Carbon Markets Must Not Undermine Human Rights in the Push for Climate Action
The world is close to exceeding the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C threshold. A 2026 United Nations Environment Programme report warns that the threshold is likely to be crossed within the next few years. Its most optimistic scenario puts peak warming at 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels, while other scenarios exceed 2°C. The report nevertheless concludes that rapid emissions cuts, adaptation and carefully governed carbon dioxide removal could limit the overshoot and eventually bring temperatures back down.
Against this backdrop, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement has attracted intense debate. It allows countries to cooperate in meeting their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), including by transferring verified mitigation outcomes across borders. At its best, Article 6 can direct finance to effective climate action and help countries raise ambition. It does not, however, replace the need for countries and companies to cut emissions at source.
Critics warn that weak rules and poor oversight can expose Indigenous Peoples and local communities to land loss, exclusion and unfair contracts. Many of these communities protect the forests and ecosystems targeted by land-based carbon projects, yet they may be treated as passive suppliers of credits rather than partners with rights, knowledge and decision-making power.
Critics also describe some carbon markets as a false solution: a license for wealthy countries and large corporations to continue emitting while claiming reductions achieved elsewhere. Poor-quality credits can enable greenwashing and shift climate and social burdens to the Global South. The answer is not to treat every credit as inherently harmful, but to ensure that credits supplement deep emissions cuts and meet strict standards for environmental integrity and human rights.
Carbon Markets Explained
Carbon markets are systems in which emissions allowances or carbon credits are traded. Compliance markets are created by law and may cap emissions from regulated sectors. Voluntary markets allow companies and other buyers to purchase credits outside a mandatory emissions cap. Project-based credits may come from activities such as methane capture, forest protection, reforestation, clean cooking or carbon removal. One credit generally represents one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced, avoided or removed, subject to the rules of the relevant programme.
Credits are commonly grouped by what they claim to achieve: reducing or avoiding emissions that would otherwise occur, or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it. These categories are not the same as the distinction between voluntary and compliance markets. They also carry different risks. Avoidance credits depend heavily on a credible baseline, while removal credits require reliable measurement and durable storage.
International emissions trading and project-based crediting were established under the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 and in force from 2005. Article 6 of the Paris Agreement created a new framework for cooperation under the Paris system. Article 6.2 covers bilateral or multilateral transfers known as internationally transferred mitigation outcomes. Article 6.4 establishes a centralized, UN-supervised crediting mechanism. Article 6.8 covers non-market cooperation, including capacity-building, technology and policy coordination.
The decisive implementation breakthrough came at COP29 in Baku in 2024, when parties agreed key standards and rules for Articles 6.2 and 6.4. Countries including, Switzerland, Singapore and Japan have since pursued bilateral cooperation under Article 6.2. The Article 6.4 mechanism is moving into implementation, but methodologies, registries, project approvals and safeguards still require close scrutiny.
African countries are developing carbon-market policies and project pipelines, especially for land-based and nature-based activities. However, the market remains difficult to measure because sources often combine credit issuance, trading volume, project investment and projected revenue. Large headline figures should therefore be treated cautiously, unless the underlying dataset and method are transparent.
From 13 to 15 October 2026, governments, policymakers, investors, project developers and civil-society representatives will meet at the Carbon Markets Africa Summit in Kigali, Rwanda. The meeting is expected to focus on policy, integrity, investment and sustainable development. Human-rights safeguards should be central to that discussion, not treated as an obstacle to market growth.
Human Rights Concerns
Anyone who follows carbon markets already knows or is likely to encounter the term “carbon cowboys.” Critics use it to describe opportunistic actors who seek land or project rights in emerging markets without adequate consultation, transparency or benefit-sharing. Where governance is weak, such practices can lead to land grabs, unfair contracts and credits of doubtful environmental value.
Indigenous Peoples and many local communities have protected forests, rivers, wildlife and other ecosystems for generations. Their knowledge, cultural practices and relationship with the land are essential to biodiversity and sustainable resource management. Climate projects that depend on those territories must respect existing land and resource rights.
Free, prior and informed consent, commonly known as FPIC, is especially important for Indigenous Peoples. It means that consent must be voluntary, sought before a project begins and based on clear, accessible information about risks, benefits and likely impacts. Other affected local communities must also have meaningful opportunities to participate, challenge decisions and seek remedies, according to applicable law and human-rights standards.
Benefit-sharing complements participation, but it is not automatic. Project rules and contracts must define how revenues and other benefits will reach the people whose land, resources or practices generate the credits. Benefits may include direct payments, community funds, jobs, infrastructure or support for biodiversity and livelihoods. Communities must be able to influence both the form of those benefits and how they are governed.
Carbon and renewable-energy projects have already become entangled in land disputes. Africa's land-tenure systems reflect colonial dispossession, customary ownership and continuing struggles for legal recognition. When a project relies on state-issued leases while ignoring customary use, a formally valid contract may still produce serious injustice.
In the Republic of Congo, civil-society and investigative reports have alleged that families lost access to ancestral farmland connected to TotalEnergies' BaCaSi tree-planting and carbon-sink project. Those reports state that the government requisitioned land before consultations were completed and that some families later received payments worth a meager US$1 per hectare.
The Lake Turkana Wind Power project in Kenya illustrates a related problem. The project was registered under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, and local Rendille, Samburu, Turkana and other pastoralist communities challenged the acquisition of land used for grazing and water access. A Kenyan court found the land titles irregular, unlawful and unconstitutional. The project operator stated in 2025 that it had not sold carbon credits therefore, the land-rights dispute should not be described as the result of completed carbon-credit transactions.
These examples sit within a wider pattern of concern about inflated baselines, opaque benefit-sharing and limited transparency. Communities may be consulted only after core decisions have been made, or offered one-off compensation instead of a long-term share in project governance and revenue. Carbon-market integrity therefore depends on social and legal safeguards as much as on carbon accounting.
Policy and Governance
Carbon markets will remain an important issue as COP31 approaches. The central question is no longer whether markets will exist, but whether they will deliver genuine additional climate benefits without undermining human rights.
In September 2026, Google announced its largest carbon-removal purchase to date through a partnership with Terradot in southern Brazil. The project plans to work across more than 200,000 hectares of rice farms, combining changes in irrigation to reduce methane with enhanced rock weathering to remove carbon dioxide. Google says it will purchase the equivalent of one million tonnes of methane-abatement impact by 2030 and one million tonnes of permanent carbon removal by 2040.
In her 2026 report Rethinking Carbon Credits According to Climate and Human Rights Obligations, UN Special Rapporteur Elisa Morgera argues that the weaknesses of carbon-credit markets are not merely technical. In her view, their structure can conflict with states' climate and human-rights obligations when credits delay emissions cuts, support continued fossil-fuel exploration and use or shift environmental and social burdens to vulnerable communities.
Morgera emphasizes that credits must never substitute for direct climate action. Countries and corporations should first pursue deep emissions reductions and the de-fossilisation of energy and food systems, using credits only as a limited complement. She recommends suspending credits whose effectiveness lacks scientific support, restricting the proportion of climate obligations met through internationally transferred credits and excluding categories linked to continued fossil-fuel use or human-rights harm.
Governance and accountability are equally important. Carbon markets need transparent information, independent oversight, credible grievance mechanisms, and assessments of cumulative impacts. Corporate responsibility should extend across the carbon-credit value chain, including harm occurring abroad. Verification must also be protected from financial incentives that reward higher credit volumes. Above all, projects must respect free, prior and informed consent, provide equitable benefit-sharing and enable meaningful leadership by Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and other affected groups.
Carbon markets may mobilize finance for climate action, but finance alone is not proof of climate integrity or justice. A credible market must show that each credit represents a real and durable climate benefit, that it does not excuse avoidable emissions, and that the people who bear the project's consequences have genuine power over the decisions. Human rights are not an optional safeguard around carbon markets: They are a condition of legitimacy.
The world is close to exceeding the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C threshold. A 2026 United Nations Environment Programme report warns that the threshold is likely to be crossed within the next few years. Its most optimistic scenario puts peak warming at 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels, while other scenarios exceed 2°C. The report nevertheless concludes that rapid emissions cuts, adaptation and carefully governed carbon dioxide removal could limit the overshoot and eventually bring temperatures back down.
Against this backdrop, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement has attracted intense debate. It allows countries to cooperate in meeting their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), including by transferring verified mitigation outcomes across borders. At its best, Article 6 can direct finance to effective climate action and help countries raise ambition. It does not, however, replace the need for countries and companies to cut emissions at source.
Critics warn that weak rules and poor oversight can expose Indigenous Peoples and local communities to land loss, exclusion and unfair contracts. Many of these communities protect the forests and ecosystems targeted by land-based carbon projects, yet they may be treated as passive suppliers of credits rather than partners with rights, knowledge and decision-making power.
Critics also describe some carbon markets as a false solution: a license for wealthy countries and large corporations to continue emitting while claiming reductions achieved elsewhere. Poor-quality credits can enable greenwashing and shift climate and social burdens to the Global South. The answer is not to treat every credit as inherently harmful, but to ensure that credits supplement deep emissions cuts and meet strict standards for environmental integrity and human rights.
Carbon Markets Explained
Carbon markets are systems in which emissions allowances or carbon credits are traded. Compliance markets are created by law and may cap emissions from regulated sectors. Voluntary markets allow companies and other buyers to purchase credits outside a mandatory emissions cap. Project-based credits may come from activities such as methane capture, forest protection, reforestation, clean cooking or carbon removal. One credit generally represents one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced, avoided or removed, subject to the rules of the relevant programme.
Credits are commonly grouped by what they claim to achieve: reducing or avoiding emissions that would otherwise occur, or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it. These categories are not the same as the distinction between voluntary and compliance markets. They also carry different risks. Avoidance credits depend heavily on a credible baseline, while removal credits require reliable measurement and durable storage.
International emissions trading and project-based crediting were established under the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 and in force from 2005. Article 6 of the Paris Agreement created a new framework for cooperation under the Paris system. Article 6.2 covers bilateral or multilateral transfers known as internationally transferred mitigation outcomes. Article 6.4 establishes a centralized, UN-supervised crediting mechanism. Article 6.8 covers non-market cooperation, including capacity-building, technology and policy coordination.
The decisive implementation breakthrough came at COP29 in Baku in 2024, when parties agreed key standards and rules for Articles 6.2 and 6.4. Countries including, Switzerland, Singapore and Japan have since pursued bilateral cooperation under Article 6.2. The Article 6.4 mechanism is moving into implementation, but methodologies, registries, project approvals and safeguards still require close scrutiny.
African countries are developing carbon-market policies and project pipelines, especially for land-based and nature-based activities. However, the market remains difficult to measure because sources often combine credit issuance, trading volume, project investment and projected revenue. Large headline figures should therefore be treated cautiously, unless the underlying dataset and method are transparent.
From 13 to 15 October 2026, governments, policymakers, investors, project developers and civil-society representatives will meet at the Carbon Markets Africa Summit in Kigali, Rwanda. The meeting is expected to focus on policy, integrity, investment and sustainable development. Human-rights safeguards should be central to that discussion, not treated as an obstacle to market growth.
Human Rights Concerns
Anyone who follows carbon markets already knows or is likely to encounter the term “carbon cowboys.” Critics use it to describe opportunistic actors who seek land or project rights in emerging markets without adequate consultation, transparency or benefit-sharing. Where governance is weak, such practices can lead to land grabs, unfair contracts and credits of doubtful environmental value.
Indigenous Peoples and many local communities have protected forests, rivers, wildlife and other ecosystems for generations. Their knowledge, cultural practices and relationship with the land are essential to biodiversity and sustainable resource management. Climate projects that depend on those territories must respect existing land and resource rights.
Free, prior and informed consent, commonly known as FPIC, is especially important for Indigenous Peoples. It means that consent must be voluntary, sought before a project begins and based on clear, accessible information about risks, benefits and likely impacts. Other affected local communities must also have meaningful opportunities to participate, challenge decisions and seek remedies, according to applicable law and human-rights standards.
Benefit-sharing complements participation, but it is not automatic. Project rules and contracts must define how revenues and other benefits will reach the people whose land, resources or practices generate the credits. Benefits may include direct payments, community funds, jobs, infrastructure or support for biodiversity and livelihoods. Communities must be able to influence both the form of those benefits and how they are governed.
Carbon and renewable-energy projects have already become entangled in land disputes. Africa's land-tenure systems reflect colonial dispossession, customary ownership and continuing struggles for legal recognition. When a project relies on state-issued leases while ignoring customary use, a formally valid contract may still produce serious injustice.
In the Republic of Congo, civil-society and investigative reports have alleged that families lost access to ancestral farmland connected to TotalEnergies' BaCaSi tree-planting and carbon-sink project. Those reports state that the government requisitioned land before consultations were completed and that some families later received payments worth a meager US$1 per hectare.
The Lake Turkana Wind Power project in Kenya illustrates a related problem. The project was registered under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, and local Rendille, Samburu, Turkana and other pastoralist communities challenged the acquisition of land used for grazing and water access. A Kenyan court found the land titles irregular, unlawful and unconstitutional. The project operator stated in 2025 that it had not sold carbon credits therefore, the land-rights dispute should not be described as the result of completed carbon-credit transactions.
These examples sit within a wider pattern of concern about inflated baselines, opaque benefit-sharing and limited transparency. Communities may be consulted only after core decisions have been made, or offered one-off compensation instead of a long-term share in project governance and revenue. Carbon-market integrity therefore depends on social and legal safeguards as much as on carbon accounting.
Policy and Governance
Carbon markets will remain an important issue as COP31 approaches. The central question is no longer whether markets will exist, but whether they will deliver genuine additional climate benefits without undermining human rights.
In September 2026, Google announced its largest carbon-removal purchase to date through a partnership with Terradot in southern Brazil. The project plans to work across more than 200,000 hectares of rice farms, combining changes in irrigation to reduce methane with enhanced rock weathering to remove carbon dioxide. Google says it will purchase the equivalent of one million tonnes of methane-abatement impact by 2030 and one million tonnes of permanent carbon removal by 2040.
In her 2026 report Rethinking Carbon Credits According to Climate and Human Rights Obligations, UN Special Rapporteur Elisa Morgera argues that the weaknesses of carbon-credit markets are not merely technical. In her view, their structure can conflict with states' climate and human-rights obligations when credits delay emissions cuts, support continued fossil-fuel exploration and use or shift environmental and social burdens to vulnerable communities.
Morgera emphasizes that credits must never substitute for direct climate action. Countries and corporations should first pursue deep emissions reductions and the de-fossilisation of energy and food systems, using credits only as a limited complement. She recommends suspending credits whose effectiveness lacks scientific support, restricting the proportion of climate obligations met through internationally transferred credits and excluding categories linked to continued fossil-fuel use or human-rights harm.
Governance and accountability are equally important. Carbon markets need transparent information, independent oversight, credible grievance mechanisms, and assessments of cumulative impacts. Corporate responsibility should extend across the carbon-credit value chain, including harm occurring abroad. Verification must also be protected from financial incentives that reward higher credit volumes. Above all, projects must respect free, prior and informed consent, provide equitable benefit-sharing and enable meaningful leadership by Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and other affected groups.
Carbon markets may mobilize finance for climate action, but finance alone is not proof of climate integrity or justice. A credible market must show that each credit represents a real and durable climate benefit, that it does not excuse avoidable emissions, and that the people who bear the project's consequences have genuine power over the decisions. Human rights are not an optional safeguard around carbon markets: They are a condition of legitimacy.
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