Learning From 'Actually Existing' REDD+: A Synthesis of Ethnographic Findings

Negative emissions and the long history of carbon removal

“…This is one example of structural tensions and contradictions between the prioritization of cost-minimization and the social and environmental outcomes of climate policy, which critics have argued are internal to the economizing logics of neoliberal environmentalism (Corson, MacDonald, & Neimark, 2013;Leach & Scoones, 2015;Lohmann, 2011;McAfee, 2012). Several analyses have evaluated the environmental impacts of REDD+ on carbon sequestration as limited, poor or even negative (Angelsen et al, 2018;Duchelle, Simonet, Sunderlin, & Wunder, 2018;Milne et al, 2019), though the exact lessons to draw from this are heavily disputed (Angelsen et al, 2017;Fischer, Hargita, & Günter, 2016;Fletcher, Dressler, Büscher, & Anderson, 2016).…”

“…The economic logics of carbon removal mean that such trade-offs often play out in the global South. While there is real potential for poor communities to benefit from well-designed and inclusive carbon removal projects (Jindal, Swallow, & Kerr, 2008;Thomas et al, 2010), the impacts on local well-being and local resource governance are in practice often disappointing or even negative Milne et al, 2019). Numerous carbon forestry schemes have been shown to interrupt and limit local resource use, entrench existing local inequalities, or destabilize local economies, while promised local incentives commonly fail to materialize in any significant way (Chomba, Kariuki, Lund, & Sinclair, 2016;Leach & Scoones, 2015;Milne et al, 2019).…”

“…While there is real potential for poor communities to benefit from well-designed and inclusive carbon removal projects (Jindal, Swallow, & Kerr, 2008;Thomas et al, 2010), the impacts on local well-being and local resource governance are in practice often disappointing or even negative Milne et al, 2019). Numerous carbon forestry schemes have been shown to interrupt and limit local resource use, entrench existing local inequalities, or destabilize local economies, while promised local incentives commonly fail to materialize in any significant way (Chomba, Kariuki, Lund, & Sinclair, 2016;Leach & Scoones, 2015;Milne et al, 2019). In marketbased schemes in particular, the promise of efficiency drives the pursuit of economies of scale, which often manifest in biases against smallholders and attempts to cluster up local communities in ways that privilege dominant groups and divert benefits away from the poorest (Benjaminsen & Kaarhus, 2018;Isyaku, Arhin, & Asiyanbi, 2017).…”

Rendering Local: The Politics of Differential Knowledge in Carbon Offset Governance

“…Dawson et al (2018), for example, stressed the importance of what they termed "national interpretation processes" in REDDþ 1 implementation, meaning the extensive policy work that goes into translating international norms and values around forest governance into diverse country settings. Milne et al (2019), meanwhile, built on Latour in identifying knowledge translations as central to the enrollment of diverse actors in carbon forestry projects. This importantly includes local communities, who often perform active roles in carbon forestry as carbon stewards or offset producers and whose interests in and capacities for technocratic governance therefore to some extent need to be tailored to.…”

“…This other form of translation is a necessarily incomplete and often flawed process, with concepts such as carbon or offsetting frequently losing much of their "original" meaning as they are articulated by nonexperts. A number of studies, for example, observe that targeted communities tend to have a poor grasp of the kind of transactions they are involved in or the rationale behind them (Corbera, Brown, and Adger 2007;Wittman and Caron 2009;Milne and Adams 2012;Shapiro-Garza 2013;Milne et al 2019). Leach and Scoones's (2015a) edited volume on carbon forestry contains some illuminating examples of how local communities in different African contexts define carbon as "the mists you see above forests in the morning" (22) or as "charcoal air" (Kijazi 2015, 70), hinting at specific and potentially problematic understandings of where CO 2 emissions originate.…”