Africa: Letter to African agriculture and environment ministers

'We, the undersigned civil society organisations from Africa and around the world, strongly object to a decision in Durban for an agriculture work programme focused on mitigation, which would lead to agricultural soils and agroecological practices being turned into commodities to be sold on carbon markets, or used as sinks to enable industrialised countries to continue to avoid reducing emissions. African ministers have been urged by the World Bank to endorse this approach, coined as “climate smart” agriculture. Yet legitimizing soil carbon offsets through a mitigation-based agriculture work programme will further destabilize the climate, fail to tackle the real causes of agriculture emissions, present a major distraction from the need to generate public finance, and exacerbate social injustice by shifting the burden of mitigation onto developing countries – especially their small producers. Soil carbon offsets also have the potential to drive a new speculative land grab, further undermining food sovereignty and the right to food.'