In a recent column I chided the government officials of several Southern and East African countries who made some poorly thought-out pronouncements on their countries’ ambitions for carbon credit revenues at the launch of the Africa Voluntary Carbon Credits Market Forum in Zimbabwe.
Last week, in a twist of poetic justice, I found myself sitting alongside more than a few of them at the Zambezi Watercourse Commission’s (Zamcom’s) rain-fed agriculture forum in Gaborone. While the conference confirmed my suspicions about their lack of understanding of the carbon markets, the more abiding impression was of the precarious existence of their largely small-scale farming rural citizens in a rapidly changing climate.
Of the Zamcom region’s 30-million inhabitants, 65%-70% of the population are engaged in small-scale rain-fed agriculture. Thanks to disproportional warming — above the global average — of the region in recent years, these farmers are contending with some of the biggest variations of both drought and flooding intensity anywhere in the world, with next to no resources made available to help them cope with climate shocks.
While flows of climate finance continue to grow year on year, almost 80% of this is aimed at the just energy transition and low carbon transport while less than 10% toward adaptation. This is in large part thanks to the structure of climate finance, where 61% is in the form of debt, 34% in equity and a measly 5% in grant finance.
Despite their roughly 95% contribution to the region’s food production, which itself contributes about 15% of the region’s GDP, less than 5% of agri-investments go towards rain-fed farmers. Unfortunately for them, rain-fed farmers simply aren’t “investable” enough, despite a swath of research showing how the region’s agricultural productivity could increase two- to three-fold through better farm inputs and production technologies, water and soil use efficiency and ecosystem restoration.
Climate migrants
Little wonder then that a 2021 report from the Norwegian Refugee Council found that climate disasters displaced more than half-a-million people in Southern Africa in 2020 alone. In case that doesn’t sound like a lot, the World Bank predicts there will be up to 85.7-million climate migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050 if we don’t make concerted efforts chop-chop.
Which brings me back to the conference. Of the delegates present, two-thirds were government officials and most of the remaining third were representatives of agricultural co-ops and outgrower schemes. Both groups were anxiously looking for solutions to help their constituents boost productivity and improve farm level climate resilience from a tiny handful of carbon finance representatives such as myself. Only two official development assistance organisations were represented, neither of which made any offers of support.
This state of affairs represents the cavernous disconnect that exists between the evident need for data-supported flows of climate adaptation finance that delivers impact and the requirement by financiers that climate investments deliver returns. This is clearly a space where carbon-offset finance can play a pivotal role, but the increasingly popular narrative that carbon offsets are tantamount to corporate greenwashing has seen the level of global offset issuances decrease by over 20% between 2021 and 2022.
Of course, there will always be some carbon projects whose actual effect falls short of what is advertised, but after 16 years working for NGOs, government and private sustainability companies I am yet to see an impact due diligence process that comes anywhere close.
As if having methodologies defined by global experts, third party audits done on all issuances, and secondary reviews conducted by issuing bodies wasn’t enough, two weeks ago yet another layer of scrutiny was added with the launch of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets Core Carbon Principles Assessment Framework.
While this quest for perfection continues to be the enemy of the good, millions of our neighbours sink deeper and deeper into poverty and desperation.
• Maguire is carbon project manager at Climate Neutral Group SA. He writes in his personal capacity.
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