In the past year, Kenya has drawn the attention of major global companies like Gucci and Netflix, all eager to buy carbon credits. These credits are supposed to offset the carbon emissions these companies produce but I for one think it’s debatable whether these projects genuinely help reduce emissions or if it’s even okay for companies to use offsets at all. But I digress. What’s really worth talking about now is how Kenya has become a major player in the carbon trade—and how like everything else here, corruption is deeply meshed within the program.

 Kenya’s Carbon Market: Big Potential, Bigger Risks

Kenya’s carbon market has been growing rapidly, leading the continent, issuing about 20% of Africa’s carbon credits. The government is pushing hard to make carbon credits one of our major exports. But let’s be real: this isn’t about the environment or the economy (at least not entirely) .This is just a new way to make some wealthy people a whole lot wealthier , but to be fair the whole point of carbon credits was just to make some wealthy people wealthier anyway .

Recent changes to the Climate Change Act in 2024 have brought a slew of new regulations  like the establishment of a national carbon registry and the involvement of multiple agencies in approving carbon projects . The idea there was to lower costs, make sure local communities benefit, and prevent fraud. But adding more rules and actors doesn’t always mean more transparency. In a system where money talks, I am willing to bet that in a year or so these regulations will turn into just another layer of red tape that people with the right connections can bypass.

And this isn’t just flapping gums. A report by Tiffanie Chan and her team in October 2023 highlighted the global challenge of corruption in climate projects. The authors conducted a thorough analysis of legal frameworks from various countries, revealing how corruption can thrive when governance structures are weak or poorly enforced. During COP27, roundtable consultations with policymakers and civil society members further highlighted the real-world implications of corruption in climate projects. These discussions underscored the danger of funds meant for local communities being siphoned off by corrupt actors, leaving the intended beneficiaries with nothing.

A Reality Check

We’ve already seen the ugly side of this in Kenya. Take the case of the Ogiek community—indigenous people who were kicked out of their forests to make way for a carbon project. In 2017 the Ogiek won a case against government plans to evict them from their ancestral land in the Mau Forest. The African Court of Human and People’s Rights ruled they were entitled to live on the land, and the government had violated their rights by trying to evict them. The court also ordered the Kenyan government to pay the forest community reparations for the suffering caused by forced evictions and  to consult the Ogiek in respect of any projects on its land. Despite all that , since October 2020, the Kenyan government in association with the Dubai based company Blue Carbon have displaced, often violently hundreds of members of this community.  

This isn’t just a one-off. Take the case of the Northern rangelands project started by the US company NRT and the impact it has had on the native Samburu, Borana and Rendille people. The project which has gone on to sell carbon credits to huge companies like Meta and Netflix has displaced hundreds of pastoralists in the name of “Sustainable pastoralism” which I personally find to be absurd as these communities have been grazing their animals sustainably on said lands for hundreds of years. The violent displacement of these communities has been a topic of interest by the Oakland institute which ran a study on the matter and uncovered multiple cases of human rights violations . 

The Fight Isn’t Over

Despite playing no part in the generation of carbon emissions , it is saddening that these communities have to bear the cost of these programs that in the end do nothing to heal the planet but only serve to fill the pockets of the capitalist elites. Kenya’s rise in the carbon market shows both the potential and the pitfalls of climate finance in a corrupt environment. If we want to see real change, we need more than just new laws or agencies. We need to enforce these rules and hold people accountable when they break them. As the green industry grows, so does the risk of corruption. But if we’re serious about building a sustainable future, we need to make sure that the systems we’re putting in place are protected from the very corruption that could destroy them.