Background

Under international and national carbon trading policies, carbon offsets give companies, financial institutions and governments the option to spend money on “emissions-saving projects,” instead of reducing their own emissions at source. This was first introduced at the 1995 Kyoto Protocol, after which policies of carbon offset began to emerge in the United Kingdom and the European Union in 2001 under the “Climate Change Levy”.

This introduced a climate tax on heavily polluting companies. It presented a method where companies could get a discount on the emissions tax if they elected to make reductions through participation in a new “carbon trading scheme”. This trading scheme recruited 54 sectors of the UK economy, giving participants the decision to take action to manage their emissions, or to reduce their emissions below the target, allowing them to release carbon allowances that they could then sell or save for the future. Markets emerged where participants can also buy and sell allowances from each other. Alongside this scheme emerged the REDD scheme, which aimed to help corporations offset their carbon in developing countries around the globe.

Not only have these schemes largely failed in their creation of sufficient carbon emissions, they also further the capitalist agenda of forestry and agri-business that has been emerging since the start of the postcolonial era in the mid-20th century

The site of exploration in this project focuses on the Cwrt-y-Cadno valley in Wales.

Since 2021, there region has been under threat of being destroyed by the carbon offset market. Foresight, a company registered in the Shard in London, bought up farms in the area to plant commercial, non-native conifers over the existing hillside in order to sell off carbon credits to their financial investors for profit.Thus, farmers are finding themselves priced out of good quality farming land as many can simply not compete with the new prices.