The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Voluntary Carbon Market Projects 2024

Foreword The impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt across the globe, but these impacts are not distributed equally. This year, 2024, is predicted to have been hotter than 2023 – the hottest year on record at the time of writing. On the frontline of climate change and desertification, Sahelian communities are facing escalating challenges, having to adapt to peak temperatures of 45°C during 2024 and with limited access to water and energy. Within this context, the ambition of the Great Green Wall initiative is critical. However, a financing gap remains and progress is delayed under challenging conditions. 1t.org and Tree Aid have prepared this white paper as a complement to the World Economic Forum’s 2022 insight report The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Value Chains: An Action Agenda to Scale Restoration in the Sahel.1 This new report highlights the potential of voluntary carbon markets to facilitate the flow of additional private sector finance, both to help address the financing gap and to accelerate impact on-the- ground for the communities who need it most.Nicole Schwab Co-Head, Nature Positive Pillar; Member of the Executive Committee; World Economic Forum Tom Skirrow Chief Executive Officer, Tree Aid The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Voluntary Carbon Market Projects: Unlocking Opportunities for Sahelian CommunitiesDecember 2024 Voluntary carbon markets can help channel finance to communities facing escalating impacts of climate change in the Sahel. The Great Green Wall is an iconic effort to collaboratively tackle regional landscape degradation across 11 Sahelian countries. In order for it to reach the vision of 100 million hectares of restored land and create 10 million green jobs, private sector investment into those landscapes is key. This paper highlights the growing opportunity to invest in nature-based solutions within the region and achieve valuable commercial, environmental and social returns. Through effective, high-integrity, large-scale voluntary carbon market programming, the degraded lands of the region can be seen as an opportunity rather than a hindrance to that investment. Central to this opportunity is leveraging the capacities of local land custodians – the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who manage this landscape – to harness and drive forward the potential for restoration. High-quality voluntary carbon market programmes must ensure communities play a central role in the delivery and long-term success of landscape restoration efforts, and foster the potential to drive up local employment and prosperity as envisaged by the goals of the Great Green Wall. The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Voluntary Carbon Market Projects 3