Climate change
5 Facts about Emissions Trading, Land Rights and Land Grabbing
Here are 5 essential facts you need to know to understand the hidden connections between carbon markets, land rights, and the global race to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
From the Amazon to the Congo Basin, governments and corporations are investing in land-based carbon projects to offset their emissions. But while carbon credits may seem like a win for the climate, what often goes unnoticed is their massive appetite for land that millions depend on for food, homes, culture, and survival.
New report
Want to learn more about carbon markets, net zero and land rights?
Explore the report online`Net Zero & Land Rights´, a new publication by the Robert Bosch Stiftung and TMG Research warns that land-based carbon removal strategies could trigger a new global land rush, exacerbate existing land-use conflicts, threaten food security, displace local communities, undermine Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and amplify inequality. In light of this, the report’s authors call for a more equitable approach to land rights within climate policy.
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Emissions trading requires too much land
Carbon credits allow countries or companies to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in carbon sequestration projects elsewhere, such as forest preservation or tree planting. These offsets, known as carbon credits, can be traded – and their volume is surging. Today, the annual value of carbon markets, both regulatory and voluntary, exceeds USD 1 trillion.
But these solutions require land. A lot of land. Voluntary carbon markets already use more than 24 million hectares – roughly the size of the United Kingdom. By 2060, land-based climate pledges could demand up to 1 billion hectares, nearly the size of China or the United States.
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The “Green Rush” is fueling land grabs in the Global South
High-income countries are outsourcing land use to achieve their net-zero goals. The European Union, for example, aims to remove 310 million tonnes of CO₂ annually through land-based strategies. But it’s already falling short by at least 50 million tonnes – a gap it's trying to close with carbon projects in the Global South.
This strategy is shifting the land-use burden to regions that have contributed least to the climate crisis, deepening global inequalities. In Uganda for example, a 12,000-hectare forest reserve project by a Norwegian company has led to forced evictions and violence. In Cambodia and Niger, where secured land rights is scarce, tree-planting projects are proceeding without the consent of those living there.
Climate action that overlooks Indigenous rights and gender equity not only deepens social injustice, it undermines long-term sustainability.
Even in rich countries, like New Zealand, corporations have bought land for large-scale monoculture plantations, displacing local land uses under the banner of “green investment”.
Carbon projects are often ignoring customary tenure systems which are community-based arrangements that define land ownership where formal titles of property don’t exist. These systems are rarely documented or formally recognized in national legal frameworks, leaving millions vulnerable to dispossession.
The idea of "empty land"
Across Africa, less than 10% of land is formally documented. This legal invisibility of customary forms of land tenure is fueling a dangerous myth that in many carbon offset projects: the idea of “empty land”. Labeling land as unused or innocupied paves the way for land-based carbon projects that can repeat the same exclusionary practices of the past.
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Indigenous Peoples and women are being left out
Indigenous Peoples make up just 5% of the global population but protect more than 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. They manage over half of the world’s intact forests yet legally control only a fraction. Despite their critical role in ecosystem stewardship, their land rights are frequently overlooked.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, logging concessions cover up to 5% of the country’s total land area, and many of these sites are now being converted into carbon offset projects. These transitions frequently fail to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have stewarded the land for generations. In most cases, communities receive minimal benefits and have little say in the design or implementation of the projects – and in the worst cases, they are forced off their land entirely.
Women, in particular, are being left out. They grow much of the food in low-income countries, collect water, and lead adaptation strategies – yet they often lack secure land tenure. This means women are excluded from planning, compensation, and the benefits of carbon projects, further widening gender inequality.
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Carbon projects threaten food security and biodiversity
Carbon projects can damage local food systems and ecosystems if they are poorly designed. One major problem is the rise of monoculture plantations, which can displace food crops, reduce biodiversity, and strain water supplies.
In New Zealand, furniture giant IKEA has planted over 20,000 hectares of pine to meet its net-zero targets, raising alarms about farmland loss. In the Republic of the Congo, the French fossil fuel company TotalEnergies is financing a new 40,000-hectare acacia plantation that according to the company’s own data would sequester an average of 500,000 tonnes of CO2 annually, that is less than 2% of the companies’ opperations annual emissions. The plantation has sparked strong community resistance due to lack of consultation and disruptions of the traditional uses of the land.
Carbon projects must not sacrifice biodiversity, food or water security in pursuit of emissions-reduction targets.
The two biggest oil exporters, Saudi Arabia and Russia, together account for over half of all land needed to meet national climate pledges globally, mainly via land restoration often in areas with poor land governance or high biodiversity value. In Kenya, offset projects have restricted the movement of pastoralists like the Borana and Samburu people, reducing their resilience to drought.
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Not all is wrong: Community-led, rights-based projects are the way forward
Carbon offsetting projects often prioritise financial gains over people’s economic and social needs but this does not have to be the norm. There are ways of designing and developing land-rights compatible carbon projects. In Tanzania’s swampy Yaeda Valley, the Hadza people receive 60% of the revenue of a carbon offsetting project and the revenues are used to employ local youth as scouts protecting the land from illegal logging and encroaching agriculture. By placing local communities at the center, the project is a powerful model of how carbon credits can achieve genuine social and environmental gains.
The success of people-centered carbon projects is rooted in key principles such as the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), secure land tenure, and equitable benefit-sharing.
Climate action can work – when it respects the rights of the people who live on and protect the land.
To avoid repeating mistakes from the past and perpetuating exploitative market practices, carbon offsetting projects must be built on transparency, equity, and human rights with special attention to land rights. Global frameworks like the Paris Agreement’s Article 6 and its carbon market mechanism need to embed strong safeguards, or risk turning climate solutions into new forms of exploitation.