Dubai buys 20% of Zimbabwe for carbon offset projects

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Can 1/5 of a country, the size of the UK, be up for sale?

In what the company says is a “landmark development for climate action and community empowerment, Blue Carbon, a carbon credit company in Dubai, and the Government of Zimbabwe have joined forces to build a carbon credits out of Zimbabwe’s nature, 1/5 of Zimbabwe equal to about the size of the UK.

The $1.5 Billion USD deal will develop carbon projects and sustainable initiatives in agriculture, forestry, and more on 7.5 million hectares. The deal falls under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. Blue Carbon and the Government of Zimbabwe say in press materials that they will advance environmental conservation, the well-being of local communities, and the stimulation of economic growth.

The UAE is hosting the UN climate change COP28 this year so they are looking to show meaningful projects to tout during the event Nov 30 to Dec 12. But the UAE has no track record that it can manage its own nature, let alone that in a vulnerable African country.

Beyond the immediate goal of carbon emissions reduction, the carbon projects aims to have a grassroots impact. If this were Switzerland, I might believe the intent but the UAE has yet to prove it can be environmental stewards. The UAE has a problematic track record for years of human rights abuses of its migrant workers, and mismanaging waste issues – see Burj.

Human Rights Watch says:

• Migrant workers form 88 percent of the UAE population and often come from climate-vulnerable countries. UAE-based workers are exposed to escalating climate risks, especially extreme heat, which is linked to chronic health harms and even death.
• Widespread labor abuses like exorbitant recruitment fees and wage theft limit workers’ ability to send financial support back home, including during climate-linked extreme weather events.
• These abuses in the UAE, which is hosting the upcoming COP28 climate conference, contribute to climate injustice in multiple ways.

According to Blue Carbon, they will be doing what we would expect from the Africa country to do for its own people: and build Community Welfare Programs, where the capital received from carbon credits will be used, among other things, to finance various social projects tailored to uplift the living standards of the communities residing in the project areas.

Blue Carbon buys Zimbabwe for carbon credit scheme

This pioneering partnership aligns with the goals of the Paris Agreement and underscores the dedication of both Blue Carbon and the Government of Zimbabwe towards driving transformative change for a greener, sustainable, and more equitable future, says parties in the press release.

The signing ceremony occurred in Zimbabwe with the presence of Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndhlovu, Minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry and Josiane Sadaka, CEO of Blue Carbon.

“We believe that effective climate action should go hand in hand with community empowerment,” said Ndhlovu. “Through this collaboration with the Government of Zimbabwe, we are confident that our carbon projects will not only make a positive impact on the environment, but also lead to meaningful improvements in the lives of the people who need it the most.”

Blue Carbon is a Dubai based company under the patronage of the Member of Dubai Ruling Family Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, which was formed to create environmental assets, nature-based solutions and register carbon projects under eligible methodologies.

Blue Carbon says CNN is a “new outfit, not even a year old, but its chief was no fledgling entrepreneur: he was an Emirati royal whose family had ruled Dubai for 190 years, flush with oil money.”

According to CNN the deal is a smokescreen so the UAE can keep pumping fossil fuels: “The flurry of forest conservation deals with Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Liberia and Tanzania were announced in the months ahead of the annual United Nations’ COP28 climate summit, being hosted this year in December by the United Arab Emirates. But according to several analysts and climate advocates CNN spoke with for this story, these conservation deals are the latest attempt by the petrostate to use green initiatives as a smokescreen for its plans to continue pumping fossil fuels.

“At the same time, the UAE has said it plans to extract its very last barrel of oil 50 years from now, when its reserves are projected to dry up — decades beyond when scientists say society needs to be done with fossil fuel.”

Climate activists have been skeptic about carbon credits and even criticized carbon removal, while scientists too remain skeptical of its efficacy: it can be seen as a “ticket for companies to continue to produce and burn fossil fuels on a large scale, even expand, and profit handsomely,” notes CNN.

Our writer Bushra Azhar in Saudi Arabia wrote in 2012 already about the troubling case of Coldplay and carbon offset controversy in the Middle East: “The main reason I think an offset model cannot work for Saudi Arabia is because it does not address the real issue of carbon emissions in the first place. Consumers and companies in Saudi Arabia need to discover their environmental stance before they rethink it. In a country where the utilities are dirt cheap and the fuel costs less than a can of soda, the real problem is to wake people from their stupor. To make them realize that the resources are not unlimited and that the time is running out.”

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