How Africa can unlock world’s most promising net-zero solution

In the face of successive global temperature records and the lack of impetus for cohesive carbon emission reductions, the world urgently needs fresh solutions to the climate crisis. From its extensive forests and grasslands to its rich peatlands and mangroves, Africa’s vast carbon sinks represent a significant, and potentially the most valuable, untapped resource for carbon capture – both for the continent and the world.

With average global temperatures now at least 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, our planet is fast approaching the 1.5°C ceiling beyond which scientists foresee environmental catastrophe. Yet, eight years after the Paris Agreement, governments continue to fail to meet their commitments to climate action. Global greenhouse gas emissions have shot up, with the world on course for a 9% increase by 2030 from 2010 levels. In place of resolve to take responsibility for per capita emissions, polluting nations are instead pivoting towards carbon offsets as a way of ‘cancelling out’ industrialised world emissions.

But while viewed by some as a climate panacea, the fact is that the market for carbon offsets has become existentially compromised. Fundamental trust has been corroded by repeated scandals: conservation projects mired by evidence of exploitation, made worse by corruption; exposés of carbon offsets that do not represent any actual emission reductions; deforestation simply being moved along to regions not covered by offsets; displaced communities that see none of the proceeds from offset contracts.

The damage to market confidence from these recurring exposés is evidenced by a dramatic decline in issuance and prices of carbon credits. Climate projects in poorer countries have been the biggest casualty: representing nearly threequarters of overall issuance in 2021, the developing world’s share has dropped to 53% in 2023.2

Although African carbon credits are among the most impacted by this negative cycle, the continent is also in a unique position to reform the carbon markets in a way that will drive trust, value, and localised benefits.

Africa’s extensive forests, grasslands, peatlands, and mangroves are some of the world’s most powerful carbon sinks, helping to mitigate global climate change and increase ecological diversity. The continent’s forests alone absorb a net 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, more than any forest ecosystem on Earth. This absorption capacity is equivalent to offsetting 76% of emissions from all of Africa, 21% of Europe’s, 18.5% from the US, or 4% from the whole world.

However, Africa faces a critical challenge: rapid deforestation, primarily driven by the local population’s reliance on woodfuel for cooking. This issue positions Africa, alongside South America, as an outlier. While other regions are actively increasing their forest cover – with an area the size of Peru added in the last two decades4 – Africa continues to lose its valuable forests. This trend is likely to accelerate due to population growth, the scarcity of clean cooking alternatives to woodfuel, and increasing developmental pressures. There are no incentives for forest communities to preserve trees. Without intervention, these vital ecosystems risk becoming less healthy, less resilient, and ultimately less effective in combating rising global temperatures.

Solutions to halt deforestation and expand Africa’s carbon repositories are cheaper, simpler, and more certain to yield positive climate impact than experimental carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. And while there is no inherent value beyond climate control in CCS technologies, nature conservation programmes have the added benefits of creating a better planet for everyone through encouraging biodiversity and reducing the risks of migration and conflict by supporting some of the world’s poorest communities with livelihoods and economic development.

This is why we are advocating for African leadership to catalyse a shift towards high-quality nature-based carbon removal offsets that enable our continent to protect its valuable carbon sinks, while increasing the value of Africa’s offset credits to finance further conservation, reforestation and alternative livelihoods that sustain our environment.

It is also precisely what the global carbon market is asking for. While representing only 3% of the voluntary carbon market, we see green shoots of growth, with demand for high-quality carbon removalbased credits having jumped five-fold since 2021, even as overall carbon credit issuance has declined following the series of project exposés.

Despite its capacity to remove vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, Africa accounted for just 11% of offsets issued between 2016 and 2021, with an even smaller share – only 3% – linked to the region’s natural carbon sinks. Africa should rightfully play a far bigger role in the global carbon markets that reflects its significant contribution towards mitigating the effects of climate change. While the loss and damage fund agreed at COP27 is essential to address the climate injustice of the most vulnerable nations having contributed the least to global warming, the carbon markets should offer a further mechanism to compensate those countries that have kept their trees and carbon-rich biomes intact.

As things stand today, however, global climate frameworks generally preclude countries from receiving financial reward for past emission reductions. This inequity must be reversed. Carbon market rules on “additionality” prioritise future over historical CO2 reductions.

The approach creates a counterproductive incentive which effectively encourages countries to exploit their forest resources, as it allows them to later claim a high risk of deforestation, thereby increasing their potential for compensation. As a result, Africa, with its lower rates of industrialised logging and organised agriculture compared to other regions, finds itself at a disadvantage in claiming compensation for carbon sequestration.

This situation calls for strong advocacy by Africa against these unintended rewards and incentives. The global community should acknowledge and rectify the unfairness and illogical nature of these rules, which overlook the significant contributions of regions like Africa in mitigating climate change through natural carbon sinks.

Together with Latin America and Asia, it is our view that Africa is the world’s most promising region for investments in climate ventures that can affordably and reliably remove vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. In a properly functioning carbon market, offsets based on preserving and expanding Africa’s unique carbon sinks must inevitably be high quality and high value, exactly what the world needs at this critical juncture.

IFC