“The environmental groups are furious,” writes the British newspaper The Guardian. For what? Because, at the beginning of July, the European Union made a contested decision: authorizing the member states “to account for foreign carbon credits in their climatic objectives, such as planting of trees and the preservation of forests, which researchers often qualify as ineffective”. These carbon credits frequently correspond to trees planting in developing countries. Their use does not consensus, underlines the Brazilian media repórter Brasil: “Critics relate in particular to the greenwashingAnd on the fact that these credits divert from the main objective: to reduce emissions rather than compensate them.
Already, what is a carbon credit? The Brazilian media sums up: “Carbon credits are certificates which represent the reduction or elimination of the equivalent of a ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) or other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These credits can be generated by projects that avoid emissions, such as reforestation and clean energies, or by carbon capture and storage technologies. ”
Extoming and armed violence
In the field, certain environmental projects allocating carbon credits are vectors of tensions and violence. In April 2025, the Colombian media Vorágine published a titled investigation “Extortion and armed violence: the impact of carbon compensations in the Amazon”. The Amazon forest provides many of these titles, given a hectare saved there correspond to 100 to 200 tonnes of CO2 captured.
“This situation raises fundamental questions about the efficiency of the carbon credits market” Rhett Ayers Butler
The Aboriginal populations of Amazon are the forefront of the conservation of the forest. They therefore undergo the consequences of this world market for carbon credits. “For having protected nature as they have always done, but now be engaged in carbon compensation projects, they are victims of extortion and threats from various illegal armed groups and criminal organizations,” writes the independent Colombian site.
In July, Mongabay Latam and the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (Clip) revealed how, in the Colombian Amazon, “Chevron, one of the largest oil companies in the world, bought millions of carbon credits linked to a carbon compensation system that claims to protect indigenous land, while the community which is supposed to benefit from this system informed. “
Three million carbon credits were sold, but the communities have not benefited from any economic benefits. A community leader sums up the situation as follows: “Zero on all fronts, zero information, zero participation, zero benefit.” “This situation raises fundamental questions about the efficiency of the carbon credits market and the real impact of these projects on the communities they claim to help,” writes the founder of Mongabay, Rhett Ayers Butler.
Violations of the consent of populations
The benefits of these projects, the inhabitants of northern Kenya – “where the effects of climate change are lively and disastrous,” writes Africa Uncensored – also struggle to see them. The Kenyan investigation media describes the “difficult coexistence of climate projects and community rights”, in a region in the north of the country. There, carbon compensation projects, carried out by the same NGO, have harmful consequences on local populations.
Breeders are experiencing difficulties in finding land for their animals, the population can no longer access important places for the community, such as funeral sites, and conflicts are bursting with armed persons in charge of protection of areas. The situation is tense. Residents deplore that their demands and their needs have not been listened to.
This is not an isolated case. There are more than 400 carbon credit projects in Kenya. However, “the direct violations of prior, free and enlightened consent of the indigenous populations in the context of carbon -related projects are increasingly documented,” notes the media. The impact of these carbon credits on local populations will have to be discussed at the next international climate conference, the COP30 of Belém (Brazil) in November, pleads Africa Uncensored.
Article published on Basta.Media in July 2025:
