Carbon Off-setting - The Downside

 

Governments around the world are “hiding behind unreliable, unproven and unrealistic carbon removal schemes” and failing to meaningfully cut the use of fossil fuels, a new assessment has warned.

The sudden rush to adopt so-called “net zero” targets has not been met with sufficient action to bring down fossil fuel usage, and instead is dependent on offsetting carbon, either through planting trees or through as yet unproven carbon capture and storage technology, the report from Oxfam warns. As set out by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the world collectively needs to be on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 from 2010 levels. However, countries’ current plans to cut emissions are nowhere near, adding up to around just a 1 per cent reduction in global emissions by 2030 according to Oxfam. In the run-up to the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, more than 120 countries, including the world’s top three emitters – the US, China and the EU – have pledged to reach “net zero” emissions by mid-century, but Oxfam said “most of these pledges are vague and not backed by measurable plans”.

Governments and businesses hoping to plant trees and restore forests in order to reach net-zero emissions must sharply limit such efforts to avoid driving up food prices in the developing world, Oxfam has warned.

Reforestation has been promoted as one of the key ways of tackling the climate crisis, but the amount of land needed for such forests would be vast, and planting even a fraction of the area needed to offset global greenhouse gas emissions would encroach on the land needed for crops to feed a growing population, according to a report entitled Tightening the net: Net zero climate targets implications for land and food equity.

At least 1.6bn hectares – an area five times the size of India, equivalent to all the land now farmed on the planet – would be required to reach net zero for the planet by 2050 via tree-planting alone. While no one is suggesting planting trees to that extent, the report’s authors said it gave an idea of the scale of planting required, and how limited offsetting should be if food price rises are to be avoided. Food prices could rise by 80% by 2050, according to some estimates, if offsetting emissions through forestry is over-used. About 350m hectares of land – an area roughly the size of India – could be used for offsetting without disrupting agriculture around the world, but taken together the plans for offsetting from countries and companies around the world could soon exceed this.

An example is of Switzerland, which is planning to offset about 12.5% of its emissions through carbon credits from projects in other countries, including Peru and Ghana. To reach that target would take an area the size of Costa Rica, Oxfam estimated.

Some companies are also planning to use carbon offsetting based on trees and land as part of their efforts to reach net-zero emissions. Oxfam found that many of these plans, taken together, could amount to an over-use of land.

For instance, four leading energy companies would require an area twice the size of the UK for their offsetting. Shell would need about 28.6m hectares by 2050, according to Oxfam’s estimates, while TotalEnergies plans to offset about 7% of its emissions, needing about 2.6m hectares by 2050. Eni, another energy company, has plans for 8m hectares of forestry, but Oxfam calculates that double this could be needed. BP has not set out its plans in detail, but is likely to require as much as 22.5m hectares for offsetting as much as 15% of its emissions, Oxfam estimated.

Nafkote Dabi, climate policy lead at Oxfam and co-author of the report, explained: “It is difficult to tell how much land would be required, as governments have not been transparent about how they plan to meet their net-zero commitments. But many countries and companies are talking about afforestation and reforestation, and the first question is: where is this land going to come from?”

Dabi continued, “Already, hundreds of millions of people around the world are going hungry. We need to consult countries on how they are going to use their land, and countries and companies need to reduce their emissions first [before relying on offsetting]. We also need to reduce emissions from agriculture, which is the second-biggest source of emissions globally.”

Dabi explained: “We are not against afforestation and reforestation, and we do not want to stop people doing these things. But they should not be used at a large scale and should be combined with other methods such as agroforestry.”

The report also found that two of the most commonly used offsetting measures, reforestation and the planting of new forests, were among the worst at putting food security at risk. Far better, according to the analysis, were nature-based solutions that focused on forest management, agroforestry – the practice of combining crop cultivation or pasture with growing trees – as well as pasture management and soil management in croplands. These would allow people to use the land for food while sequestering carbon.

Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB, called for companies and governments to cut their emissions drastically rather than relying on offsets. He said: “Too many companies and governments are hiding behind the smokescreen of ‘net zero’ to continue dirty business-as-usual activities. A prime example of the doublethink we are seeing is the oil and gas sector trying to justify its ongoing extraction of fossil fuels by promising unrealistic carbon removal schemes that require ludicrous amounts of land.” 

He pointed out, “Land is a finite and precious resource that millions of small-scale farmers and Indigenous people depend upon to feed their families.

Reforestation hopes threaten global food security, Oxfam warns | Carbon offsetting | The Guardian