Carbon Credits: Saving the Planet or ‘Market Fetishism’?
Foodthink says
This logic sounds appealing. However, the voluntary carbon market was listed among the eight biggest tech failures of 2024 by the renowned tech publication MIT Technology Review. Many of the myths of corporate “net zero emissions” created by these projects are turning into a series of scandals.
According to “Dialog Earth”, of the 37 rice emission reduction projects revoked in China this year, at least half were “ghost rice projects” that were never actually implemented, yet some of their fraudulent carbon credits have already been used by large corporations for carbon offsetting.
When carbon markets degenerate into profit-making tools for companies pursuing “dual carbon” goals, and when firms under pressure to reduce emissions purchase these hollow “indulgences” to continue emitting with a clear conscience, global carbon emissions increase rather than decrease. Who will bear the consequences?
Ultimately, can humanity use the methods of capitalism to address the crisis brought about by capitalism?
Using the experience of a community forest in Cambodia as a starting point, this article presents diverse perspectives and discussions on carbon credits from indigenous community members, environmental organisations, and scholars. The original text was first published by Mongabay on 5 January 2024, titled “Can carbon credits really help communities protect forests?”. Foodthink has been authorised by the author to translate this piece.
In the early morning, the calls of red-cheeked gibbons pierce the silence of the forest canopy. By day, the drone of male cicadas and the flutter of female wings weave into a deafening clamour. These sounds are nowhere to be found on land where the forests have been cleared.
For the indigenous Bunong people, including Long Heng, this forest provides more than just fruit, honey, mushrooms, medicine, and resin; it also provides a source of income. Furthermore, it is home to the sacred sites of the Bunong.
Long Heng and other villagers from Plong village spent years fighting for this 2,282-hectare “forest sea”, finally succeeding in 2016 in gaining official certification for it as the Ngleav Krach community forest. Beside a road built in 2012, Long Heng proudly points to the boundaries of this 2,282-hectare “forest sea” on a topographic map. This designation signifies that the area will be permanently protected and receive official support from the Cambodian government.
However, as Long Heng speaks of the threats now facing the forest she loves, tears stream down her face. For years, rumours have circulated that 650 hectares of this forest would be cleared to settle 230 families and establish a new community. In early April last year, the sound of chainsaws finally arrived.
To avoid detection by the villagers of Plong, the loggers mostly operate in secret under the cover of night. Plong village opposes the destruction of the forest. The cleared land is left with black, charred scars, the result of the loggers’ attempts to burn fallen trees and vegetation.
“I just want to die; I am so disappointed by all of this,” Long Heng says. “I feel such regret for the lost forest and the wildlife.”
She says she has protested this to Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Land Management, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Interior, as well as anti-corruption agencies, and has even travelled to Phnom Penh to report the situation to officials. Yet she has received almost no support; instead, she has been accused of “opposing development” and was at one point arrested. (When Mongabay interviewed her last April, she stated she had been released on bail.)
Long Heng says she heard of a forest conservation initiative aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, called REDD+, and learned that communities near the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in Mondulkiri Province were benefiting from it. This sanctuary is not far from her roadside café, which she rents out on Airbnb, and her traditional thatched-roof Bunong house.
REDD+ can not only convert the carbon storage of the Bunong community forests into sustainable land protection, but it can also provide funding for local education, healthcare, and employment. Long Heng admits she does not fully understand how REDD+ works, but she is very interested in the idea.
“Our level of education is not high, so the land and the forest… they are the source of income for our indigenous community,” she says.
Research shows that despite high levels of poverty, indigenous people and local communities like Long Heng hold the key to sustainable coexistence with forests. Their management often maintains, or even enhances, the climate benefits provided by the forest, not to mention the habitats and other ecosystem services that healthy forests provide for biodiversity.
According to World Bank data, lands owned by indigenous peoples globally support 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Furthermore, a 2018 report by the global coalition “Rights and Resources Initiative” found that these lands store nearly one-fifth of the world’s forest carbon. However, in many parts of the world, including Cambodia, indigenous land rights remain very weak, even when legally recognised.
REDD+ addresses activities such as logging and agricultural expansion by supporting community-managed forests. The reduced carbon emissions can be sold as carbon credits, with a portion of the proceeds used to support forest conservation.
However, this approach is highly controversial. Investigations and research indicate that the climate benefits brought by many projects may be lower than claimed. In the pursuit of profits from carbon trading, some community residents have been forced off their land, and there have been controversial cases where project staff were accused of abusing their power. These issues have sparked calls for the reform of REDD+ and voluntary carbon trading, with some even suggesting that REDD+ be terminated entirely.
I. Rewarding the Forest Guardians
However, for people like Long Heng, who live near forests and hope for support, it is not always clear which communities and forests meet the REDD+ criteria. Project managers for REDD+ also acknowledge that focusing on areas under urgent threat means they cannot help everyone.
Globally, leaders of indigenous peoples and local communities have publicly voiced their support for REDD+. In May, an international coalition of indigenous organisations expressed their backing, arguing that while REDD+ is not perfect, it acknowledges and funds the efforts communities make toward forest conservation. This not only protects their cultures and traditions but also provides a foundation for economic development.
“We believe carbon markets are an important tool, but they need to be redesigned,” said Levy Socre Romero, an indigenous Bribri leader from Costa Rica and coordinator for the Central American Peoples and Forests Alliance, during an interview at the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference. “We need to refocus carbon markets on the respect for indigenous rights and engage in a more open dialogue with carbon credit buyers.”
“REDD+ provides communities with the tools they need to continue protecting their own forests,” says Germain Kage Sedoyeka, a member of the Datooga people and the REDD project manager for Yaeda village in northern Tanzania. Before partnering with the UK-based social enterprise Carbon Tanzania, the village where he grew up faced a massive influx of outsiders who had no deep connection to the land.
“Indigenous peoples are the true guardians of their village forests, having protected them for centuries,” Sedoyeka said. With the project’s support, community members of Yaeda village have received legal certification for their “customary tenure”. “This helps the community strengthen the protection of the land and forests, thereby securing the livelihoods of the villagers,” he added.
Starting in 2012, as part of a REDD+ project led by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Bunong communities living around the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary became some of the first in Cambodia to obtain collective land titles under the country’s 2001 Land Law.
Experts state that these rights are vital for the protection of forests, carbon storage, and the maintenance of biodiversity in the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary and other regions. These projects in Tanzania and Cambodia have also provided support for education, healthcare, and employment.
“We are very grateful that the world has begun to recognise and acknowledge the contributions of local communities and indigenous peoples,” said Sedoyeka.
Nevertheless, many indigenous leaders maintain that despite this recognition, they still feel their voices are not being heard. They wish to have a say in what forms of support are most useful for their communities and how funds should be allocated.
“We certainly need to push for climate solutions,” says Deborah Sanchez, a member of the Honduran Miskitu indigenous community and the coordinator for forests, climate, and biodiversity for the Central American Peoples and Forests Alliance, which signed the REDD+ open letter in May 2023. “But at the same time, we must ensure that these solutions do not infringe upon the rights of the people who inhabit these lands and forests.”
Other rights advocates have expressed similar concerns. To some extent, the world relies on these communities to maintain the last remaining terrestrial carbon sinks so that people in wealthy regions can continue their high-emission lifestyles. They argue that such projects can actually be viewed as a form of “carbon colonialism”.
II. Communities Facing the Challenge of ‘Carbon Cowboys’
Mongabay first reported in November 2021 on an agreement to monetise forest carbon and other ecosystem services in the state of Sabah, Malaysia. Orchestrated and signed in closed-door meetings by several state leaders and representatives from Australian and Singaporean companies, the deal involved the rights to approximately 2 million hectares of natural capital.
Although the agreement covered more than a quarter of the state’s land area, Peter Burgess, CEO of Terra Australia—one of the companies involved—stated in an interview that most of the state’s indigenous people were unaware that their jungles had been placed under protection.
This agreement outraged indigenous and human rights organisations in Sabah and beyond. Local organisations stated they would have supported a more transparent and inclusive approach to marketing these ecosystem services to drive the state’s sustainable economic development. However, many observers view the deal as little more than a land grab designed to benefit a few. Despite the fact that supporters of the agreement have failed to clarify key terms, the deal continues to move forward more than two years after its signing.
Elsewhere, communication with local communities has also lacked sufficient depth, failing to fully convey the potential impact of similar agreements, which can last for a century or longer. In the Congo, an Indian company called KMS, despite lacking experience in carbon markets and REDD+, began seeking permission from local communities to market forest carbon credits in late 2021.
Mongabay’s reporting revealed that KMS quickly gathered consent forms from community residents, completing the discussions in just 35 minutes. KMS also acquired carbon rights in Papua New Guinea, home to the world’s third-largest tropical rainforest. Mongabay has questioned KMS multiple times since May 2022, but the company has yet to respond to specific questions about the project.
Driven by fears of losing land rights, the indigenous-led “Coalition for the Path of Change and Transformation” has called for a moratorium on land-based carbon credit trading.
Critics of REDD+ and voluntary carbon markets argue that the lack of consideration for indigenous peoples and local communities is a systemic issue, meaning community representatives are often excluded from project planning from the very beginning.
“In many cases, indigenous peoples and local communities are not viewed as equal partners,” said Catherine Loftus, a senior researcher in human rights and climate change at McGill University in Canada, during a symposium in September. The *United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples* requires states to consult and cooperate with the concerned indigenous peoples to obtain their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.
“The real challenge is that the voices of these communities and peoples must not only be heard according to the law, but must be fully considered; that is where ‘Free, Prior and Informed Consent’ comes into play,” said Marco Aurelio Chavez Coloy, legal coordinator for the Community Forest Association of Guatemala (Utz Che’) and a member of the Maya K’iche’ community, at the same symposium.
Leaders of indigenous and local communities also argue that they should receive more funding to support their efforts. According to a 2021 report by the Rainforest Foundation Norway, less than 1% of climate-related aid is used to support land and rights issues for indigenous peoples and local communities. Even when efforts are made to direct funds to these groups, they often fall far short of expectations.
Delayed funding and growing frustration have prompted indigenous groups to establish their own funds, such as the Nusantara Fund in Indonesia and the Central American Territorial Fund in Mexico and Central America. These funds direct donor money directly toward community-led climate action and conservation work.
Josh Torstenson, president of the REDD+ project marketing firm Everland, believes the key to progress lies in finding the right way to support these groups.
“Of course, the most important part of REDD+ is the transformation work on the ground. This is work carried out by communities and other stakeholders, as well as the process of collaborating with them to intervene in the systems causing deforestation and change their dynamics,” he said. “The vast majority of the funding must flow to the stakeholders who can influence the future of the forest. That is the key.”
III. What constitutes ‘additionality’?
To qualify for REDD+ projects and secure subsequent funding through carbon credits, project developers must demonstrate that the project actually reduces emissions. In other words, they must prove that these emission reductions would not have occurred without the project. This ‘additionality’ is increasingly seen as a component of carbon credit integrity, as credits are intended to represent actual progress in mitigating climate change.
Torstenson explains that tools like REDD+ are designed to protect forests facing imminent threats.
“REDD+ is a form of emergency aid. When you encounter a problem, you intervene through REDD+ and use its ‘prescription’,” Torstenson adds. “For forests that are not under serious threat, the REDD+ mechanisms actually fail to provide appropriate support.”
Forests and communities that are not under threat should, therefore, be excluded. This is not a view shared by everyone.
“This is utterly unfair; their way of life is highly sustainable, yet they are penalised for it,” says Samuel Ngifuda, Director of the Centre for Environment and Development, a Cameroonian NGO, and author of the position paper for the Coalition for Change and Transformation.
Torstenson agrees that indigenous peoples and local communities who have preserved their forests should be supported and compensated. “Their forests are not under threat because they are wise guardians,” he says.
Torstenson mentions the Forest Peoples Partnership which, similar to the Nusantara Fund and the Mesoamerican Land Fund, aims to direct more funding towards indigenous and local communities while ensuring they are involved in the decision-making process.
From a broader perspective, exclusion can lead to a loss of trust in the entire process among the affected communities. Francis Seymour, a former senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, says: “I worry that some people, in their intense effort to maintain the environmental integrity of carbon markets, may have forgotten that the true purpose of these markets is climate protection.” She currently works in the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate office, though her views do not necessarily represent the position of the US government or the Envoy’s office.
“When indigenous people are on the front line, sacrificing their lives to defend their territories from illegal loggers, to say this does not satisfy ‘additionality’ is an insult to those risking their lives,” Seymour adds. Seymour also previously served as the Board Chair of the REDD+ Framework, which operates the High Environmental Standard for REDD+.
At the national level, Guyana and Gabon are considered “High Forest Low Deforestation” (HFLD) countries. While many factors have enabled these countries to retain large areas of forest, observers believe that government intervention policies are partly responsible for the forests remaining relatively healthy.
“It is unreasonable if carbon market rules are designed to exclude indigenous peoples or governments that have taken proactive steps to protect forests, such as Guyana and Gabon, and if those rules eventually lead to the loss of these forests,” says Seymour.
Some climate experts argue that the 750 million carbon credits issued by the REDD+ Framework from Guyana do not represent the full climate benefits claimed, as they include forests that were not facing a serious threat of deforestation.
However, Seymour argues that it is almost impossible to accurately predict where the next forest facing a serious threat of deforestation will be.
“The pressure is endless,” Seymour says. “We are seeing deforestation rates suddenly spike in ‘High Forest Low Deforestation’ areas.”
In addition to traditional carbon removal and emission reduction categories, the REDD+ Framework has established a special category of “High Environmental Standard carbon credits” for HFLD regions.
Sanchez similarly believes that the discussion surrounding “additionality” is too shortsighted, as it overemphasises proving a threat of deforestation in order to sell more carbon credits.
“When we look at the map, the only forests that truly exist are the ones we live in, the ones we guard, and the ones we consider home,” she says. “It is not always about carbon; it is about human and climate justice.”
In the past, outsiders came to the community in Sanchez’s hometown in Honduras and accused her father of being lazy because he had not cleared the forest, meaning he could not raise cattle or make his fortune.
But she says her family believed the value of the forest far outweighed that of livestock. They used the timber to build houses and canoes, gathered medicinal plants in the forest, and fished in the rivers and streams.
The experience of Sanchez’s family embodies the fundamental difference in how many indigenous and local communities view the forest. She argues that compensation should go directly to those on the front line. This is exactly what Torstenson refers to as the places where “transformational work” is happening.
For some, REDD+ and voluntary carbon markets seem like a viable way to achieve this goal. But Sanchez points out that the value of a healthy forest is far greater than what these markets can capture. This is why the world is beginning to value indigenous conservation methods as part of the solution to the climate and biodiversity crisis. She adds that these methods are highly effective, though in her view, the designers of these projects have not yet fully understood this.
“The Global North must learn how we see the world, just as we are learning how they see it,” says Sanchez.
– Read the original article here–
Translation: Kerry
Editing: Yuyang