With national climate plans through to 2035 due in the coming weeks, some governments are planning to use carbon offsets purchased from other countries to meet their new emissions-cutting goals. But early efforts by Japan to develop such credits highlight potential problems for the new Paris Agreement offsetting mechanism, which experts fear could unleash a fresh wave of greenwashing.
Bilateral agreements to transfer emission reductions from one country to another are taking off after rules were finalised at COP29 last November, with countries looking for new ways to fund climate action and achieve targets set out in their updated national plans.
But long before the climate summit in Baku, Japan had already spent over a decade setting up its international carbon offsetting mechanism modelled on Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. Tokyo says the scheme will “contribute to the decarbonization of the world”, while providing a reservoir of credits that, in future, both Japan’s government and its companies can draw on to meet their climate goals.
But a Climate Home News analysis of Japan’s current projects – from forest protection to energy-efficient lighting in Southeast Asia – raises questions over the climate benefits and environmental integrity of some of the offsets.
In one of Cambodia’s most endangered ecosystems – the Prey Lang forest – Climate Home found that tree-cutting has soared since the start of Japan’s largest such project, whose offsets rely on deforestation falling. Meanwhile, across the developing world, Tokyo earns carbon credits by using public subsidies to fund emissions reductions by its corporate giants, including fast-fashion firm Uniqlo.
Booming trade
Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement allows countries to trade “mitigation outcomes”, such as carbon credits, directly through bilateral deals. Typically, a wealthy nation funds programmes in a developing country to cut pollution in exchange for units known as ITMOs. These can help governments meet their national climate targets or be used by companies to comply with carbon-offsetting schemes, such as CORSIA for airlines.
Activity under the mechanism has accelerated this year after governments ironed out some of its final details at COP29 in Baku. There are now over a hundred bilateral agreements between more than 60 countries, with many more signalling in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) their intention to draw on Article 6.2 to meet part of their emissions-reduction goals.
Yet, as the profile of bilateral offsets grows, observers are concerned that Article 6.2’s light-touch regulations and limited oversight will usher in a new wave of poor-quality offsets that will reduce emissions only on paper – as has been the case in the voluntary market before recent top-level efforts to improve integrity.
Agreed on the back of tumultuous negotiations, the framework for Article 6.2 gives countries near-total freedom. They can decide amongst themselves how emission reductions are calculated and which environmental or social safeguards to put in place.
‘Free-for-all’
“We have this nice bit of text saying that ITMOs should be real, verified and additional – but that doesn’t really mean anything as there is no system in place that guarantees that,” said Federica Dossi, an Article 6 expert at Brussels-based group Carbon Market Watch. “It’s a free-for-all”.
After approving the terms of trading between themselves, countries are required to submit to the UN climate change body only limited information, which is reviewed by a technical team in what observers have described as a “box-ticking exercise”.
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The UN’s expert panel can admonish countries if their disclosure around bilateral offsetting is incomplete, but it is forbidden from casting judgement on the quality of the cooperative activities.
Unlike in the nascent UN carbon crediting mechanism under Article 6.4 or the voluntary carbon market, there is no way to prevent countries from generating, or using, offsets that have little or no integrity.
“There are essentially no enforcement measures,” said Injy Johnstone, a research fellow in Net-Zero Aligned Offsetting at the University of Oxford. “This is one of the biggest gaps.”
Japan leads development
Few other countries have been at the forefront of the development of Article 6.2 like Japan. Long before the gavel came down approving the framework, Tokyo had already spent years working on its mechanism for bilateral offsetting: the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM).
“Countries that had already agreed partnerships would have never agreed to more stringent rules that could have invalidated their work up until then,” said Johnstone, who has closely followed the development of Article 6.2 governance and co-authored guidance on how countries can engage responsibly with the mechanism.
According to analysis by the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre, more than three-quarters of the 162 existing Article 6.2 projects fall under Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), a scheme through which the Japanese government earns carbon credits by partnering with developing nations on emissions-reduction initiatives.
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The JCM is effectively a forerunner to the bilateral offsetting mechanism introduced by Article 6.2. Tokyo set it up in 2013 – before the Paris Agreement came into being – after refusing to renew its support for the Kyoto Protocol amid growing frustration with its carbon-offsetting tool, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
“Japan thought [the CDM] was too heavily regulated,” Yuri Onodera of Friends of the Earth Japan explained to Climate Home.
Thirty-one countries have signed up to Japan’s scheme, with India being the latest – and largest – to join in August.
Additionality concerns
The JCM serves multiple purposes. When fully implemented, it will grant Japan a steady supply of credits that can either be counted by the government towards its international climate targets or used by companies to comply with carbon-pricing mechanisms.
But the JCM also directly supports Japan’s corporate giants both by providing ready-made markets for their low-carbon technologies or by subsiding their efforts to cut emissions overseas.
Fast Retailing, which runs an $80-billion clothing empire, has tapped the scheme to switch to more energy-efficient LED lights in its Uniqlo stores across Indonesia and Thailand with financial backing from the Japanese government.
Nearly a third of all JCM projects involve Japanese tech giants like Sharp or Panasonic installing solar panels in factories or shopping malls, which are often themselves run by subsidiaries of Japanese firms abroad.
Carbon market experts told Climate Home such projects would be regarded as low-integrity and possibly excluded from other carbon crediting mechanisms.
Renewable energy offsets last year failed to obtain a quality label from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a leading oversight body. That’s because existing rules do not go far enough to prove that the projects need the funding generated by selling carbon credits – a concept known as “additionality”.
Under Article 6.2, countries are free to come up with their own definition of additionality – and, Onodera said, Japan applies a “very lax and vague” one.
The Japanese government is planning to use the offsets generated by some of these projects to achieve its international emission-cutting targets under the Paris Agreement.
In its latest nationally determined contribution (NDC), published in early 2025, Japan said it aimed to accumulate ITMOs equivalent to 100 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030. If those are all counted towards the country’s NDC, it means about 15% of Japan’s planned emission reductions by 2030 will be achieved by funding measures to cut pollution overseas rather than taking action at home. The share of carbon offsets is set to rise to 20% in 2040.
Carbon Market Watch’s Dossi warned that the NDC process risks turning into “an accounting trick” if those ITMOs fail to meet high-integrity standards. “You would see countries claim that they are achieving climate targets when, in the real world, their emissions continue rising or stay at the same level,” she said.
Protecting Prey Lang?
The Japanese government, however, will not be the only beneficiary of the JCM. Japanese companies will also be able to use credits generated under the mechanism, for example, to comply with the country’s carbon pricing system.
The biggest existing JCM project is funded by Mitsui, a Japanese conglomerate with significant fossil fuel interests, in Cambodia. It aims to protect the Prey Lang, a vital biodiversity hotspot and one of the largest remaining lowland evergreen forests in Southeast Asia.
Prey Lang plays a key role in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and combating climate change. But the forest has been plagued by widespread logging to harvest luxury timber, expand rubber plantations and set up mining operations – something experts say often happens with the complicity of the Cambodian government.
In 2018, the Cambodian environment ministry and Mitsui partnered up on a REDD+ project in a portion of the forest with the support of American environmental NGO Conservation International. Their stated goal was to reduce deforestation by bolstering law enforcement and improving the living conditions of local communities.
But trees have disappeared at a rapid rate since the project began. Forest loss nearly tripled between 2017 and 2024, according to Climate Home analysis based on data from monitoring service Global Forest Watch. In that period, around 4,000 hectares of forest vanished – an area equal to 12 times the size of New York’s Central Park.
“Deforestation has dramatically reduced the forest cover in the REDD+ project and it is extremely serious,” a spokesperson for the Prey Lang Community Network, a group of mainly Indigenous communities living in and around the area, told Climate Home by email.
Pressure from Cambodian authorities
The community network has been carrying out its own patrols and monitoring illegal activity in the forest since 2004 – long before the REDD+ project started. “The only reason Prey Lang is still there is because of the Indigenous people,” said Ida Theilade, a professor at the University of Copenhagen who has researched Prey Lang extensively. “Their lifestyle is tied to the forest.”
Sony Oum, Cambodia country director at Conservation International, said the NGO works “directly with the target villages to ensure broad participation […] and to support local communities’ role in conservation”.
But, despite its extensive local knowledge, the community network said it had been excluded from participating in the REDD+ project. The developers “have instead collaborated with sub-national and national authorities, which still oppose the activities of grassroots groups”, its spokesperson told Climate Home.
Observers have accused the Cambodian government of accelerating a crackdown against environmentalists and reporters who have documented illegal activities in the Prey Lang.
Journalist Uk Mao, who had reported on logging in the wildlife sanctuary, was arrested and charged with incitement and defamation in a case condemned by civil society groups and the UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders. Mao denied all the charges and told Mongabay he is being targeted because of his work.
Cambodian authorities have faced accusations of fuelling the drivers of deforestation in Prey Lang by handing out mining concessions, turning a blind eye to illegal wood harvesting and sanctioning the construction of power transmission lines across the reserve, as reported by Mongabay.
Questions over carbon accounting
Richard Jeo, senior vice president and chief Asia-Pacific field officer at Conservation International, told Climate Home that Prey Lang is “a complex environment”, but “we are seeing progress”. He added that the REDD+ project “is helping to slow deforestation rates compared to nationally reported baselines”.
Carbon credits from so-called ‘avoided deforestation’ activities, like Prey Lang’s, are underpinned by predictions of how many trees would have been cut down without the project, as well as how much carbon dioxide would have been released into the atmosphere as a result.
That is known as the baseline against which the project’s performance is assessed. This system has come under intense scrutiny over the last few years, with critics arguing that flawed methodologies for setting baselines compromise the integrity of carbon offsets.
In Prey Lang, project developers followed a rulebook drawn up by Conservation International and Mitsui themselves and approved by Japan’s JCM. It allowed them to derive the baseline from countrywide deforestation figures produced by the Cambodian government.
They also predicted which portions of the forest would be cut down. This matters because specific types of vegetation – like evergreen or semi-evergreen forest – can store significantly more carbon than others, such as deciduous trees that shed their leaves seasonally. Depending on where forest loss happens, the carbon savings – and the number of offsets issued – can vary significantly.
The project’s baseline anticipated that, in Prey Lang, the overwhelming majority of deforestation would happen in the carbon-rich evergreen and semi-evergreen portions of the forest. That scenario seemed to be confirmed in 2020 when, as part of an internal exercise, the team behind the project looked at satellite images to detect deforestation hotspots in the area and guide its patrols. That analysis found that, in the first two years of the project, close to 90% of forest loss had occurred in the evergreen and semi-evergreen areas.
But the first monitoring report required under the JCM before issuing carbon credits painted a completely different picture. Drawing on data from the Cambodian government, it recorded soaring forest loss overall. But it also reported that the evergreen portion was left untouched and the vast majority of the clearing happened in areas made up of deciduous vegetation and bamboo trees, which have lower or no capacity to absorb carbon and store it, respectively.
Despite rising deforestation in the Prey Lang, this meant project developers could still show that CO2 emissions caused by tree-cutting were not as high as the baseline scenario had anticipated. In December 2023, the JCM’s committee, made up of representatives from the Japanese and Cambodian governments, approved the findings and authorised the release of a first batch of over 600,000 credits.
University of Copenhagen researcher Theilade told Climate Home there appears to be “a lot of creative accounting” going on. “Can you actually say any carbon credits should be generated? I am not sure when you look at the deforestation happening,” she added.
Greenwashing risk
A spokesperson for Mitsui told Climate Home the firm has “helped provide resources that have led to a reduction in deforestation rates” against the project’s official baseline scenario, as well as giving funding for the development of a system that will enable community-led conservation in the future. “Meaningful forest protection takes time, and we will provide support to Prey Lang for as long as possible,” the statement added.
Conservation International’s Jeo said “protecting Prey Lang requires long-term, reliable funding” and carbon financing represents “a needed, viable mechanism” for achieving that.
“Lasting progress comes from doing the work, learning and adapting as data and methods evolve — that’s what this project is doing,” he added.
However, the lack of clarity over the methods used to measure avoided emissions reductions in this flagship programme, as revealed by Climate Home, suggests that governments will need to pay close attention to how they justify offsets under Article 6.2.
Given the power it affords to individual countries, Oxford University’s Johnstone said its integrity rests on them acting responsibly and building on the limited safeguards available.
Otherwise, she warned, the risk is that this mechanism “could enable greenwashing on a scale that we have never seen before”.
The post As governments bet on carbon trading, Japan’s early scheme spotlights pitfalls appeared first on Climate Home News.
As governments bet on carbon trading, Japan’s early scheme spotlights pitfalls
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Huang reported to lawmakers on climate action
NPCSC REPORT: Huang Runqiu, head of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, told Chinese lawmakers that managing the country’s carbon dioxide (CO2) intensity has become “more challenging” due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather and growing trade tensions, Bloomberg reported. According to the full text of Huang’s remarks, made during a report to the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, the minister remarked that China’s progress on meeting the target is “broadly in line” with its current international climate pledge for 2030. [Its CO2 intensity target for 2025 is likely to be missed.] He added that challenges have worsened around balancing climate action with economic development, managing “overall and local interests” and “aligning short-term with medium-to-long-term goals”.
TARGETS ‘SURPASSED’: Huang also highlighted the progress China had made in other areas, having “already surpassed” targets for wind and solar power capacity additions and new forest stock volume, the state-run newspaper China Daily said. According to current affairs outlet China News, Huang also noted that China has continued its “efforts to enhance the clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels”, including “reforms” for coal-fired power plants and “steadily increasing” gas production and utilisation.
GLOBAL INFLUENCE: China is “making important contributions to the implementation of the Paris Agreement”, Huang also said, according to the full text of his remarks, having “driven substantial reductions in the costs of wind and solar power” and “advanced international cooperation on climate change”, such as in south-south collaboration. He noted that in the face of “uncertainties”, such as the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the expansion of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, China will enhance its “influence, guidance and shaping power in global climate governance”.
Movements ahead of UNGA
COP30 SIGNALS: Former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua travelled with Huang to Brussels to meet EU climate lead Teresa Ribera on 16 September, Reuters reported, in order to restart “climate negotiations” ahead of the UN general assembly and COP30. It added that current climate envoy Liu Zhenmin was not expected to be present. (A photo posted on Bluesky confirmed Xie’s presence in the city.) A few days earlier, COP30 executive director Ana Toni met Huang in Beijing, where he told her that China will support Brazil in hosting a COP that “sends a strong signal” about the importance of the Paris Agreement, climate news outlet Tanpaifang reported. Toni told reporters that Brazil expects a “huge Chinese delegation” at COP, the Global Times said. She also spoke at an event at Tsinghua University attended by Xie and followed online by Carbon Brief.
UK-CHINA: Meanwhile, the UK and China established a new industrial decarbonisation working group, according to a UK government statement, focusing on areas including carbon capture, utilisation and storage. Daniel Brooker, the head of the China office at UK Research and Innovation, told finance news outlet Yicai that climate cooperation with China is “one of our immediate priorities”.
INTERCONNECTED WORLD: Separately, vice-president Han Zheng used a conference speech to urge other countries to cooperate on developing “renewable energy generation, grid interconnectivity and smart energy systems” as a way of advancing the global energy transition, according to the Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily.
First auction under new renewable pricing system
LOWER PRICES: Shandong province held the country’s first renewable power auction, following the launch of new rules for the pricing of wind and solar power, industry news outlet BJX News reported, with the auction price of wind power set at 0.319 yuan per kilowatt-hour (yuan/kWh) and those for solar set at 0.225 yuan/kWh. The low prices set by the “bellwether” province signalled that “renewables prices [across China] in the future will be lower than under the previous system”, Reuters said, adding that it could “discourage” further investment. On LinkedIn, David Fishman, principal at the Lantau Group, said that while the wind power prices would likely be acceptable for developers, the solar prices would be “very tough”, citing one as saying they would likely “abandon” all future projects in the province.
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PLANS ‘PROMPT’: Meanwhile, the National Energy Administration (NEA) urged local governments during a video conference to “promptly” release their plans for implementing the pricing reforms, energy news outlet International Energy Net said, to “stabilise” industry expectations. Separately, the NEA revealed during the conference that, between January and July 2025, China’s installed renewable energy capacity grew by 283 gigawatts (GW) to 2,171GW, current affairs outlet China News reported. In August, BJX News said, thermal-power generation grew by 1.7% – slower than July’s growth rate – while wind power grew by just over 20%, solar grew by 16% and hydropower fell by 10%.
LOCALISED PROJECTS: The NEA also co-released a notice on “improving pricing mechanisms” for localised new-energy projects, International Energy Net reported, referring to projects that “both generate and consume electricity” such as zero-carbon industrial parks. The notice outlined benchmarks for how much of their own renewable energy such projects should sell and consume, clarifying that such projects should “bear transmission and distribution fees, system operation costs and other expenses”, it added.
China set targets for new AI energy projects
AI PILOTS: China plans to increase the use of AI in the country’s energy sector, state news agency Xinhua reported, in order to “enhance energy security, improve operational efficiency and support the country’s green and low-carbon transition”. China will “promote the deep application of at least five specialised large models”, which could be used in the power grid, power generation, coal, oil, gas or other areas, according to industry news outlet China Energy News. It also reported that China plans to identify ten or more “replicable, scalable and competitive” pilot projects. Consulting firm Trivium China wrote in a note that the plan “positions AI as an indispensable tool” on climate change.
DOUBLING STORAGE: China aims to “almost double” new-energy storage capacity by 2027 to 180GW, according to a new industry plan, Reuters reported. Lithium-ion battery storage is likely to comprise the bulk of new additions, economic news outlet Jiemian said. Meanwhile, according to a new government action plan for 2025-2026, new-energy power equipment companies are expected to achieve “steady” annual revenue increase, while traditional power equipment firms should aim to grow “approximately 6%” and “leading” companies by 10%, Xinhua said.
POLICY WATCH: China adopted the atomic energy law, its first foundational law for the nuclear sector, Jiemian reported. China’s environmental code – also the first of its kind – remains under discussion, according to China News. Elsewhere, the country updated its plan to “advance the three-north shelterbelt forest programme”, China Daily said. The National Development and Reform Commission called for “exploring” pathways for real estate investment trusts to invest in ultra-high voltage transmission projects, BJX News reported. BJX News also covered new guidance on improving electricity spot markets.
Spotlight
Q&A: Will China and the BRICS fill the ‘leadership gap’ on climate change?
Amid a rapidly fracturing geopolitical order, there have been growing calls for China to “step into [the] leadership gap” left by the US on climate change.
One platform that it could use to do so is BRICS, an increasingly influential and assertive group that includes COP30 host Brazil.
In this issue, Carbon Brief explores whether or not China, alongside the BRICS, could become climate leaders. The full article is available on Carbon Brief’s website.
The BRICS group represents a number of emerging economies that aim to “increas[e] the influence of global south countries in international governance”.
Active full members include founding members Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as South Africa, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.
Together, they represent 27% of global gross domestic product, 49% of the world’s population and 52% of carbon dioxide emissions, according to Carbon Brief calculations.
Four of the members – Brazil, China, India and South Africa – also form the BASIC bloc, a group with a significant voice at UN climate summits and other negotiations.
How do the BRICS approach climate change?
Lucas Carlos Lima, professor of international law at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, wrote that recent joint statements show the BRICS had “placed climate change squarely at the centre of the bloc’s agenda”.
In July, the BRICS summit resulted in a joint declaration demanding that “accessible, timely and affordable climate finance” is provided to developing countries.
The statement also highlighted the nations’ “resolve to remain united in the pursuit of the purpose and goals of the Paris Agreement”.
However, the BRICS leaders’ declaration also “acknowledge[s] fossil fuels will still play an important role in the world’s energy mix”.
The inclusion of this language “undermin[es] the positives” of the bloc’s other statements on climate action, according to a response from Jacobo Ocharan, head of political strategies at Climate Action Network International.
What is the role of fossil fuels in the BRICS?
Many BRICS nations remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels, both for electricity generation and to support their wider energy systems.
However, this picture is starting to shift, with almost all BRICS members having adopted net-zero targets ranging from 2050 to 2070.
More tangibly, the addition of new clean-power projects means that fossil-fueled electricity generating capacity now makes up less than half of the installed total in the BRICS group as a whole in 2024, as shown in the figure below.
Non-fossil power, driven by “unprecedented” renewable energy growth in China, India and Brazil, accounted for 53% of the installed electricity generating capacity in BRICS countries in 2024, according to thinktank Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
Continued BRICS focus on clean energy makes it “unlikely that fossil capacity will overtake non-fossil again”, James Norman, research analyst at GEM, told Carbon Brief.
Several BRICS members, including Russia, the UAE, Iran and Indonesia, are nevertheless leading producers and exporters of fossil fuels.
China and India, meanwhile, are by some distance the world’s largest and second-largest coal users, respectively.
Nevertheless, in the short term, this might not affect the BRICS group’s climate ambition overall.
Russia does not seem to be “blocking” the “solid outcomes” of recent BRICS climate negotiations, said Kate Logan, director of the China climate hub and climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI).
Will China and the BRICS emerge as climate leaders?
With the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement under the Trump administration, there have been increasing calls for China to take up the mantle of climate leadership.
China, at least publicly, is eschewing these calls, but does seem to be open to agreeing to “demonstrate leadership” in tandem with others, as seen in an EU-China joint statement on climate change published in late July.
Many are watching for signs of whether China’s upcoming international climate pledge, which may be published next week, will contain ambitious targets that will encourage greater global ambition.
Beatriz Mattos, research coordinator at Brazil-based climate-research institute Plataforma CIPÓ, tells Carbon Brief that China’s position as a “major investor in the renewable energy sector” means there is “enormous potential” for both it and the BRICS to assume a climate leadership role.
Watch, read, listen
NEW PARTNERS: The China-Global South Podcast examined the “stunning 113% jump” in Chinese investment into Brazil, a significant share of which was in oil and renewable energy.
PEAK ESTIMATE: A new report by Greenpeace East Asia found that China could “peak its power emissions in 2025”, at just over 5bn tonnes.
INSIDER VOICES: Three leading experts on China’s energy transition shared their insights in an event broadcasted by the Center for China and Globalization.
RESHAPING ENERGY: Ember published a “comprehensive review” of China’s energy transition and how it is “transforming global energy realities”.
$210 billion
The amount of foreign investment pledged by Chinese clean-energy technology manufacturers since 2022, according to a new report by the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab covered by Bloomberg.
New science
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
A new study examined the combined role of “forest activities and fire disturbance” (FAFD) on the effectiveness of China’s carbon sinks. It estimated that, between 1986 and 2020, the carbon emissions resulting from harvesting forests and forest fires offset around 54% of the carbon sequestration occurring through forestation. These findings, the authors said, “highlight the importance of accounting for carbon emissions from deforestation and forest fire when aiming to maximise carbon sequestration through forestation”.
Temperature extremes in early life and human capital: evidence from China’s labour market
Climatic Change
“Early-life exposure” to both extreme heat and extreme cold has “significant and persistent negative effects on adult labour income”, new research has found. The study, which draws from a dataset of more than one million individuals from China, said that, under a scenario with moderate warming (SSP2-4.5), average labour-income loss across China could total 0.77%, with the provinces of Qinghai, Henan, Fujian and Gansu most severely affected. It added that the impact of extreme heat on foetuses is “particularly pronounced”, with significant implications for future earnings.
China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 18 September 2025: MEE on the move; AI and energy; BRICS and climate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 18 September 2025: MEE on the move; AI and energy; BRICS and climate
Growing tall trees to provide shade for cocoa plantations in west Africa could sequester millions of tonnes of carbon, according to a new study.
The research, published in Nature Sustainability, finds that the additional carbon stored in shade trees, such as banana and palm trees, could entirely “offset” cocoa-related emissions in Ghana and Ivory Coast, without reducing production.
West Africa produces about 60% of the world’s cocoa, which is one of the most emissions-intensive crops to grow.
The authors map the shade provided by trees across cocoa agricultural systems in west Africa, then project how much additional carbon storage would be created by expanding it.
An author of the study tells Carbon Brief that cocoa plantations have been a “big” driver of deforestation and the emissions it causes, but the findings show that there is “huge potential” for cocoa to be “part of the solution”.
Cocoa plantations
Cocoa trees thrive in rainforests, as they need abundant rain, high humidity and stable temperatures. They often grow under the shadow of other plants, such as bananas, plantains and palm trees.
Two countries in west Africa – Ivory Coast and Ghana – dominate global cocoa production and are major exporters to the US and Europe.
The shading on the map below shows where cocoa is grown in Ivory Coast (left) and Ghana (right).
Both countries have favourable conditions for cocoa production, including tropical forests – which provide nutrients to the soil – a great deal of rain, warm temperatures and low production costs.
Two million farmers in the region rely on cocoa farming for their livelihoods, the study says, and cocoa contributes 10-20% of the two countries’ gross domestic product.
However, cocoa has “one of the most emissions-intensive footprints of all foods”, the study adds.
A 2022 study found that producing 1kg of cacao beans in Ivory Coast releases, on average, 1.5kg of CO2-equivalent (CO2e) – largely a result of deforestation. Since 2000, cocoa plantations have driven 37% of forest loss in protected areas in Ivory Coast and 13% of the loss in protected areas in Ghana.
Cocoa plantations cover more than three-and-a-half times as much land as the remaining intact forests in west Africa, according to the study.
Dr Wilma Blaser Hart, a research fellow at the University of Queensland and an author of the study, tells Carbon Brief:
“That land-use change is what makes cocoa such a carbon-intensive product, because there has just been so much forest loss for being able to produce cocoa.”
Shade-grown cocoa crops
Agroforestry is an agricultural method that combines the planting of crops with trees. Agroforestry can raise incomes for farmers and provide ecosystem services, including soil health improvement, biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.
The study investigates the amount of carbon that is currently stored in cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast and Ghana, as well as the potential carbon sequestration if agroforestry were expanded in these countries.
The authors use drones and machine learning to map the cover of shade trees, finding that 13% of the combined area of Ivory Coast and Ghana is currently covered with these trees.
In the study, “shade trees” refers to any trees taller than eight metres – the maximum height of cocoa trees.
The map below shows the area of shade trees in cocoa-growing areas specifically for 2022. The colours indicate levels of tree cover from 0-15% (blue), through to 15-30% (green) and more than 30% (yellow).
The map reveals that cocoa production is “overwhelmingly dominated by full-sun monocultures and low shade-agroforestry”, the study says.
Using satellite data, global maps of tree canopy height and on-ground verification, the researchers map the amount of “aboveground biomass” held by cocoa plantations.
Aboveground biomass comprises all living vegetation that lies above the soil – trees, leaves and other plant matter.
The map below shows the amount of aboveground biomass in both countries. The areas in yellow are those with the highest biomass and, therefore, more stored carbon.
The authors project that if all cocoa plantations increased their cover of shade trees to at least 30%, the additional, taller trees could sequester an “enormous” amount of carbon – 307m tonnes of CO2e (MtCO2e) – enough to fully counterbalance the current cocoa-related emissions in both countries, without reducing production.
Blaser Hart tells Carbon Brief:
“Cocoa itself is a small tree. [It] can grow up to about eight metres tall, so it also sequesters carbon. [But] we found that tall trees that are towering high above cocoa – often timber trees – sequester much more carbon than cocoa.”
In addition, she says, the cover from large trees is “much better for cocoa” since it protects them during the hottest hours of the day, while allowing light through. They also shed large amounts of “litter”, which gets incorporated as organic matter into the soil, sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.
Barriers and limitations
The authors acknowledge several limitations to their study.
For example, they say, the analysis may underestimate the proportion of shade tree cover by excluding trees shorter than eight metres. They also note that the analysis does not consider all of the features of agroforestry systems, such as which species are planted.
Kayeli Laurence is a PhD student of landscape ecology at Jean Lorougnon Guédé University in Ivory Coast and an expert in agroforestry. The researcher, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief:
“The identified limitations call for caution, particularly when it comes to local, small-scale analyses. However, they do not undermine the general trends highlighted by the study.”
Laurence notes that the study results are consistent with other research highlighting the carbon sequestration potential of agroforestry systems. She says that the projection of carbon sequestration is “ambitious, but credible”. However, she adds:
“In practice, achieving this goal will strongly depend on local conditions: availability of species, technical support, farmers’ willingness and, above all, economic incentives.”
The study also acknowledges that smallholder farmers in west Africa “face several barriers” to adopting agroforestry, including limited incentives and insecure land tenure.
The non-profit scientific research organisation Project Drawdown notes that implementing a certain category of agroforestry called “multistrata” – a combination of long-lasting crops and multiple layers of trees or vegetation – in humid tropical climates would cost more than $1,300 per hectare.
Blaser Hart tells Carbon Brief:
“That’s a huge cost. And it’s not money that farmers have available.”
International landscape
Blaser Hart says that cocoa agroforestry provides further benefits to ecosystems, besides carbon sequestration. These include cooling the air, improving soil fertility and nutrient cycling and providing habitat for wildlife. She adds:
“We’re currently doing a big study on how agroforestry can help to provide habitat for birds. There also seems to be a bit of mammals that use cocoa agroforestry systems. In Ghana, we’re finding quite a bit of genets and civets that are in these systems. From Brazil, there’s a bit of research in the Atlantic Rainforest that shows that some monkeys use them as permanent habitat and others just as corridors to move through.”
Agroforestry is included in the climate commitments of around 40% of developing countries under the Paris Agreement, according to the study.
At the corporate level, the cocoa industry has made commitments to plant “millions of shade trees in agroforests to improve the sustainability of the sector”, the study says.
Blaser Hart tells Carbon Brief that the researchers hope the work will encourage the cocoa industry to better plan its agroforestry interventions, “rather than just haphazardly handing out trees here and there”.
Laurence suggests that policymakers should improve climate finance to support farmers in transitioning to sustainable agricultural systems, while chocolate producers and certification bodies should make stronger commitments to create “real demand for sustainable cocoa produced through agroforestry”.
Ultimately, the study notes that the methods it developed to assess the status of trees in agricultural systems can be used for other commodities grown in agroforests, such as coffee.
The post Growing trees for shade has ‘enormous’ potential for cutting cocoa emissions appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Growing trees for shade has ‘enormous’ potential for cutting cocoa emissions
Environment ministers representing the European Union’s 27 member states failed to agree emissions reduction targets for 2035 and 2040 in Brussels on Thursday, instead asking their countries’ leaders to weigh in when they meet next month.
With several primarily Eastern European nations opposed – and others wavering – ministers agreed to ask their leaders to consider the key climate goals at a European Council meeting in October, in the hope of agreeing targets before the COP30 climate summit in November.
This means that the EU will not submit its 2035 target in time for it to factor into the UN’s annual synthesis report of national climate plans, due in late October, which will analyse governments’ climate commitments and estimate how far off the Paris climate agreement’s temperature targets they are.
It also means that EU officials will head to the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week without new targets to offer. Instead, they will just have what the Danish minister chairing the talks called a “statement of intent” to reduce emissions by between 66.25% and 72.5% below 1990 levels by 2035.
Some ministers that want stronger targets warned the delay could lead to the emissions cuts being watered down. A decision by environment ministers on the 2040 target can be made through qualified majority voting. But EU leaders will decide on the basis of unanimity, allowing climate laggards to block ambition. It is not clear if EU leaders will decide on the target at their next meeting or just debate it.
Ahead of today’s Environment Council meeting, the environment minister of Sweden – which supports the European Commission’s proposed target to cut emissions 90% between 1990 and 2040 – walked up to waiting journalists and said unprompted that “hesitation is a luxury that we cannot afford”.
Romina Pourmokhtari added that she was “quite disappointed at recent developments”, adding that her message to “all countries but particularly Germany and France” – which have pushed for a delay so leaders can contribute – is that “I and Sweden do not believe that it will become a better product by prolonging this process. This will not create a better outcome”.
But Elisa Giannelli, E3G lead on climate governance and European politics, was positive. She told Climate Home News that “we’ve heard enough member states being quite positive about the commission’s proposal today”, adding “it will eventually be down to France to swing over to the “supportive camp” once leaders have “provided the reassurance and guidance they are calling for”. France is widely regarded as the swing vote.
At the meeting, representatives from Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary opposed the 90% proposal. Krzysztof Bolesta, from the Polish environment ministry, said an 83% target is “at very, very high cost, maximum we can do”.
Slovakia’s environment minister Tomáš Taraba said “it would be good to start with a lower target and – if necessary and feasible – we can increase in the next revision”, a position supported by Hungary’s Anikó Raisz.
On the other side, representatives of the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg and Austria supported the 90% proposal. Spain’s Sara Aagesen Munoz said it was “science-based” and the Dutch representative called it “feasible” and “the most logical way towards climate neutrality in 2050”.
Missing UN deadlines
Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN convention on climate change, welcomed the EU’s statement of intent despite the bloc’s failure to announce a target in time for the UN systhesis report of climate plans. Stiell urged European leaders to aim for the top of the proposed range.
“If these targets are met with speed and at scale, the EU has so much to gain,” Stiell said in a statement. “It won’t just be a global leader on climate change and clean energy, the more action it takes, the more the continent stands to benefit, with stronger economic growth and thriving new industries powered by cheaper and cleaner energy.”
On his way into the meeting, the German environment ministry’s state secretary Jochen Flasbarth blamed the European Commission for the “loss of time”. “If the Commission would have provided the dossier earlier then we would be in a different situation,” he told reporters.
EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told the ministers that he had hoped the targets would be decided today but the delay “could also be useful to ensure the broadest possible political support”.
Asked ahead of today’s meeting what message missing the UN’s end-of-September deadline for 2035 NDCs will send, Finland’s environment minister Sari Multala said it is “hard for us to require the others – our international partners to do the same if we don’t deliver ourselves”.
According to the UN, 36 nations have already submitted their 2035 targets – known in UN jargon as nationally determined contributions (NDC). Australia today promised to cut emissions 62-70% between 2005 and 2035. China is expected to announce its target this week or next and many other nations will launch their targets at a UN summit in New York on Wednesday.
Losing climate leadership?
Asked if China will take over the EU’s climate leadership on the international stage, Hoekstra said “it would be fantastic if they would outperform our NDC”. Separately, Poland’s Bolesta told a reporter, “I don’t know why you would say we are worse than China” as “it’s not about who is faster, it’s about who is more robust and more credible.”
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EU’s record wildfire emissions highlight threat to forest carbon sinks
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EU Commission proposes allowing carbon offsets to help meet 2040 climate goal
Campaigners accuse the European Commission of adding “loopholes” and “distractions” to the 90% emissions reduction target -
COP30 president prepares for clash of views on how to respond to NDCs
With most countries yet to submit new emissions-cutting plans due by the end of next month, Brazil will launch consultations on how to tackle an expected shortfall in ambition
Hungary’s environment minister Anikó Raisz said “those from the EU going to New York, we have nothing to hide” as the EU is a “leading example”. Hoekstra said the EU’s NDC would be among the most ambitious in the world along with “our friends from Great Britain and a couple of other places”.
Speaking yesterday, the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States negotiating group, Ilana Seid from Palau, said she was “putting pressure” on the EU to “step up” because “their NDC announcement would really change the momentum and the kind of ambition heading into the COP”.
The timeline for deciding the two official EU targets is now unclear, but is likely to involve a specially-convened European Council leaders’ meeting and then another environment ministers meeting.
Danish environment minister Lars Aagaard said he hoped the targets would be adopted ahead of COP30 “as this would send a strong signal to the world – but ultimately we are, of course, in the hands of states and governments”.
This story was edited to include comments from Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The post EU ministers fail to agree climate targets, raising risk leaders will weaken them appeared first on Climate Home News.
EU ministers fail to agree climate targets, raising risk leaders will weaken them
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