Carbon offset schemes have expanded rapidly across Africa in recent years.
Communities say projects have restricted access to land and traditional livelihoods.
Critics argue most financial benefits flow to investors and intermediaries abroad.
Environmental groups question whether offsets reduce global emissions at all.
African governments face growing pressure to regulate opaque carbon markets.
When carbon offset schemes were introduced in Africa at the turn of the millennium, they were promoted as a climate solution that could deliver benefits on two fronts, generating revenue for countries with vast carbon sinks while helping to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. More than two decades on, however, communities across the continent say the reality has fallen far short of those claims.
From the Baka hunter-gatherers in the Congo Basin forests to the Barotse and Lozi people in Zambia, the Tonga community in Zimbabwe and the Ogiek and Rendille peoples in Kenya, critics say many projects have resulted in seized farmland, restrictions on traditional livelihoods, alleged human rights abuses and uneven sharing of benefits.
Campaigners argue that promoters of forest-based offset schemes, including those under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus or REDD+ framework by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), are increasingly focused on maximising profits from a mechanism that is itself being questioned as a credible climate solution.
Some analysts believe carbon offset schemes are being promoted in Africa for reasons that have little to do with tackling the climate crisis. They argue that offsets are being offered as an alternative source of climate finance as high-emitting countries in the Global North continue to fall short of meeting Africa’s adaptation and mitigation needs.
Africa contributes about three per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet has borne a disproportionate share of climate impacts. After years of pressure at UN climate talks, wealthier nations reluctantly agreed to establish a Loss and Damage Fund, but African leaders and experts say funding commitments have not matched the scale of need.
The African Development Bank estimates Africa’s annual loss and damage costs from climate change at between $289 billion and $440 billion, with more than 800 million people experiencing climate-related food insecurity. Estimates of Africa’s climate finance needs range from $143 billion to $194 billion a year to keep the continent’s 1.5 billion people on a climate-resilient development path.
“There is a big gap between the moral perception that the North is responsible for the climate catastrophe in the South, and their willingness to compensate the victims,” said Professor Christian Gollier, managing director of the Toulouse School of Economics, in a previous interview.
Although carbon offset schemes have existed for more than two decades, only a handful of African countries were active under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, the predecessor to Article 6 carbon markets, or on the voluntary carbon market. Interest has grown in recent years, driven by projections that offsets could provide a significant new revenue stream.
Through the African Carbon Market Initiative, launched at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP30) to the UNFCCC in Egypt in 2022, several African countries rich in forests, wetlands and coastal ecosystems have embraced nature-based offset schemes. Proponents say the continent could generate $6 billion a year by 2030 and up to $120 billion annually by 2050.
Nassim Oulmane, head of natural resources, green and blue economy at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, said the continent hopes to benefit from rising global demand for carbon credits.
“Demand for voluntary carbon credits, which stood at about 95 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020, is expected to rise sharply as countries and corporations pursue net-zero targets,” he said, predicting a five- to ten-fold increase over the next decade.
Carbon offset projects typically claim to capture carbon from the atmosphere or avoid emissions, converting these reductions into tradable credits. In theory, governments and communities earn income for conservation while companies offset their emissions.
But scrutiny of offset markets has raised doubts about both sides of this equation. Environmental groups argue that benefits often bypass local communities and instead accrue to investors, intermediaries and companies in the Global North.
Greenpeace says offset markets allow corporations to continue polluting while shifting the burden to communities in the Global South, effectively putting a price on nature and enabling land grabs. Carbon Market Watch has similarly warned that opaque pricing and complex chains of intermediaries mean communities receive only a fraction of what buyers pay.
Zimbabwe’s Kariba REDD project is frequently cited as an example. Credits valued at less than one euro at the community level were reportedly sold for around €20 to international buyers.
Fiore Longo, senior research and advocacy officer at Survival International, told Down To Earth (DTE) that the premise of offsetting fossil fuel emissions by protecting forests elsewhere was fundamentally flawed.
“Numerous investigations have shown that many offset projects do little or nothing to prevent emissions or store additional carbon,” she said, adding that Indigenous peoples and local communities are often promised benefits that never materialise.
She also raised concerns about projects being imposed without free, prior and informed consent, and about carbon finance supporting heavily policed conservation areas where abuses against Indigenous peoples have been reported.
The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), based in Amsterdam, has documented similar concerns. In a recent report on offset projects in Kenya, the organisation said such schemes reinforced neo-colonial dynamics by allowing companies to outsource their climate responsibilities while African countries absorbed the social and ecological costs.
Audrey Gaughran, SOMO’s executive director, said offsetting had become a profitable business rather than a genuine climate solution. “Once a company can make money from controlling large areas of land, the main beneficiaries are usually the foreign owners or shareholders,” she told DTE.
In some cases, governments say they were initially unaware of offset schemes operating within their borders. Zimbabwe, for example, only moved to regulate the sector in 2023 after controversy surrounding the Kariba project, despite offsets having been sold there for more than a decade. The country has signed off 7.5 million hectares of its forest (equivalent to 20 per cent of its landmass) to a Dubai-based carbon offset firm.
SOMO’s research suggests African governments struggle to keep pace with the complexity of the industry. It warns that financial flows remain opaque, with profits largely accruing to project developers, auditors, brokers and standard-setting bodies, while communities are left with uncertain and often unrealised promises.
Lucy Musonda, a Zambian lawyer and legal researcher at the Centre for Trade Policy and Development, said restrictions on land use risk long-term harm. “People who have lived on the land for generations are being asked to change how they live or farm without a real voice in the process,” she said, warning of impacts on food security and local resilience.
“The carbon offset industry comprises a complex network of actors with significant financial stakes,” the watchdog warned. “This includes those who establish and oversee standards, those who monitor project compliance, and the project developers themselves — all of them with incentives to approve projects and generate the most credits. While financial flows in this industry often remain opaque, profits primarily accrue to project developers, auditing firms, brokers, standard-setting bodies, and other intermediaries, while communities are left with vague promises tied to the uncertain sale of a highly unstable commodity.”