Carbon Blood Money in Honduras

By Rosie Wong
Foreign Policy in Focus
March 9, 2012

With its muddy roads, humble huts, and constant military patrols, Bajo Aguán, Honduras feels a long way away from the slick polish of the recurring UN climate negotiations in the world’s capital cities. Yet the bloody struggle going on there strikes at the heart of global climate politics, illustrating how market schemes designed to “offset” carbon emissions play out when they encounter the complicated reality on the ground.

Small farmers in this region have increasingly fallen under the thumb of large landholders like palm oil magnate Miguel Facussé, who has been accused by human rights groups of responsibility for the murder of numerous campesinos in Bajo Aguán since the 2009 coup. Yet Facussé’s company has been approved to receive international funds for carbon mitigation under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The contrast between the promise of “clean development” and this violent reality has made Bajo Aguán the subject of growing international attention — and a lightning rod for criticism of the CDM.

Ghana: Jatropha biofuel push faces protests

By Suleiman Mustapha
African Agriculture
April 5, 2011

Women Lose Their Farms to Biofuel Production

In Ghana, whether the biofuel crop jatropha will pluck rural farmers from poverty and reduce carbon emissions or displace farmers and gobble up land that could produce food depends very much on who you ask.

For Iddrisu Issifu, who recently handed over his 10 acres to Norwegian-owned Biofuel Africa Limited for jatropha cultivation, the arrival of this drought-resistant tree that produces an oil that can be made into diesel represents a break from constant battles against the vagaries of maize production, particularly as weather patterns shift in response to climate change.