With a handshake and a discreet smile, Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook al-Maktoum, accompanied by the Liberian finance minister, gave nothing away in front of photographers on March 25. The young member of the ruling family of Dubai, one of the seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had just signed an unprecedented memorandum of understanding with Liberia. Under the terms of the agreement, the Liberian government will grant the company he heads, Blue Carbon LLC, exclusive rights to one million hectares of its forests – 10% of the West African country's total forest area – for 30 years.
"This bilateral association marks another milestone for Blue Carbon," the prince told the Emirati press. The aim is ambitious: to "help transition to a low-carbon economical system" by enabling governments around the world reach "their Net Zero goals in compliance with the transferability of credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement." The "credits" referred to by the sheikh are carbon credits, which companies can buy to avoid having to reduce their emissions.
Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement, reached in December 2015 at COP21, authorized signatory countries to work together to achieve their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Put simply, a country reducing its emissions beyond its forecasts can sell its surpluses in the form of credits to a more polluting country, which can use them to offset its own emissions.
"This notion of offsetting is the subject of much debate," explained Jutta Kill, a biologist by training and a specialist in carbon markets. "Allowing industrialized countries to use carbon credits under the Paris Agreement allows them to escape their responsibilities, simply because they can afford to pay."
On its website, Blue Carbon simply states that it wants to "help" governments take advantage of this mechanism. Created in August 2022, the company has signed memorandums of understanding for forest management projects with four African countries in record time. These arrangements cover 10% of the total surface area of Liberia, as well as Tanzania, Zambia and 20% of Zimbabwe, for a total of 25 million hectares – almost half that of France.
For the time being, these agreements are preliminary. The rules governing the trading of carbon credits are due to be set at COP28, held in the UAE from November 30. "Countries are still waiting for clear, concrete rules for using this tool, for example regarding project registration and monitoring," said Erika Lennon, a researcher at the US-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
Contacted by Le Monde, Blue Carbon confirmed that it is particularly looking forward to "Article 6.4 operationalization," which provides for the creation of a global carbon market, controlled by a supervisory body placed under the aegis of the United Nations.
Officially, Blue Carbon is a private company, independent of the Emirati state, and it insists that the carbon credits generated by its projects are intended to be sold to various countries, "not only the UAE."
But the family ties of its founder and a confidential, provisional and unsigned version of the memorandum of understanding between Blue Carbon and the Liberian government suggest an alignment between the company's interests and those of the UAE. In an appendix to this document, which Le Monde was able to consult, a timetable envisages the signing of a "framework agreement" for the transfer of carbon credits between the Emirati and Liberian governments at COP28.
When questioned on the subject, Blue Carbon refused to comment on "a mere draft". If confirmed, this framework agreement would be the latest in a series of initiatives attesting to the UAE's growing interest in these transactions. In June, several major companies with ties to the Emirates joined forces to form the UAE Carbon Alliance to develop a national carbon market. In September, the organization announced its intention to purchase over €410 million worth of African carbon credits by 2030.
This interest comes as no surprise. The world's 7th-largest oil producer has no intention of abandoning fossil fuel extraction, even though this has been identified as the main cause of global warming, but it will not remain on the sidelines of climate negotiations either.
"Rhe UAE used to be a rule breaker in its staunch defense of fossil fuels. More recently, and as host of COP28, the UAE is adopting a rule shaping function whereby it tries to massage or influence conversations around fossil fuels to maximize space for the latter’s continued existence," said Li-Chen Sim, a non-resident researcher at the American think-tank Middle East Institute.
COP28 is chaired by Sultan al-Jaber, the Emirati industry minister and CEO of the national oil company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). In November 2022, Adnoc announced plans to increase its production capacity to 5 million barrels per day by 2027.
To sidestep calls to phase out fossil fuels, "the UAE is trying to further the general concept and acceptability of offsets," said Souparna Lahiri, climate advisor to the Global Forest Coalition. "Having a few allies [with several countries willing to work with Blue Carbon] is a good strategy for them."
But there are also fears of a vast public relations campaign to clean up their image as polluters: "These credits will be used by UAE and other rich polluting countries to increase their fossil fuel production," said Alexandra Benjamin, an expert in forest governance with the Dutch NGO Fern. "It will further increase the climate crisis."
Concerns are further reinforced by the fact that the very effectiveness of these carbon credits is being called into question. In January, a joint survey by SourceMaterial, The Guardian and Die Zeit revealed that 94% of credits from forest management projects were of no benefit to the climate.
These projects are in fact based on a complex calculation: Developers must quantify the volume of CO₂ that would be emitted in the absence of their project and then that which their project can avoid. The difference between the two corresponds to the number of carbon credits that can be sold.
"Several methodologies have been developed by project developers themselves," explained specialist Kill. "The problem is that these are not measurements, but estimates. Developers have every interest in overestimating their calculations."
In its response to Le Monde, Blue Carbon urged NGOs "not to assume that entities like ours are seeking to implement old, outdated and much-criticized frameworks." But it did not specify what methodology it intended to use.
According to Axel Michaelowa, a researcher in international climate policy at the University of Zurich, the company could generate up to 250 million carbon credits a year. Enough to offset, in theory, the entire CO₂ emissions of the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile, in Liberia, more than a million people could see their livelihoods affected by Blue Carbon's project, according to the NGO Fern. The transfer of land to the company would constitute a violation of the land rights of the communities that depend on it, warned the Independent Coordination of Forest Monitoring, which is made up of Liberian civil society organizations, in July.
Christine Umutoni, the UN resident coordinator in the country, echoed this view to the Liberian government in August. "Proceeding without thorough public consultation all but guarantees legal conflict, continued negative perception of the project, and devaluation of the very credits you are hoping to bring to market," she wrote in the letter, which Le Monde has been able to consult.
According to the memorandum of understanding, Blue Carbon would also receive 70% of revenues from the sale of carbon credits, while the Liberian government would receive only 30%. "Who owns the forest?" asked Andrew Zeleman, secretary of the National Union of Liberia's Community Forestry Development Committee, "There shouldn’t be a middleman taking the lion's share."
Against this backdrop, NGOs such as Fern, which specializes in forest protection, described the practices as "carbon colonialism." "These deals also undermine these countries' chance to use these forests to meet their own climate commitments," said Benjamin. "These deals are large-scale land grabs (...) a false solution to the climate crisis."
This investigation was carried out in partnership with the British investigative collective SourceMaterial and The Telegraph.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.