Zimbabwe announces new carbon trading framework. All international carbon agreements are “null and void”
Zimbabwe will take 50% of all revenue from sales of carbon credits
Zimbabwe’s government announced this week that it will take control of the production of carbon credits in the country, according to Bloomberg.
Monica Mutsvangwa, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting announced that all past agreements signed with international agencies are now “null and void”.
Local authorities cannot enter into any carbon credit agreements.
On 16 May 2023, Mutswangwa told journalists at a media briefing in Harare that,
“The growth of the carbon market requires the establishment of institutions to facilitate Zimbabwe’s participation, regulate players and ensure commensurate benefits accrue to the nation.”
Zimbabwe will “monitor all movement and sale of carbon credits generated within its jurisdiction,” Mutswangwa said.
A carbon trade committee will be created in the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry’s Climate Change Management Department to oversee carbon trading in the country.
Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister, established the new carbon trading framework for the country. Under this new framework, Treasury will get 50% of any money from sales of carbon credits. Foreign investors can earn up to 30% and local investors must receive at least 20%.
S&P Global reports that earlier this year President Emmerson Mnangagwa said that carbon trading in Zimbabwe needed to be changed so that the government gets “a fair share of the proceeds from the trade”.
A statement from the Ministry of Information explains that,
The framework spells out the processes and institutions required to ensure that carbon credits assist the transformation needed to promote climate change mitigation and low carbon emissions in various sectors, among them, energy, and forestry.
Kariba REDD+ project
The Kariba REDD+ project is one of the largest REDD projects in the world. It covers more than 750,000 hectares. In 2022, the project generated about 10% of carbon consulting firm South Pole’s revenue.
An investigation by investigative journalists at Follow the Money in January 2023 found that South Pole had massively inflated the baseline, and as a result “South Pole marketed considerably more carbon credits than the emissions it prevented in Zimbabwe.”
South Pole stopped the sale of credits from the project in February 2023, while it investigated what it euphemistically calls a “discrepancy”.
SP Global reports that South Pole put out a statement on 17 May 2023:
“We are assessing the implications that this new potential regulation might have on the Kariba REDD+ project and the local communities. We will comment further when this review is complete.”
Ngamo-Gwayi-Sikumi REDD+ project
In August 2022, an Australian oil and gas exploration company called Invictus Energy Limited set up a 30-year deal with the Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe to develop the Ngamo-Gwayi-Sikumi REDD+ project.
The project exists to greenwash Invictus Energy’s oil, gas, and helium extraction at the Cabora Bassa project in Zimbabwe.
Under the deal, Invictus will pay US$1.5 million for the REDD project. Profits were to be shared 50:50 with the Forestry Commission. That will presumably now have to be renegotiated.
On 8 May 2023, Invictus Energy confirmed that it had found light oil, gas condensate, and helium at the Cabora Bassa project. The company’s share price increased by 8.7%.
Bikita Minerals’ lithium mine
At the media briefing about the new carbon trading framework, Finance Minister Ncube explained that reforestation projects are widely used to generate carbon credits. Other operations, such as “green metals”, including lithium mining, are less often used to generate carbon credits, Ncube said.
But Ncube did not explain how on earth lithium mining could generate carbon offsets.
On the same day as the media briefing in Harare about Zimbabwe’s new carbon trading framework, Zimbabwe’s newspapers reported that the government had ordered China’s Sinomine Resource Group to suspend operations at the country’s largest lithium mine, Bikita Minerals. The mine is the largest lithium mine in Africa.
New Zimbabwe reports that the suspension followed a report by the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), a local watchdog, about massive looting of lithium at the mine. According to Farai Maguwu, CNRG’s Director, 42 trucks of lithium ore were leaving the site every day.
Meanwhile NewsDay reports that working conditions had deteriorated with workers subjected to ill-treatment, bad pay, and “inhumane” accommodation.
Sinomine bought the lithium mine in January 2022 for US$180 million. CNRG notes that,
[T]he take over of Bikita Minerals by Sinomine has caused an outcry following images of massive stockpiles of lithium concentrate at the mine for shipment to China. It is not clear how Zimbabwe is benefitting from activities at Sinomine.
With the ongoing lack of any meaningful international management of the “Wild West” of carbon “markets,” it is good news that finally some nation has grown a spine and is willing to regulate this scene, and insist that some part of the value accrues to their nation. Nice that mineral extraction has also come under these regulations. Certain international players see other countries as merely their source for ____, to be taken by any means including outright theft or induced burden of debt. And how do you generate a carbon offset for lithium mining? This latest large-scale destruction of the planet is “green” because it reduces (perhaps eventually) vehicle emissions. Yet again, the Benefit to Human-Kind allows for creation of these sacrifice zones and dismisses any effects on other forms of life.