Africa’s Carbon Market Industry and its Human Rights Implications - Policy Brief
Today, Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change, addresses the human rights implications of carbon markets in her latest thematic report to the UN General Assembly. Her report echoes concerns raised in our amicus brief to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is preparing its first advisory opinion on climate change.
To build on these arguments, we have published a new policy brief with Climate Counsel, SOMO and the Sudan Human Rights Hub, setting out how State obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights should be interpreted in relation to carbon markets.
The brief identifies three key concerns:
carbon offsets perpetuate climate change by enabling continued emissions;
carbon projects have been linked to serious human rights violations, including land grabs and forced evictions;
and carbon markets reproduce patterns of foreign economic exploitation prohibited by Article 21 of the Charter.
We recommend ending reliance on offsets as a climate mitigation strategy and protecting affected communities. Projects that plant or conserve forests also extract value from Africa’s carbon sinks and should be held to the legal principles already developed for extractive industries: equitable benefit-sharing, meaningful participation and respect for peoples’ sovereignty over their natural resources.