Agency, inequality, and additionality: contested assemblages of agricultural carbon finance in western Kenya
Connor Joseph Cavanagh, Pål Vedeld, Jón Geir Pétursson, Anthony Kibet Chemarum
Abstract
Harnessing literatures on the political ecologies of agrarian change and carbon offsetting, this article presents a case study of a high-profile agricultural carbon finance initiative: the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project. Despite project claims regarding ‘triple win' outcomes for livelihoods, sustainability, and climate mitigation, the annual mean carbon revenue reported in our sample is 0.33 US dollars per household and year. Contextualizing the (in)significance of these payments, we argue that emerging initiatives for leveraging agricultural carbon finance increasingly risk necessitating a denial of farmers’ endogenous agency, as well as their embeddedness in both regional and global political ecologies of agrarian change.