A “green rush” for carbon offsets is fuelling land grabs in the Global South
New report from the Robert Bosch Stiftung and TMG Research.
Nature-based climate solutions allow countries or companies to continue polluting while paying for carbon projects that are supposed to absorb and store carbon — such as preserving forests or planting trees. Even worse, these so-called solutions need vast areas of land in the Global South.
A recent report published by the Robert Bosch Stiftung and TMG Research warns that nature-based climate solutions are likely to trigger a global land rush. In the process carbon offset projects will exacerbate land-use conflicts, threaten food security, displace local communities, undermine Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and increase inequality.
The report is titled, “Net Zero and Land Rights: How our climate goals drive land demand and shape people’s lives”.
Based on countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, by 2060, land-based climate pledges could require up to 1 billion hectares, or almost the size of China or the United States.
The land for this green rush is often inhabited or used by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Land taken for conservation or planting trees is no longer available for growing food.
In Brazil, Suzano, the world’s largest pulp manufacturer, is planting monoculture eucalyptus plantations to feed its pulp mill, and at the same time setting aside land for conservation to generate carbon credits. The area involved is vast.
The Net Zero and Land Rights report highlights the case of the Portuguese-owned logging company, Norsudtimber, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company is incorporated in the tax haven of Liechtenstein. After years of industrial logging, including rampant illegal logging, in 2022 Norsudtimber transferred some of its logging concessions to a subsidiary called Kongo Forest Based Solutions to cash in on carbon trading.
Climate justice
The Net Zero and Land Rights report points out that,
Climate justice demands that measures to achieve global climate goals do not harm people who are already living in vulnerable situations. Therefore, carbon dioxide removal projects that hurt smallholder farmers or pastoralists are everything but climate just.
Allowing land-based carbon projects under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement would accelerate the land grab — particularly in the Global South.
Land-based carbon projects have faced heavy criticism. They often exaggerate emission reductions. They allow Big Polluters to continue polluting while claiming to care about the climate crisis. They have resulted in evictions. They increase the value of land, which accelerates land grabbing.
A further problem is that land-based carbon projects can exacerbate existing gender inequity. The report states that,
Carbon market intermediaries tend to address the male head of household as the landowner, who may then make land use decisions that affect female household members without their involvement. In effect, women lose their land use rights, which harms household food security.
Large-scale land-based carbon projects are often established in areas with weak land rights, poor law enforcement, and no democratic land use planning processes. Many Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement are based on using land in other countries to generate carbon credits.
Robert Bosch Stiftung and TMG Research argue that,
In the absence of a human rights-based framework for carbon markets, these national climate commitments can increase the vulnerability of people who are already most affected by the impact of climate change.
The Land Gap
Kate Dooley is a senior research fellow in Melbourne University’s School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. In 2022 she was lead author of “The Land Gap Report”. Dooley told Reuters that, “Countries treat land like a limitless resource in their climate plans.”
Dooley also contributed to the Net Zero and Land Rights report.
“Treating land as infinite has serious implications,” the Net Zero and Land Rights report notes, adding that “Global commitments largely overlook the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including both legal and customary rights to use, control and transfer land.”
This dependence on land to compensate for fossil fuel emissions is unrealistic and has resulted in a gap between land-use projections for carbon sequestration and the amount of land available: The Land Gap.
The largest claims for land-based carbon removal come from high-income, high-emitting countries. These countries, which include Australia, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and the US, are major producers and consumers of fossil fuels.
“Carbon markets have revived a rush for land to mitigate climate change, leading to a new wave of land grabs that threaten people’s rights, especially under customary land tenure systems,” the Net Zero and Land Rights report states.
This comes on top a global land rush in the late 2000s, that was triggered by soaring food prices. International investors bought up about 30 million hectares of land in the Global South for agribusiness.
Carbon certification firm Verra has registered land-based carbon projects covering a total of almost 24 million hectares. Over 90% of this area was registered since 2017. About 80% of the projects involve forest protection, reforestation, or afforestation. And 36% of the projects are in Africa, where land rights are often not documented.
Carbon offsets are a false solution
Despite focussing on the vast areas of land needed for the “green rush” and the impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities, the Net Zero and Land Rights report is not opposed to land-based carbon offset projects.
The report states that,
it is clear that partnership with communities, as well as community-driven measures are key in the execution of climate projects to ensure that trade-offs are not made between protecting the climate and people’s rights to land and secure livelihoods.
But even if carbon offset projects were developed with communities, they cannot escape from the structural problems associated with carbon markets. Any project that generates carbon offsets is selling them to corporations or countries that are continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels.
Carbon offsets do not protect the climate. Carbon offsets exist in order to allow the fossil fuel industry to continue polluting and profiting from destruction for as long as possible.
The report also repeats the claim that 80% of the world’s biodiversity is found on Indigenous Peoples’ territories. That statement is not based on science, as a 2024 paper in Nature found.