What's in a name?

Land grab issue across Africa:

The article, “The Climate Gamble on African Soil,” written by Sumayya Ismali in the Aljazeera news source discusses the complex issue of carbon sequestration and how it manifests the survival and livelihood of families across East Africa. Carbon sequestration is believed to be an effective method to help decrease carbon footprint by capturing excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and re-investing it back into the soil. It also allows a company to purchase these carbon offsets from an entity that reduces greenhouse emissions through biological processes.

In West Africa, it is estimated that 50% and 70% of the prevailing land is under-managed in which very little carbon is returned back into the soil (Perez et al., 2006). This has led to oxidization, mineralization, leaching, and removal of organic carbon (Perez et al., 2006). In theory, the C market provides financial capital whereby buyers – private companies and governments – create a demand for C stocks (C capture and C storage). To promote sustainable land management governments provide funds for C sequestration, and in exchange landholders and resource managers use C credits for various projects to deliver ecosystem services and commodities. The dealers or brokers pool small packages of ecosystem service associated with each project, and sell those C credit packages to larger firms, thereby small-holder farmers are paid by the firms, to adopt conservation practices within those projects (Perez et al., 2006).

The soil carbon capture scheme allows industries in developed countries to pay for their own “offset” (hazardous emissions) through the purchase of environmental projects in developing countries. Theoretically, the C market generates additional income for poor farmers however, there are issues surrounding the rights and access to the carbon market. According to the environmental rights group, the Gaia Foundation argues that market-led approaches have not addressed agriculture and climate change problems in Africa, only to create ‘climate refugees’ (Ismali, 2011). Since carbon credits are controlled in the international markets, there are speculations that only global investors and brokers benefit from the carbon market – just like any other internationally tradable commodity, because they are the ones who control it, while farmers do the actual work offsetting them. In other words, money is put into the hands of consultants rather than into subsistence for farmers and their communities.

Harjeet Singh (International climate justice co-ordinator at the non-profit organisation ActionAid) stated that in the end, farmers are left “vulnerable to land grabs, dependent on unpredictable funding from markets, and forced to shoulder the mitigation burden of a climate crisis they did not cause” (Ismali, 2011). Another issue with the carbon capture scheme is that many farmers do not have private title of their land, and for those who do, governments often ignore their land ownership and regard their land as public domain because so much land tenure is based on customary tenure systems, which causes social tension between civil interest and state. Therefore, governments can claim ownership of land to acquire funds from the carbon market and divert the money into their own interests. For farmers who agree to sign the soil carbon capture deal, developers lease their land for many years to these farmers however with restrictions to specific agricultural practices.

The author Sumayya Ismali offers an interesting debate on the effectiveness and validity of the complex carbon capture scheme in world financial markets. His story presents a clear and detailed description of the issue, providing social, environmental and economic ramifications. However, he provides some information that is incongruent to other sources: misinformed by Harjeet Singh, the Clean Development Mechanism has already agreed to facilitate the carbon credit program. The author bases most of the information from representatives of environmental organizations, such as ActionAid and The Gaia Foundation, thus presenting a biased perspective of the issue. There are general assumptions about financial speculators who reap benefits from the carbon market, however the author should point out some statistics or quantitative analysis illustrating how they might have done so, to prove that there is inequitable distribution of carbon credits. In addition, the author could have provided more in-depth analysis of the financial mechanism, such as where the payment is going and how it is handled so we could understand the uncertainties behind the carbon trade. Personally, I think the carbon capture scheme should be a process we should be promoting anyway. It should not be commodified in the first place because the speculative market makes it difficult to track, facilitate, and manage the carbon credit.

Sources cited:

Ismali, Sumayya. (2011). The Climate Gamble on African Soil. Aljazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/09/2011916191829769749.html

Perez, Carlos., Roncoli, Carla., Neely, Constance., & Steiner, Jean L. (2007). Can carbon sequestration markets benefit low-income producers in semi-arid Africa? Potentials and challenges. Agricultural Systems, 94, 2–12.