Try GOLD - Free

TRADE TENSIONS

Down To Earth

|

March 01, 2025

Why the benefits of agroforestry carbon trade do not trickle down to farmers

TRADE TENSIONS

IN THEORY, agroforestry carbon credit projects can be a win-win solution for both the communities and environment. Though such projects are picking up in India, DTE's interaction with farmers and analysis of project documents show that farmers rarely benefit from the carbon revenue—and this has to do with the design of the voluntary carbon market as well as the lack of transparency in the agreements with poor communities.

PRICING WOES

First, in a voluntary carbon market, as the name suggests, prices are determined by an agreement between a buyer (a company looking to retire a credit) and a seller (a project developer, for instance). "The price is a question of what buyers are willing to pay and at what price project developers are willing to sell. There is no regulation of the price," Lambert Schneider, research coordinator for International Climate Policy at Oeko-Institut in Berlin, tells DTE. However, buyers are willing to pay a premium for high-quality carbon credits, such as credits generated from projects that pass the additionality check (removals from the project would not have occurred without the revenue from the sale of carbon credits), and offers co-benefits for biodiversity and local communities.

MORE STORIES FROM Down To Earth

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

How to slash a drug price by 97 per cent

Rulings that bar patent extensions on flimsy grounds by drug giants are opening the gates to dramatically cheaper generic medicines

time to read

4 mins

November 01, 2025

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

Flushed and forgotten

Poor containment systems, weak monitoring and illegal dumping have turned Uttar Pradesh's faecal sludge handling into an environmental ticking bomb

time to read

4 mins

November 01, 2025

Down To Earth

To do or not to do

AS I write this, there is massive churning in the world—not the kind that makes headlines, but deeper undercurrents: collisions of powerful forces working against each other. What will emerge as the victor? At this point, the only certainty is uncertainty.

time to read

3 mins

November 01, 2025

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

FADING REEFS

Warm-water corals are the first major ecosystem to collapse in a rapidly warming planet. Scientists are racing to save them using cutting-edge technologies, from preserving spawn to breeding hardier varieties, but admit their efforts may fall short unless global temperature rises are limited to below 1.5°C.

time to read

5 mins

November 01, 2025

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

Emphasis on rebuilding Gaza post-truce

ON OCTOBER 10, Israel and Palestine declared a ceasefire after a two-year war that led to the deaths of thousands of people and led to mass displacement and a famine in the disputed Gaza strip.

time to read

1 min

November 01, 2025

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

Collective denial

A decade on from the Paris Agreement, countries are planning more fossil fuel production than before, putting global climate ambitions at increasing risk

time to read

4 mins

October 16, 2025

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

BUILT TO BINGE

Over the past few decades, food companies have exploited basic human instincts to peddle ultra-processed products. Engineered to hijack the brain's reward system, these foods are silently fuelling a new addiction epidemic, and driving rising rates of obesity and chronic diseases. Urgent policy action is needed to reclaim control over our food environment.

time to read

19 mins

October 16, 2025

Down To Earth

Another farmer quits

THIS DUSSEHRA, Pitabasha did not go for the customary sighting of the Indian Roller, or tiha, as it is called in Odia. The bird is believed to grant wishes, and every year thousands of people flock to farms, fields and forests hoping to glimpse it and make a wish. But the 30-year-old farmer from Matupali village in Odisha stayed back. From that day, he also stopped calling himself a farmer.

time to read

2 mins

October 16, 2025

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

What the H-1B visa angst reveals about India

It is odd that India strenuously promotes the exodus of its tech talent while failing to foster innovation at home

time to read

4 mins

October 16, 2025

Down To Earth

Down To Earth

REDUCED TO INSIGNIFICANCE

On October 12, the Right to Information (RTI) Act completed 20 years. Activists who monitor the Act, and former information commissioners, say that amendments by successive governments have rendered the law toothless. As per Central Information Commission's latest annual report (2023-24), the number of RTI applications rejected in the year was over 67,615—the highest ever. BHAGIRATH curates a conversation on what went wrong with the law that was sought to bring transparency and accountability in governance.

time to read

14 mins

October 16, 2025

Listen

Translate

Share

-
+

Change font size