Certificated exclusion: forest carbon sequestration project in Southwest China

This research presents a case study of a high-profile carbon forest sequestration project in Southwest China, which claims to achieve ‘triple-win’ outcomes for livelihoods, biodiversity and climate change. However, over the last 15 years, each household that participated in the project has only received 10–20 USD (about 0.67–1.33 USD annually), despite the requirement for farmers to convert their agricultural land into tree plantations. We argue that contemporary capitalism engaged in climate change mitigation efforts has effectively recast the rural governance of land from a territorial arrangement to multiple actors exerting control over carbon credit certification, which creates a new form of climate injustice and social exclusion in agrarian change.