Carbon Storage
Monoculture tree plantations are said to provide the “ecosystem service” of carbon storage, which is promoted as a solution to halt climate chaos. But carbon is only stored in the trees for a short time, until they are cut down. Therefore, relying on plantations to store carbon is a false solution to avoiding climate chaos. Carbon offset plantations allow polluting companies to continue burning fossil fuels.
Bulletin articles
28 June 2024
A new round of initiatives to plant tree plantation to provide carbon offsets is currently being proposed. Aside from the absurd notion—endorsed by the UN and various national governments—that tree plantations can offset the (climate) damage caused by burning fossil carbon, these initiatives have destroyed people's livelihoods and co-opted vast areas of community land.
Bulletin articles
28 June 2024
Forest conservation and tree planting initiatives to provide carbon offsets are two of the corporate sector's favourite ways to greenwash their image and keep doing business as usual. These initiatives have features that make them very attractive to investors, for example the easiness with which project arguments and calculations can be manipulated. Therefore, it is no surprise that scandals have come to light—which has affected the kinds of projects being developed.
Bulletin articles
28 June 2024
How many tree plantations are there, and how big are they? In what regions and countries are they located? What are the differences among the various "players" who are directly involved in implementing tree plantations for the carbon market? This article presents figures and information seeking to answer these and other questions.
Bulletin articles
27 June 2024
Behind every tree plantation developed for carbon offsets, there are external agents seeking to profit from increased control over the land. And while they all have the same colonial approach, these plantations can vary widely: they can be large-scale monocultures or schemes with smallholder farmers; they can include exotic species or native species; and some of them may even exist on paper only.
Bulletin articles
27 June 2024
Several initiatives have done their part in promoting tree plantations for carbon offsets. Regardless of whether these initiatives are led by the corporate sector, NGOs, national governments, or oil companies, polluting corporations benefit from the diversion of attention away from the need to curb fossil fuel emissions.
Other information
27 June 2024
An investigation shows that While companies like the Swedish fast food chain Max Burgers AB sells ‘carbon neutral’ burgers, a carbon offset project in Uganda is pushing families into hunger.
Other information
27 June 2024
A report documents how a tree planting carbon project in Port Loko, Sierra Leone is violating the country’s community rights laws and risks locking families into 50-year contracts. The British oil company BP has already paid USD 2.5 million to Carbon Done Right, one of the companies behind this tree plantation and carbon offset project.
Bulletin articles
27 June 2024
We recommend rereading the publication “The Carbon Market: Planting More Problems,” written by Larry Lohmann in 2000.
Bulletin articles
19 December 2023
Almost 30 years of UN climate negotiations have resulted in the establishment of policies and practices that facilitate the constant expansion of the fossil fuel-based economy (and its profits) while hiding its implacable negative impacts for the territories where it expands.
Bulletin articles
19 December 2023
In the past two years, tree plantation initiatives aimed at generating carbon credits have doubled. Whether as large monocultures or as nicely sounding projects with grassroots communities, tree plantations for carbon offsetting are neither a solution to the climate chaos nor beneficial to rural communities in the Global South.
Bulletin articles
25 October 2023
Land related struggles in India’s Northeast states might worsen with the push to expand oil palm plantations on small-farmers and Indigenous land, threatening their food sovereignty and the ancestral practice of Jhum (shifting cultivation). On top of this, a new Forest Amendment Law will facilitate this expansion, jeopardizing further the region’s forests and Indigenous Peoples.
Bulletin articles
25 October 2023
WRM’s reply to Biofílica Ambipar’s “Clarification Note” about the article "REDD and the Green Economy exacerbate oppression and deforestation in Pará, Brazil", written by WRM and published in its Bulletin of July 2023.