Akinwumi Adesina, outgoing president of the African Development Bank, is warning that foreign firms are underpaying for carbon credits from African forests.
“We used to have land grabs. Now we are having carbon grabs,” he told The Financial Times this week, doubling down on recent assertions that Africa is being “short-changed” on carbon removal.
In remarks at last year’s U.N. climate summit in Azerbaijan, Adesina noted that in Europe, the price of carbon can reach $200 a ton but in Africa can sink as low as $3 a ton. Some African countries, he said, are giving up huge swaths of forest for carbon removal and, in the process, losing sovereignty over their land.
The total value of carbon drawn down by African lands was $66 billion in 2022, according to a report from the African Development Bank. The report concluded that Africa is “nature rich and cash poor,” and that a “proper valuation” of its natural wealth would allow countries to access more capital.
“It is time for Africa’s green wealth to be properly measured,” Adesina said in his U.N. remarks. “It is time for Africa to be green rich and cash rich.”
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