Carbon markets alone won’t keep Southeast Asia’s forests standing: report

Abatify Summary

Nature & Climate Perspective

**Unabated deforestation across 42 million hectares of concessions poses a critical threat to regional biodiversity and carbon sinks if market mechanisms fail to match agricultural commodity yields. **

Over 42 million hectares of highly biodiverse tropical rainforests in Southeast Asia remain vulnerable to conversion for palm oil, rubber, and timber concessions.
The carbon sequestration potential of these ecosystems is severely diminished when carbon credit valuations fail to outcompete traditional land-use revenue models.
Failure to protect these core concessions undermines long-term environmental stability and compromises critical LULUCF carbon reservoirs across the region.

Market & Policy Outlook

**Current carbon pricing structures fail to meet ICVCM additionality benchmarks or match land-use opportunity costs without supplementary regulatory and financial interventions. **

National policy frameworks must look beyond voluntary markets to integrate compliance mandates, sovereign bilateral agreements, or Article 6.2 ITMO transfers to bridge the financial gap.
Market pricing and financial liquidity for REDD+ projects will remain constrained until carbon prices rise sufficiently to offset the opportunity costs of timber and oil palm production.
Corporations seeking Scope 3 supply chain mitigation or SBTi-aligned targets face increased reputational risk if relying on low-cost forest credits that lack ICVCM Core Carbon Principles (CCP) high-integrity backing.

About 42 million hectares of forest remain within logging, oil palm, timber, and rubber concessions across the region, a new report finds. Conserving them through carbon markets alone would require carbon prices far above current levels.

Carbon markets alone won’t keep Southeast Asia’s forests standing: report

Abatify Summary

Nature & Climate Perspective

Market & Policy Outlook

Related Resources