The One Planet Summit organized by France and Gabon, on March 1 and 2 in Libreville, recalled the need to protect large tropical forest basins to limit the effects of climate change. Debates have focused on countries with “high forest cover and low deforestation”, such as Gabon, which so far have received little attention in international negotiations.
Alain Karsenty, economist at the Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) and specialist in the Congo Basin, deciphers some of the proposals put forward.
Alain Karsenty It is a surprising speech indeed which does not correspond to the choices which were made within the framework of the international negotiations. The consensus that was expressed, in particular at the Glasgow COP in 2021 and strongly defended by the European Union (EU), is that only the absolute reduction in emissions linked to deforestation should give rise to payments.
The rhetoric of “payment for nature’s services” is totally inappropriate because it takes away from the essential question of how to advance the fight against deforestation: what policies should be implemented to change deeply agricultural practices, clarify land rights, allow populations access to alternative energies to charcoal, accelerate the demographic transition in Africa through the economic and social autonomy of young women, develop territories, progress towards Rule of law…
And this rhetoric also evades the necessary changes to be made in industrial countries in terms of consumption patterns (meat, biofuels, etc.) to reduce demand for products that contribute to deforestation. The two logics are very different: in one, annuities are paid. In the other, we encourage change or maintain virtuous practices.
This is not to say that Gabon or the “high forest cover and low deforestation” countries to which it belongs should not receive funding, but by highlighting it, we reverse the priorities. The urgency is to mobilize money for countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or Cameroon, where deforestation is massive. Costly investments are needed to address the drivers of deforestation.
There remains, in the minds of the governments of the Congo Basin, the idea that the forests would give the right to the payment of a rent in proportion to their area. But we see in countries like the DRC that the State and its administrations are not sufficiently in working order to absorb the funds that could be made available to them. They actually have very little control over what is happening in the country, not to mention the eastern provinces plagued by armed groups.
Opposite, there are also the constraints specific to donors who follow procedures that are all the more finicky as the country is considered to be at risk of corruption. In the end, this creates an extremely rigid system which, indeed, generates frustrations. It takes political will and effective administrations to reverse deforestation: this is the example given by Inacio Lula da Silva’s Brazil in the 2000s and to some extent also by Indonesia.
No announcement has been made in this regard. In addition to the questions raised by the carbon credits proposed by Gabon, the use of offset mechanisms by large companies to erase their polluting emissions is the subject of significant criticism and many are moving away from it. The survey published at the end of January by the British daily The Guardian based on several scientific works showed the flaws of a voluntary carbon market where many projects only sell wind.
Since then the market has paused and prices are falling. An attempt to restore credibility to this market is to ensure that these carbon credits also offer benefits for the protection of biodiversity. Hence these “credits with high environmental integrity” which would now be privileged as announced in Libreville. But that does not change the substance of the matter, which is to demonstrate that forestry projects contribute in a real and measurable way to reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
