriate regulation.
With forest projects, these problems are compounded by their impermanence, which is heightened by warming-accelerated wildfires. In addition, the integrity of forest projects is easily undercut by demand shifting. If one forest is preserved but demand for wood is not reduced, another forest will be cut.
Together, these factors highlight that the administration’s wish list of guardrails is completely out of touch with the reality of carbon offsets. As California is discovering, reliance upon its highly touted carbon credit market is resulting in far more emissions than an effective regulatory program.
The administration should find the courage to reverse course and acknowledge that carbon offsets are a dangerous and damaging distraction. Offsets undermine our ability to adopt effective strategies to achieve our climate goals. These include ending fossil fuel subsidies and supporting enforceable regulations. Other key provisions would be transparent polluter-pays carbon pricing, programs to ensure energy affordability during a transition away from fossil fuels, public investments in clean energy transmission and transit, and international agreements with easily measurable results. Effective U.S. leadership would mean developing a national climate law worthy of the moment and building public support for its enactment. This country’s environmental laws have transformed our nation and been influential elsewhere. They should be our inspiration.
We understand that carbon credits seductively offer to harness powerful market forces and raise money for climate-positive projects. However, this siren’s call has all the integrity of a Ponzi scheme. In short, as the U.S. has repeatedly experienced, meaningful reductions in pollution require the inescapable hard work of designing programs with reliably measurable outcomes and enforcing them.
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Africa’s Carbon Deals Must Serve Those Most Vulnerable to the Climate Crisis
Several mega-transactions negotiated recently in tropical forested countries in sub-Saharan Africa place a spotlight on who is missing from these market opportunities—the Indigenous Peoples and local communities that have, against all odds, kept the forests intact.
Mar 08, 2024
Carbon markets have all the allure of a new investment option—mainly, that they have not failed yet. The idea of paying for conservation activities to offset polluting industrial activities, and then trading credits for those activities, sounds like a win-win solution to the climate crisis. But, in practice today, it looks like fool’s gold. That may be why the European Union included “carbon offsets” in new regulations that limit the use of sustainability buzzwords in promotional activities.
Several mega-transactions negotiated recently in tropical forested countries in sub-Saharan Africa place a spotlight on who is missing from these market opportunities—the Indigenous Peoples and local communities that have, against all odds, kept the forests intact. Although these carbon credit deals were announced last year, they have yet to be finalized and, instead, their grassroots opposition has gained traction.
The deals in question exemplify the 95 agreements announced since 2021, according to the consulting firm MSCI. They involve the governments of five countries, which agreed to hand over the development rights to sizable portions of their lands to a single international investment firm, UAE-based Blue Carbon—despite protests from those living on the lands in question.
For carbon markets to work, companies must first respect the tenure rights of all Indigenous and local communities.
These transactions would cover 20% of the land in Zimbabwe, 10% of Liberia and Zambia, 8% of Tanzania, and an undisclosed amount of land in Kenya. Blue Carbon would effectively gain control over the carbon stored in the soils and forests of these lands, which in effect surrenders control over the development rights to these lands.
Blue Carbon also started negotiations to acquire carbon rights with governments in the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest tropical forest, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo.
In the short term, everyone—except for the Indigenous, pastoralist, and local communities who live on and claim these lands—can be expected to profit from these investments. In the long term, however, all will bear their costs.
For generations, these communities have sustainably managed their land and forests and hold primary responsibility for the carbon-rich ecosystems that make up the lion’s share of transactions in the carbon markets. But despite their contributions, they have limited means of ensuring that their rights will not be superseded by foreign investors claiming ownership of the carbon stored in their lands.
In eastern Kenya, for example, the Ogiek people have long faced threats of eviction and expulsion from their territories in the Mau forest—the largest high-altitude forest in East Africa. Recent evictions, with forest rangers destroying villages, have been connected to potential carbon rights transactions. This is despite national laws recognizing communities’ ownership to more than two thirds of this land.
In Liberia, communities worked tirelessly to pass one of the strongest laws protecting community land rights worldwide in 2018. At the time, we estimated that 40% of Liberia’s land had already been handed over in natural resource deals—for industrial palm oil plantations, mining, and timber extraction. The Blue Carbon deal would take an additional 10% from what is left—shrugging off the 2018 law’s protections.
A growing body of research directly connects strong Indigenous and communities’ land rights with lower rates of deforestation and forest degradation, which are significant contributors to global carbon emissions. The United Nations’ most recent report on climate change emphasizes community rights as a bulwark in climate change mitigation and adaptation. And the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework emphasizes the importance of respecting these rights in efforts to stave off rapid biodiversity loss.
In a world where tropical deforestation has yet to be tamed— we lost 50% more tropical forest in 2022 than we did 20 years ago—we cannot ignore the potential of carbon markets to improve conservation outcomes. But their benefits must reach the communities who are the primary custodians of these lands.
These carbon deals have been negotiated without meaningful community participation. And the lack of transparency on the terms and conditions of the contracts hides the implications for people and nature.
For carbon markets to work, companies must first respect the tenure rights of all Indigenous and local communities. They need to ensure access to objective, complete, transparent, and locally adapted information about the transactions and the lands they cover. The communities’ rights to free, prior, and informed consent must be upheld, and their effective and meaningful participation in the design, implementation, and monitoring of all transactions should be mandatory. Importantly, those who are impacted by these deals should have access to effective remedy.
These conditions should apply to carbon credit deals just as they apply to all natural resource concessions. Carbon markets must serve the interests of those who are most vulnerable to climate change, not those who created the crisis to begin with.
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