WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE EU - euobserver daily - Tuesday 3 june 2025.

 

Good morning,

Scientists are not the most obviously political of people. Yet the latest report by the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC) may just have crashed the EU Commission’s plans to promote international carbon credit schemes.  

Last week, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told ministers that his upcoming proposal aimed at the bloc cutting its carbon emissions by 90 percent by 2040, would let them use international carbon credits to help meet the target. But the scientific board says that EU countries must not use international offsets to meet their domestic 2040 climate target. It adds that relying on international offsets to meet its 2040 target may create perverse incentives for other countries to maintain or increase their own emissions. 

Supporters of carbon credits say they are a way for the EU to encourage other countries to ‘green’ their economies.  

And there is growing international enthusiasm for the idea. Under a proposal backed by the United Nations last year, carbon credits allow one country to pay for emissions-slashing projects in another and deduct the CO2 reduction from its own balance sheet. Africa’s voluntary carbon market is growing at a rate of 36 percent each year. Two-thirds of the growth is in five countries, with Kenya dominating. Carbon-offsetting firms like Blue Carbon, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, are among a group grabbing a piece of the market. 

But in Kenya, where president William Ruto’s government is an enthusiastic supporter of carbon credit schemes, and was praised for doing so by commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, there is plenty of public scepticism about the idea. Kenyans point out that land use – one of the most divisive and hotly contested issues in the country - is at the heart of carbon credit schemes. Politicians are frequently accused of appropriating parcels of land for development, and personal enrichment. And it is hard to see how the EU could police carbon credit schemes run by countries thousands of kilometres away. 

The scientific board notes that "only 16 percent of credits issued under various carbon crediting programmes to date have delivered genuine emission reductions". Their warnings may not be enough to derail Hoekstra’s plan – and the political momentum behind carbon credits – but it leaves plenty of food for thought. 

- Benjamin Fox, Africa editor

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