When Verra announced in September that it had cancelled more than 15 million carbon credits tied to Zimbabwe’s Kariba REDD+ project, the registry framed the move as an evidenced based step to restore confidence.
What the organisation did not acknowledge is who ultimately pays the price for that cancellation: the rural communities who were supposed to share in the economic benefits of those credits.
For years, Kariba was presented as a flagship REDD+ project, covering nearly 785,000 hectares and touted as one of the largest voluntary carbon projects in the world.
Revenues from the sale of credits were marketed as a lifeline for local communities, promising schools, health centres, jobs and resilience-building programmes in one of Zimbabwe’s most economically marginalised regions.
Now, with Verra’s unilateral cancellation of credits deemed “excess,” those promised benefits have vanished.
The registry’s correction has left communities with no recourse, no compensation, and little clarity about how or whether they will ever see the benefits they were told to expect.
The human impact of an accounting correction
Under the original project design, a share of credit sales revenues was earmarked for community development (including food security initiatives, education, and support for local infrastructure).
In theory, this revenue stream was meant to align climate mitigation with poverty alleviation, making carbon markets a win–win.
By cancelling millions of credits outright, Verra effectively eliminated the mechanism through which those communities were to receive long-term funding.
Whatever its technical justification, the cancellation translates directly into foregone income for local people who had no role in designing the methodologies, setting baselines, or making the accounting choices now deemed flawed.
In effect, rural Zimbabweans are being penalised for the governance failures of a global carbon market system headquartered thousands of kilometres away.
Lack of consultation, lack of safeguards
Verra’s September 23 press release describes the cancellations as a routine safeguard: a corrective measure to uphold credibility in carbon markets. But there is no mention of consultation with affected communities before the decision was taken.
There is no evidence that Verra engaged with local stakeholders about the financial implications, nor that it considered alternative remedies, such as assuming the liability for the credits they themselves had verified and issued.
This absence of consultation is not just a moral failing; it exposes a deeper flaw in voluntary carbon governance.
Communities, whose land and forests underpin these projects, remain the least empowered actors in decisions that directly affect their livelihoods.
Shifting the burden downwards
Critics argue that Verra’s move highlights a systemic imbalance: when carbon accounting errors or governance failures are uncovered, the burden of correction tends to fall on the weakest link in the chain.
Buyers are often protected — retired credits remain valid for corporate claims. Developers may walk away, as Carbon Green Investments did when it withdrew Kariba from the registry earlier this year.
Registries preserve their credibility by cancelling credits.
But communities, who cannot walk away from their land or forests, absorb the loss.
The system has no mechanism to ensure they are compensated when markets collapse around them.
