We fear for the air around us.
Fela Kuti

The global carbon market is estimated to eventually generate 1-3 trillion dollars a year.27 In 2010, it was estimated to be at $120.9 billion.28 Some have even speculated that carbon credits could eventually replace the US dollar as the new global currency.29 Even the World Bank does not think the idea is that far-fetched: “You can imagine a future world where carbon is really the currency of the 21st century.”30

Two African carbon “stock markets” are already buying and selling “Made in Africa” carbon offsets: the African Carbon Exchange (ACX)”31 in Kenya and the African Carbon Credit Exchange (ACCE)32 in Zambia. These exchanges hope to profit from carbon offsets generated in Africa,33 be they under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or REDD. At the UNFCCC COP17 in December 2011, there was no political will to create a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing mandatory legally binding framework for greenhouse gas emissions reductions (though fundamentally flawed by major loopholes and the inclusion of carbon trading). However, COP17 does allow for the continuation and even expansion of the Clean Development Mechanism, a carbon trading mechanism that essentially outsources the industrialized countries’ obligation to reduce emissions at source, to the Global South. So COP17 preserved the shell of the Kyoto Protocol devoid of commitments for GHG reductions targets, to increase the CDM, many of whose projects have already caused human rights violations and environmental destruction.34

In addition to the African carbon exchange and the African Carbon Credit Exchange, there is an annual trade fair for selling African air called the African Carbon Forum,35 which the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) supports.36 There are also plans to create an exchange in Senegal exclusively for African REDD credits. The Anglo African Energy Group, notorious for its environmental destruction, “is looking to develop a Senegal-based exchange where the forestry offsets can be traded.”37 Climate criminals like Shell Oil, which caused ecocide in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta, are already buying African air. In 2014, Reuters reported that Shell Trading was buying African carbon credits from Burundi and Uganda offered by Ecosur Afrique, which says it has 20 CDM projects registered in sub-Saharan Africa, making it the region’s largest developer.38

Industrialized countries could find it easy to fulfill much of their targets for emissions reductions with cheap REDD offset credits.39 According to The Economist, REDD “will push down the price. Companies would then buy cheap credits and continue doing business as usual rather than cutting their own emissions.”40 It’s just “trading thin air.”41 Industrialized countries could offset most of their emissions with REDD thus not only not reducing climate change but making it worse and in the process “cooking the continent”42 and resulting in the continuous incineration of Africa.43 Even pro-REDD authors, who are eager for Africa to get more carbon funds, note that REDD could fuel conflict and harm peasants and indigenous peoples in Africa as the No REDD in Africa Network has documented. According to Challenges and Prospects for REDD+ in Africa, “there is a fear that a group of actors will exert its influence on REDD revenues to the detriment of vulnerable communities… REDD could then exacerbate conflicts over ownership and access to forest resources.”44

REDD’s Skyrocketing Scope

The World Bank is promoting a carbon credits project in Kenya with 60,000 small-scale farmers to reduce pesticide use, encourage sustainable agricultural practices and sell the resulting carbon credits. According to the Global Alliance against REDD, REDD could result in a counter-agrarian reform.45 The implications of Climate Smart Agriculture for peasants and food sovereignty include the expropriation not just of land, but the commodification, perversion, privatization and patenting of entire sustainable and organic agricultural knowledge systems.46 It is also a way to divert attention from the massive carbon emissions produced by industrial farming and agribusiness, especially in the North, and place the burden of reducing emissions on peasants in the South.47

Climate Smart Agriculture could be particularly bad for women who grow as much as 80% of food in some African countries. The land grabs and evictions that REDD may cause could make it particularly difficult for women to feed their families. In addition, since women rarely have the title to the land they till, it is difficult for them to contest land grabs. The Assembly of Rural Women of Southern Africa wasted no time in condemning REDD and the use of soils as carbon sinks.48 Furthermore, “the aim to expand carbon markets onto African soil is thus about shifting the blame and responsibility for addressing climate change from rich countries onto African farmers, even though they are not the ones who have caused it.”49