Policy Brief: WHY CARBON MARKETS ARE A DANGEROUS DISTRACTION FOR AFRICA

This brief argues that carbon markets are a false solution to Africa’s climate finance needs. Rather than delivering real, equitable, and transformative funding for climate action, these markets risk undermining Africa’s climate sovereignty by entrenching extractive economic patterns, delaying Africa’s just energy transition, fostering neocolonial land-grabs and, by failing to address climate change, further destabilising the Earth’s life support systems, leaving Africans first and worst affected. By unpacking the scientific, economic, and political limitations of these mechanisms, the brief offers evidence-based guidance to help African stakeholders reject false solutions and push for more just, transparent, and grant-based forms of climate finance.