implications of carbon markets on indigenous customary territories
IN MALAYSIA

Climate Justice Now!
Japan's Role Towards Achieving a Just andEquitable Transition in Asia Pacific
20 July 2024, Tokyo1

outline
1. Introduction to carbon markets
2. Carbon markets and the indigenous
customary land rights
3. Why the carbon market is a false climatesolution?
4. What are real climate solutions?
5. Publications

2

Carbon market: A brief history
1972
UN Conference on the
Human Environment in
Stockholm, Sweden

1988
Intergovernment
al Panel on1990
Climate Change
1987
IPCC report: Emissions from(IPCC)World Commission onhuman activities areEnvironment andsubstantially increasing
Development (WCED) Our
greenhouse gases .
Common Future/ Bruntland
The call for a global treaty.
Report – sustainabledevelopment….…
1992 Rio Earth Summit

1997

1992 United Nations
Kyoto protocol:
Framework Convention on Clean Development
Climate Change (UNFCCC) Mechanism (CDM) –an international
carbon offset
scheme under theUNFCCC

….…

2015
Paris Agreement
2013
The framework ofREDD Plus wasadopted in
Warsaw underthe UNFCCC• There are many false climate solutions such as carbon markets that were created under the UNFCCC.
• CDM was created to assist developed countries in achieving compliance with their emissions reduction commitments
under Kyoto Protocol.

4

01
Net zero means that thepolluter will continue to03
Offsets do not actuallyemit carbon so long as

reduce the atmospheric

they can offset thoseconcentrations of carbon

emissions from thedioxide.

atmosphere by the sameamount in other places.

02

Source: https://www.foei.org/wpcontent/uploads/2021/02/Friends-of-the-earth5
international-carbon-unicorns-english.pdf

Carbon offset

6

Carbon credit• A permit or certificate that can be traded, which gives credit rights to credit holders to emit a certain
amount of carbon dioxide over a period of time.
• Holders of carbon rights (the right to a carbon-rich ecosystem or artificial carbon storage) will receivepayment.
• Buyers of carbon credit rights (the right to emit) will make the payment.
• A high carbon dioxide emitting company will pay holders of carbon rights in return of the latter ensuringthat such carbon will continue to be sequestered in either the natural (or artificial) system.
• Carbon credit = carbon debt. If you pay your debt now, then you can pollute later.
• The credits are assumed to have been generated by activities/projects that have supposedly avoided
and/or removed greenhouse gas emissions.
• Reduced emissions; Avoided emissions (not resolved under article 6 of Paris Agreement.)• Installing solar or wind energy facilities, slowing or halting deforestation, planting trees or ecosystem
restoration. Every project design is different.

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Carbon market
Two types of carbon markets:

Cap and trade/ Emission trading scheme

1. Regulated: “Cap and trade”/Emission Trading Scheme –Purchase of permit

CO2emissions< permit

Factory A

CO2emissions> permit

Factory B

2. Unregulated: Voluntary carbon
market – Purchase of carbon
offset credit
Forest carbon, blue carbon(mangrove, seagrass, salt marsh), soilcarbon

8Thezerofallacy of net zero (is not real zero)Net

Source: https://demandclimatejustice.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/10/NOT_ZERO_How_net_zero_targets_disguise_climate_inaction_FINAL.

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The great carbon con• Concept: Idea, invention, plan vs. scientific fact• You can invent a concept, but you cannot invent a fact.
• Does carbon sequestration actually result in the avoidance or removal of carbon dioxide
emissions from the burning of fossil fuels?
• What happens if the carbon sequestration effort fail? (Forest fire?)• How do you accurately quantify the amount of carbon in natural ecosystem?
• Who really owns carbon? The state? Private carbon licence holders? Community? Thepublic?
• Forests and sensitive ecosystems are not made up of only carbon. It contains biodiversity.
It has social, cultural, heritage and livelihood value. It performs ecological functions andreduces disaster risks.
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outline
1. Introduction to carbon markets
2. Carbon markets and the indigenous
customary land rights
3. Why the carbon market is a false climatesolution?
4. What are real climate solutions?
5. Publications

11

Indigenous customary land rights●

The indigenous customary land rights or titles are rights that have been obtained from the authorityof traditional customs and customary laws, and are commonly acknowledged and enforced bymembers of an indigenous community.

●

They are different from the modern documentary land titles, which are rights obtained fromdocuments issued by the state under a legislation.

●(Documentary land titles: Enclosure movement of Western Europe at the on-set of industrial revolution
in the 18th century.)●

Territoriality, boundary, ancestral inheritance, continuous occupation, sustainable management ofnatural resources, cultural and spiritual relationship with the land.

●

A territory includes agricultural and forested areas under familial ownership as well as common areas
under collective rights which may comprise forests, rivers and other water bodies, burial grounds,sacred areas and other land uses.

12Indigenous customary land rights
Federal Constitution and Malaysian judiciary●The Malaysian judiciary has affirmed that the indigenous customary land rights are:
●
●
●

●

The right to property – Article 8, Federal Constitution
The right to life and livelihood - Article 5, Federal Constitution
States have fiduciary duty to protect indigenous land rights.

Existing policies and laws on indigenous peoples, land, forests, conservation and other natural
resource laws in the three regions must urgently be reformed in order to ensure their alignment withjudicial decisions and the Federal Constitution.

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Indigenous customary land rights●If the rights are without any document of title or status as an indigenous communal reserve, the state tends toerroneously interprete them as usufructuary rights i.e. the right to use and benefit from the land, but not the right toownership of the land itself. The land is regarded as state land.

●Issuance of land titles or reservation are not actively done. The state often unilaterally determines its own version of esize and boundary of an indigenous customary territory, without transparency, consultation and consent of communities.

●Community rights are often limited only to the crops and built structures found on the land, and does not include theproprietary interest in the land itself. (Judiciary - The is the right to property.)●Logging, plantation, mining and other resource extractive licences are freely issued by the state on indigenous land.

●The rights may be extinguished, reduced or heavily regulated when forests are reserved as production forests orconservation areas, without their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) or the payment of adequate compensation.

●

Indigenous communities usually remain within their ancestral territories (unless a forced resettlement exercise isundertaken), but yet at the same time, these territories are vulnerable to encroachments and land acquisition exercises.

●

Consequence: Land rights conflict.

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New laws related to climate change, sarawak
●
●
●
●

●

Forests Ordinance 2015
Forests Ordinance (Amendment) Ordinance 2022
Land Code 1958
Land Code (Amendment) Ordinance 2022.
● Land (Carbon Storage Rules) 2022
Environment (Reduction of Greenhouse Gases Emissions) Ordinance 2023 (regulated by the Sarawak
Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB)).

--●

Policy and legal jurisdiction – federal or state governments?
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Sarawak Forests ordinance 2015●

Carbon credit, carbon registry, carbon standard rules, carbon sink , carbon standard,carbons standard rules, carbon stock/GHF , carbon trading, emissions reductions,forest carbon activity, carbon standard, greenhouse gas, nationally determined
contribution, Paris Agreement, verification, verification agent●

Carbon licence means a licence granted for a forest carbon activity.

●

Forest carbon activity: Any activity, action, project or groups of activities that leads to theemission reductions which are verified in accordance with a carbon standard.

●Forest produce now includes ‘carbon stocks or greenhouse gas stock in any forest
whether on state land, alienated land or inland waters.’

Sarawak Forests ordinance 2015●

Carbon sequestration: Natural or artificial process (such as planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide) or
pumping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to be held in solid or liquid form, thus preventing
greenhouse gas build-up in the earth’s atmosphere.

●Carbon sink: A natural or artificial storage area that collects chemical compounds which contain carbon
dioxide and store these for an indefinite period and in its natural form, carbon sinks are made up of forests,
rocks and soil and the oceans.
●●

Imported carbon for storage in Sarawak – carbon, capture (utilisation) and storage (CCS/CCUS)?

Carbon stock or GHG stock: Quantity of carbon or greenhouse gas (GHG) stored in biological and physicalsystems including but not limited to trees, products of harvested trees, agricultural crops, plants, wood andpaper products and other terrestrial biosphere sinks, soils, seas, and sedimentary and geological sinks●

Monoculture plantations?
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SARAWAK LAND CODE 1958●

Definition of land now includes ‘the column of airspace above the surface of the earth on the land’.

●

Licensing of the use of land for carbon storage.

●

Regulation and control of:○○○○the spectrum in the column of airspace above the land, on or below the surface of the earth forcarbon storage.
use of any land, including decommissioned oil and gas facilities for carbon storage.
building, installing and maintaining any carbon storage.
the deposit, treatment or storage of wastes of sites already or previously used for that purpose,
if the area or height of waste deposit is extended.

Implications to indigenous customary territories●

If there is poor recognition of indigenous customary territories, how can indigenous communities becarbon rights holders? To be carbon rights holders, your land rights must be legally secured andrecognised, as this is a licensed activity.

●

Most carbon market projects in the country, most likely will neither involve nor provide financial andother meaningful benefits to indigenous peoples. (Even today, indigenous customary territories without
land rights titles or reservation status are sites for licensed logging, monoculture plantation and miningactivities.).

●

Most carbon market projects will most likely benefit the state, corporations and other private parties
who may potentially be the carbon rights holders through a licence or a contract. This may promote theland grabbing of indigenous customary territories and introduce a new form of land rights violations.

●Fortress conservation: introduction of new restrictions to the way of life and customs of indigenous
communities (hunting, gathering of forest produce and shifting agriculture.)Implications to indigenous customary territories●●

2023: In a proposed project in Sarawak, Borneo: The carbon rights
holder is also the concession holder of a monoculture plantation
project.
2022: Sabah, Borneo – Nature Conservancy Agreement (NCA)
between the Sabah state government and Hoch Standard for 100
years over two million hectare of forests, without consultation andtransparency. (Civil legal action has been filed by an indigenous
community representative.)protecting indigenous customary territories●

We can still provide financial support to the protection of indigenous customary
territories, without tying this support to any carbon market or false climate projects.

●

Most carbon market projects, most likely will neither involve nor provide financial andother meaningful benefits to our indigenous peoples. They may weaken indigenous
customary land rights.

●

Corporate financialisation of nature will not solve the climate crisis, it will exacerbate it.

●

Public approach to climate finance must be prioritised: Ecological fiscal transfer (ETF),
trust funds, international climate funds, tax and budgetary reforms, strengthened
recognition of community conserved areas.

Challenging the narrative●

Knowledge gap between international climate advocacy and national/local forests andindigenous land rights advocacy.
○

How do you explain carbon markets to affected communities?

●

Challenge of bridging the knowledge gap between federal and national/local state
actors.

●

Seduction of false climate solutions – “you will get paid for conserving the forest andsolving the climate crisis.”outline
1. Introduction to carbon markets
2. Carbon markets and the indigenous
customary land rights
3. Why the carbon market is a false climate
solution?
4. What are real climate solutions?
5. Publications23

1. It is not based on
science.

2. Limited carbon budget –there is no more room forcarbon offsets

3. Forest carbon offsets
risk bringing more harmthan good to communities
and countries.

Why carbon market isa false climate
solution?
4. It opens up theopportunity for moredangerous and riskyclimate solutions geoengineering etc.

5. It is susceptible tospeculative, fraudulent andcriminal activity: Subprimecarbon, carbon bubble andcarbon trading crime241. Carbon offset is not based on science• Carbon markets assume thata unit of carbon emitted fromthe burning of fossil fuels is
the same as a unit of carbon
that can be stored by plants,soils and the forests.
• Fundamental difference:• Active, daily carbon cycle.
• Carbon emissions from fossil
fuels – earth’s permanent
carbon storage.
• “You cannot put geosphere
into the biosphere.”25

2. Limited carbon budget – there is no room for carbon offset at all
IPCC:• 2022: Mitigation– CO2 removal
cannot substitutedeep reductions.
• 2023: At current
rates carbon
budget will
exhaust in 11-12years.

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3. Forest carbon offsets risk bringing more harm than good
• Carbon colonisation

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4. Carbon markets leads to more dangerous and risky false solutions•

Geoengineering - large-scale intervention in the earth’s climate system

Bioenergy with carbon captureand storage (BECCS)

Carbon capture utilisation &storage

Solar geoengineering/ solar
radiation (at the planetaryscale)

Solar geoengineering/ solar radiation is
not a CO2 removal technology

5. Subprime carbon, carbon bubble and carbon trading crime29

Source: https://redd-monitor.org/2022/04/11/toucans-crypto-layer-on-top-of-carbon-offsets-is-expanding-the-market-for-toxic-hot-air/

outline
1. Introduction to carbon markets
2. Carbon markets and the indigenous
customary land rights
3. Why the carbon market is a false climatesolution?
4. What are real climate solutions?
5. Publications

30

Real climate solutions:
CFM and agroecology training centre, marudi, sarawak

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Real climate solutions:
Community forestry management (CFM)32

Real climate solutions:
Agroecology

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Perubahan Iklim: Historical responsibilities

Watch on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zP0L69ielU&t=3s

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outline
1. Introduction to carbon markets
2. Carbon markets and the indigenous
customary land rights
3. Why the carbon market is a false climatesolution?
4. What are real climate solutions?
5. Publications

35

PUBLICATIONS

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PUBLICATIONS

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TERIMA KASIH!
Sahabat Alam Malaysia
https://foe-malaysia.org/38