As carbon markets scale globally to address climate warming, innovative charity leader Save the Children is playing a role to ensure benefits flow to children and indigenous communities.
Some market analysts predict the carbon market will increase 100-fold to $250 billion worldwide by 2050. But there are growing concerns that many projects designed to mitigate climate can adversely impact nature and local communities.
Well-designed Nature-based Solutions (NbS) carbon projects can benefit nature (by planting native habitat) and communities (who steward the land).
In Australia, Save the Children is piloting a Carbon Fairness Standard to ensure Indigenous peoples and other local communities are treated fairly in respect of carbon projects developed on land they steward. The first certification was issued last year for the Olkola Ajin Savanna Burning Project in northern Australia, which is managed by a First Nations corporation employing Indigenous Australian rangers to look after the land according to traditional customs.
Paul Ronalds, CEO of Save the Children Global Ventures has partnered carbon project developer Carbon Neutral and developer of the Carbon Fairness Standard, Natural Carbon.
Carbon Neutral CEO, Dr Phil Ireland said Carbon Neutral will identify regional communities in need of fair carbon market representation. Initially over a period of five years. Save the Children and Carbon Neutral will steward the pilot carbon fairness standard to projects they develop with Indigenous communities.
Marnie Lassen, CEO Natural Carbon said Save the Children’s global on-ground community partnerships will enable the Standard to have the impact its Board envisioned.
Ronalds said well-designed, community-led nature-based solutions, delivered with the right checks and balances, have potential to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while providing communities with support such as paid jobs to rehabilitate the land and improve health, livelihoods and resilience to climate change.
“We recognise that carbon markets are receiving a lot of valid criticism, ranging from abuses of Indigenous Peoples’ rights and local communities, forced displacement, lack of transparency, greenwashing and even fraudulent projects. That is why we are trialling new approaches, putting children’s rights at the centre of programmes, and ensuring that they are locally-designed and led by communities, with necessary safeguards in place,” he said.
Ronalds said climate was a key priority due to the devastating impact that the climate crisis had on children across the world. Some 920 million children face water scarcity. 774 million children face the dual threat of poverty and high climate risk.
“By 2050, some 1.2 billion people will be displaced by climate-driven disasters. Such profound disruptions interfere with a child’s education, their health and makes them vulnerable to exploitation and violence,” he said.
Save the Children Global Ventures has launched a Nature-based Solutions for Children (NbS4C) Hub to develop a portfolio of carbon projects in the Asia Pacific, which includes clean cookstoves in Nepal, improved water technology in Pakistan, mangrove rehabilitation in Vietnam and reforestation in the Philippines. The NbS4C team is now scoping carbon market pilots in East and Southern Africa.
Save the Children is the first humanitarian and development focused INGO accredited by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In December last year the organisation launched a partnership with the GCF and Global Partnership for Education to deliver US$70 million of investment in building climate-resilient schools in vulnerable countries.