Paradoxically, these initiatives can lead to biodiversity loss.
‘Clean fuel’ and transition minerals projects
Projects such as green hydrogen production have a vast land and water footprint, as do ‘transition minerals’ mining sites.
Conservation
Top-down creation of nature reserves and protected areas.
Biodiversity offsets and credits
Investors can offset damage to ecosystems by supporting biodiversity projects. But these projects generally fail to achieve meaningful ecosystem restoration.
Companies can get ‘net zero’ labels by participating in greenhouse gas compensation projects. But, the need a lot of land, can harm small-scale food producers and sometimes have no positive effect on the climate.
Carbon offsets
Green Grabbing
Another climate change mitigation strategy that can negatively impact people’s livelihoods and could lead to insecurity can be found in a variety of ‘green’ initiatives involving the acquisition of land. This is often called ‘green grabbing’.
The connection between climate change and migration is often drawn to. But the connection between green grabbing and displacement much less often discussed.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines green grabs as follows:
Green grabs are the appropriation of land and resources in the name of environmental goals. They often displace local communities, threaten livelihoods, undermine food security, and erode the local knowledge systems that protect agrobiodiversity. Green grabs are on the rise, and already represent 20% of large-scale land deals globally.
often already marginalised populations.
Let’s consider green grabbing in Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Colombia and Sierra Leone.
LEONE
NEW GUINEA
