Climate Action

What is a tonne of African carbon worth? For goods arriving in the third quarter of this year, Europe priced carbon at its border at EUR 82.32 a tonne. About $93. In one World Bank forest programme in Africa, carbon was paid for at $5 a tonne. By mid-2025, the programme's own report showed about 89 cents of each tonne had reached communities. About 38 cents of it in cash. Different markets, and nobody should pretend otherwise. But it is the same tonne. On 19 October, at the invitation of Ghana's Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Hon. Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, I shared this evidence with Ghana's negotiators ahead of the UN climate talks in Antalya, which open on 9 November. The Chief Director, Ms Suweibatu Adam, chaired. We did not go to tell anyone what to say. The positions belong to Ghana and to the African Group of Negotiators. Our role is to put a trusted number under every sentence. Ghana starts ahead. Its Carbon Market Office reports it was the first country in Africa to complete authorisation, issuance, transfer and reporting under the Paris Agreement's new carbon market. Forests. Satellite research published in Science finds about 81 per cent of Africa's tropical forest carbon loss comes from degradation, not clearing. A forest can keep its size and lose its health. Just transition. A transition is just only when we count what stays at home, and what comes back to the town where the mine sits. Trade. Ghana's Cocoa Board has asked for fair cost-sharing between Ghana, the EU and operators for proving cocoa is deforestation-free. A rule written to save forests should not make the farmer poorer. What we do at @UNUniversity @UNUINRA : We count the keep rate, the cents of every natural resource dollar that stay at home. Our Innovative Affiliates, many of them young African researchers, read 191,621 hectares of coastline on free satellite images, with no grant and no travel. The morning after the session, the Ministry had two short briefs from us, on carbon and on the just transition. Governments see their own figures first, with their right of reply printed beside ours. Every figure is linked to its source in the commentary. Check every number. Count It. Keep It. Convert It. Circulate It. Africa is not poor. Africa is uncounted. Read the commentary: lnkd.in/dCCJ_rEE #COP31 #Antalya #CarbonMarkets #JustTransition #NaturalResources #Africa