[Agreements have been struck with African states home to crucial
biodiversity hotspots, for land representing billions of dollars in
potential carbon offsetting revenue.]
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THE NEW ‘SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA’: HOW A UAE SHEIKH QUIETLY MADE
CARBON DEALS FOR FORESTS BIGGER THAN UK  
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Patrick Greenfield
November 30, 2023
The Guardian
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_ Agreements have been struck with African states home to crucial
biodiversity hotspots, for land representing billions of dollars in
potential carbon offsetting revenue. _

Forests in Liberia … it has struck a deal covering 10% of its land.
, John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

 

The rights over vast tracts of African forest are being sold off in a
series of huge carbon offsetting deals that cover an area of land
larger than the UK. The deals, made by a little-known member of
Dubai’s ruling royal family, encompass up to 20% of the countries
concerned – and have raised concerns about a new “scramble for
Africa” and the continent’s carbon resources.

Such deals can deny the rights of people living on the land to make
use of it for their own purposes while providing unclear benefits to
the environment

As chairman of the company Blue Carbon, which is barely a year old
[[link removed]], Sheikh Ahmed
Dalmook al-Maktoum has announced several exploratory deals with
African states that are home to crucial wildlife havens and
biodiversity hotspots, for land that represents billions of dollars in
potential offsetting revenue. The sheikh has no previous experience in
nature conservation projects.

So far, the deals cover a fifth of Zimbabwe, 10% of Liberia, 10% of
Zambia
[[link removed]] and 8%
of Tanzania
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amounting to a total area the size of the UK. In October, Blue
Carbon signed its latest deal for
[[link removed]] “millions” of
hectares of forest in Kenya. The company said it was also working on
an agreement with Pakistan. More deals are expected in the coming
months. The carbon assets associated with the deals could be bought up
by major polluters and used towards their own targets under the Paris
agreement.

Blue Carbon is based in the UAE, where the Cop28
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this week. The company hopes credits from the schemes will be traded
as country-level contributions to the 2015 Paris agreement, it said in
a statement.

However, concerns have been raised about the agreements, as well as
about the sheikh’s previous business ventures, including his role
in deals to sell Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine 
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a premium during the pandemic, and an Italian fugitive listed as a
Blue Carbon advisor.

The agreements come amid widespread scrutiny of the ability of carbon
markets to fund climate change mitigation effectively while protecting
biodiversity and the rights of communities.

“Carbon markets are an important element of the puzzle because they
can really channel resources to activities that otherwise would not be
implemented,” said Axel Michaelowa, a carbon markets expert at the
University of Zurich. “If the rules are interpreted in a very
lenient way, we see rubbish credits being generated, then of course
the trust in the market could take a big hit.”

Sheikh Ahmed declined to be interviewed for this article through his
office. Blue Carbon said its “vision with these projects is not only
to accelerate global climate action but also to tackle crucial
environmental challenges at the local level thereby ushering in
community benefits and advancing sustainable development in the
countries involved”.

‘HUGE SWATHES OF LAND ARE BEING SEIZED’

While little detail about the Blue Carbon deals has been made public,
the Guardian has spoken with people involved and has viewed details of
one draft contract from Liberia in July. The deal would give the UAE
firm the exclusive rights to sell the credits for 30 years, taking 70%
of the sale of the credits. Under the rules of the Paris agreement,
countries that sold the credits would not be able to use them for
their own commitments.

Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook al-Maktoum meets the president of Zambia,
Hakainde Hichilema.

Some of those involved in these deals highlighted that carbon markets
provide much-needed financial support to African countries where other
sources of climate finance were not delivering. However, others raised
concerns, saying the size of the land deals amount to “a new
scramble for Africa”
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“Huge swathes of land across Africa are being seized by Blue Carbon
via multiple, decades-long deals, sealing the fate of the very land
that millions of vulnerable communities depend upon for their
livelihood,” said Alexandra Benjamin, a forest governance campaigner
with the NGO Fern
[[link removed]],
who focuses on Liberia and Ghana. “At Cop28, countries will meet and
discuss the rules for carbon offsetting – these negotiators should
call these deals for what they are: land grabs. Forest communities
must have free prior and informed consent before any deal is
signed,” she said.

Many African leaders are enthusiastic supports of carbon markets to
fund climate change mitigation following broken promises on other
sources of finance
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Kenyan president William Ruto who said the continent’s carbon
resources are an “unparalleled economic goldmine”
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Blue Carbon said the carbon projects would benefit communities and
would operate in markets with stringent auditing. They said free,
prior and informed consent was key to their project development
strategy, underscoring the difference between the voluntary carbon
market – where human rights issues have been a serious concern –
and compliance markets.

In Liberia, NGOs have raised questions about the implication of the
potential
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for communities’ land rights and people’s access to the forest,
which is often essential to their livelihoods.

David Obura, founding director of Cordio
[[link removed]] east Africa and head of the Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES
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contributions from nature to people that is easily monetised. So, it
means that all those that are not monetised get excluded or forgotten
about. There are such high risks of exclusivity and obtaining access
and rights away from people.”

In theory, revenue from the credits would fund climate adaptation and
nature conservation in developing countries, protecting carbon sinks
and biodiversity. The Blue Carbon projects would be among the largest
of their kind, but governments are yet to sign off their inclusion in
formal carbon trading under article 6 
[[link removed]]of
the Paris agreement.

The carbon trading system could see large polluting countries such as
the UK, Saudi Arabia or China buy emission removals or reductions from
countries in the developing world to meet their own targets through
offsets. The UAE has sought to pitch itself as a leading purchaser of
African carbon credits, pledging to buy $450m (£356m) of African
credits
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2030 at the Africa Climate Summit in September.

The Ruwais refinery and petrochemical complex in Al Ruwais, United
Arab Emirates. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The United Arab Emirates
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third biggest plans for oil and gas expansion in the world, analysis
revealed
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year. Its plans are surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Blue Carbon has signed a
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with First Abu Dhabi Bank, the UAE’s largest, to finance the forest
carbon project investments in September. The UN Development Programme
confirmed it is in contact with the firm about how to develop the
schemes.

Blue Carbon said it was committed to stringent rules about suitable
methodologies for the carbon projects and would follow whatever
governments agreed at Cop28. It said its team had previous experience
developing carbon projects.

_ Additional reporting by Angela Giuffrida and Pjotr Sauer_

_Find more age of extinction coverage here
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and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston
[[link removed]] and Patrick Greenfield
[[link removed]] on X, formerly known as
Twitter, for all the latest news and features._

_PATRICK GREENFIELD is a biodiversity and environment reporter for the
Guardian and the Observer. Twitter @pgreenfielduk
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* Climate Change
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* carbon offsetting
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* Deforestation
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* conservation
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* Africa
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* UAE
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