Saudi Arabia’s massive carbon credit purchase from Kenya raises doubts about climate change

• Africa’s potential to earn substantial sums of money through selling carbon credits raises questions about its effectiveness in addressing global temperature rise. 
• Saudi Arabia’s recent purchase of over two billion tonnes of carbon credits sparks concerns about the risk of polluters using it as a license to continue emitting without reducing their own emissions. 
• The growing voluntary carbon market, projected to reach $50 billion by 2030, plays a crucial role in the fight against climate change by allowing businesses to offset their emissions, but concerns about project quality and regulatory standards persist.

Selling carbon credits may bring in enormous sums of money for Africa, but it is questionable if this will stop global temperatures from rising.

Following Saudi Arabia’s purchase of more than two billion tonnes of carbon credits in an auction in Kenya earlier this week, this analysis was provided by BBC environment reporter Navin Khadka.

Companies can achieve net zero without reducing their own emissions with the use of carbon offsets. By utilizing clean stoves, for example, or by collecting and storing carbon from the atmosphere through preserved and regenerated forests, they pay other nations or communities through the carbon credit system.

“If buyers keep on buying credits and keep on emitting, will that help the bigger cause of limiting our temperature rise to 1.5C is the question widely asked. The fear is it might worsen the situation if polluters use it as a license to carry on with business as usual,” Khadka told the BBC Focus on Africa podcast.

Kenyan Trade Minister Moses Kuria noted that nations like Kenya had already paid a hefty price due to the rest of the world’s carbon emissions before the outset of Wednesday’s auction.

“Just last year, the country lost animals worth more than $600m [£468m] as a result of drought which is closely associated with climate change,” he tweeted.

The BBC’s source claims that by 2023, the worldwide market for carbon credits might reach $50 billion, with a large portion of that money going toward projects like tree planting and renewable energy.

Growing the voluntary carbon market is viewed as an essential component of the global effort to combat climate change since it enables businesses to partially offset their emissions by funding initiatives that will store the greenhouse gas.

The market for offsets is expected to increase as more businesses aim to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, while some have been deterred by worries about the quality of some projects and a number of organizations are working to tighten industry regulations. The annual worldwide market for voluntary carbon credits, valued at about $2 billion in 2021, might reach $50 billion by 2030, according to consultants at McKinsey.