“Tarnished and depreciated carbon markets” are failing to provide fair value given Africa’s enormous natural resources and must be reformed, says the Africa Finance Corporation in a report released on the sidelines of COP28.
African countries must stop selling land rights cheaply if they are to extract more value from the “tarnished and depreciated” global carbon credits market, according to a new report from the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).
Africa is home to some of the planet’s most important natural carbon repositories – including forests, grasslands, peatlands and mangroves – giving the continent a potential enormous source of value on the global carbon credits market. Yet under the current system too many countries are selling their valuable assets for meagre returns, the AFC says.
“Instead of maximising economic value from our natural assets, countries are engaging in the wholesale long leases and sale of land – our valued birthright – to foreign intermediaries that hope to profit from a more appropriately priced carbon market of the future. This is akin to the resource curse of past decades. We must guard against complicit arrangements that undervalue our natural assets while enabling the industrialised world to keep on polluting, with Africa suffering the biggest costs from global warming,” writes Samaila Zubairu, president and CEO of Africa Finance Corporation, in the foreword to How Africa Can Unlock World’s Most Promising Net Zero Solution.
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