Big Oil Producer Lines Up African Carbon Deals Ahead of Climate Talks
livemint.comOne of the world’s biggest exporters of fossil fuels, the United Arab Emirates, is attempting to position itself as a leader in establishing global carbon markets as it prepares to host annual United Nations climate talks this month. Those efforts are coming under scrutiny as a company owned by one of the U.A.E.’s royal families prepares to secure rights to produce carbon credits from a giant expanse of African forest.
The climate negotiations this month seek to reach agreement on rules to create a global market for trading carbon credits, where credits can be purchased to compensate for emissions that contribute to global warming. The idea is to create an incentive to reduce emissions.
But many environmentalists have become critical of some carbon-credit projects, alleging that they are overstating emissions reductions and that the purchase of credits is simply giving countries and companies cover to continue polluting—a practice some have labeled “greenwashing." Blue Carbon, a private company owned by Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of the ruling family of Dubai, signed preliminary agreements this year with five African nations—Liberia, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Kenya. The deals would grant it the sole right to develop and sell carbon credits from more than 60 million acres of forest, equivalent to the entire land mass of the U.K.
If completed, the deals would be among the largest of their kind aimed at global carbon markets. Climate campaigners are warning that these types of agreements could influence how negotiations play out at this year’s U.N.
climate talks and, ultimately, make the rules for global carbon markets less effective at reducing emissions. At stake is agreeing on regulations that are
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