Liberia ready to grant 10% of the country's land area to an Emirati company to produce carbon credits

Liberia is set to grant exclusive rights to 1 million hectares of forest, or about 10% of the country’s land area, to a private Emirati company to market carbon credits obtained from conservation or reforestation. A memorandum of understanding between the Liberian Ministry of Finance and the company Blue Carbon LLC was concluded in March and the final contract, covering a period of thirty years, is in the process of being signed.

Blue Carbon LLC, which is also in talks with Zambia and Tanzania, was set up less than a year ago by Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of the ruling Dubai family in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). ). The oil-rich emirates will be the controversial host of the annual United Nations climate conference (COP28) at the end of November.

According to a confidential and still provisional version of the contract that Le Monde was able to consult, the parties plan to make public, on the occasion of this planetary meeting, an agreement between the government of Liberia and that of the UAE relating to the transfer of “rights to pollute”, as provided for in the Paris climate agreement, to enable states to meet the targets they have committed to achieve in order to contain the average rise in global temperatures below 2°C , or even 1.5°C.

deep concerns

An announcement certainly intended to convince of the UAE’s desire to invest more in the energy transition, while the commitments made so far are considered largely insufficient, even “unachievable”, given the plans to increase production of fossil fuels, according to a study published Thursday, July 20 by Climate Action Tracker.

In Liberia, this contract negotiated in the greatest secrecy, however, raises deep concerns. Several civil society organizations have thus expressed alarm at the possible violation of the rights of the populations living in the nine territories targeted by the project. Of the coveted million hectares, less than 400,000 hectares are classified as protected areas. The rest is made up of land under different ownership regimes, but all, according to the contract, would be destined for sanctuary.

“Getting carbon rights to market it would have direct consequences for people by denying them control over the use of their land. The government must be aware that it would be in violation of land rights laws if it considered that it could sell carbon from forests that did not belong to it,” warns the Independent Monitoring Coordination in a press release. forests.

The opposition Liberian People’s Party also called for negotiations with Blue Carbon to be suspended until affected populations are “identified, informed of potential economic and social impacts and their consent [is] obtained”.

“Not the right choice for the country”

About a third of Liberia’s population lives in forest areas. After several years of difficult negotiations, a law on land rights – considered very progressive in the region – was adopted in 2018. It facilitates the recognition of the property rights of village communities and is supposed to protect them from future land grabs, while nearly 40% of the country’s surface area is occupied by large mining or agricultural concessions. If the contract between Blue Carbon and the authorities mentions the necessary “free, prior and informed consent” of the communities, in accordance with the recommendations of international institutions, it only gives itself “three months” to obtain it, which is not enough to carry out complex consultation processes. Contacted by Le Monde, the company Blue Carbon did not respond to our requests.

At this stage of the discussions, the financial benefits for the country and the populations concerned do not seem to their advantage. The government would receive, in the form of royalties, 10% of the value of the carbon credit that the Emirati company would have the exclusive right to sell on the voluntary carbon markets or on the compliance markets between States, as in the case of the contemplated transaction with the UAE. It should donate half of the sum to the communities. To this would be added 30% of the profits made after subtracting the costs of implementing forest preservation projects or plantation programs, with the remaining 70% going to Blue Carbon LLC.

“In West Africa, Liberia is one of the last countries to still have large tracts of forest. It is also one of the poorest on the planet. It is therefore important that it receives compensation for the protection of its ecosystems, but we fear that the agreement with Blue Carbon is not the right choice for the country”, comments Saskia Ozinga, founder of the Dutch NGO Fern, specializing in forest policy analysis.

“Risk of greenwashing”

Blue Carbon’s total lack of experience in managing forestry projects eligible for carbon markets also raises questions about its ability to meet its commitments. “There is a clear risk of greenwashing. Blue Carbon is a company under the patronage of Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of the royal family, whose activities are mainly concentrated in the production of fossil fuels”, warns Saskia Ozinga.

In Monrovia, the capital, in an atmosphere under pressure for civil society activists who contest the opacity of this agreement, a precedent resonates in the memories. “In 2010, a few months before the presidential elections, the power, in search of money, illegally sold 2.5 million hectares of forests; we are in the same situation today”, suspects one of them, who asks to respect his anonymity. The next ballot, in which President George Weah is a candidate again, will take place in October 2023.

The rate of deforestation in Liberia continues to be one of the highest on the continent. Commitments made to preserve primary forests from the rapid advance of palm oil plantations or illegal logging have not been kept. Norway, which offered a support package of $150 million in 2014, has, ten years later, barely disbursed a quarter of the sum.

It is a financial windfall of a completely different magnitude that Liberia hopes to collect by selling the carbon of its forests to big polluting countries which, like the UAE – whose CO2 emissions per capita are a hundred times that of Liberia – , have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The finalization of the rules on the carbon markets within the framework of the Paris agreement opens, in a way, an avenue for forest countries like Liberia. The scandalous experiences of the sale of carbon credits on voluntary markets to offset the emissions of large companies have nevertheless served as a lesson. In too many cases, they have served neither the forests nor the climate.