From land grabbers to carbon cowboys: a new scramble for community lands takes off

Each carbon credit that large corporations like Microsoft buys is supposed to offset one tonne of the emissions these companies generate burning fossil fuels. This is one of the main ways that many companies are planning to get to “net zero” emissions, while still burning fossil fuels. Activists and scientists have been warning for years that schemes to offset carbon emissions by planting trees or other crops would lead to a surge in land grabbing, especially in the global South. These warnings are now proving true. GRAIN combed through the various registries of carbon offset projects to try and get a better sense of this new land grab and how it is unfolding. The deals add up to a massive new form of land grabbing that will only increase conflicts and pressures over land that are still simmering from the last global land grab spree that erupted in 2007-8 in the wake of global food and financial crises. They also signify that new sources of money are now flowing into the coffers of companies specialised in taking lands from communities in the South to enrich and serve corporations, mainly in the North. The article calls for social movements to expose fraudulent carbon credit schemes and those that harm communities. There are already cases where communities have faced violence and intimidation for resisting carbon offset projects and this is only to escalate.