Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-7 (section)

==== 7.4.9.4 Corruption and elite capture ====

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Inequalities of wealth and power can allow processes of corruption and elite capture (where public resources are used for the benefit of a few individuals in detriment to the larger populations) which can affect both adaptation and mitigation actions, at levels from the local to the global that, in turn, risk creating inequitable or unjust outcomes (Sovacool 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r960|960]]</sup> ) ( ''limited evidence, medium agreement'' ). This includes risks of corruption in REDD+ processes (Sheng et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r961|961]]</sup> ; Williams and Dupuy 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r962|962]]</sup> ) and of corruption or elite capture in broader forest governance (Sundström 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r963|963]]</sup> ; Persha and Andersson 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r964|964]]</sup> ), as well as elite capture of benefits from planned adaptation at a local level (Sovacool 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r965|965]]</sup> ).

Peer-reviewed empirical studies that focus on corruption in climate finance and interventions, particularly at a local level, are rare, due in part to the obvious difficulties of researching illegal and clandestine activity (Fadairo et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r966|966]]</sup> ). At the country level, historical levels of corruption are shown to affect current climate polices and global cooperation (Fredriksson and Neumayer 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r967|967]]</sup> ). Brown (2010) <sup>[[#fn:r968|968]]</sup> sees three likely inlets of corruption into REDD+: in the setting of forest baselines, the reconciliation of project and natural credits, and the implementation of control of illegal logging. The transnational and north-south dimensions of corruption are highlighted by debates on which US legislative instruments (e.g., the Lacey Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) could be used to prosecute the northern corporations that are involved in illegal logging (Gordon 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r969|969]]</sup> ; Waite 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r970|970]]</sup> ).

Fadairo et al. (2017) <sup>[[#fn:r971|971]]</sup> carried out a structured survey of perceptions of households in forest-edge communities served by REDD+, as well as those of local officials, in south eastern Nigeria. They report high rates of agreement that allocation of carbon rights is opaque and uncertain, distribution of benefits is untimely, uncertain and unpredictable, and the REDD+ decision-making process is vulnerable to political interference that benefits powerful individuals. Only 35% of respondents had an overall perception of transparency in REDD+ process as ‘good’. Of eight institutional processes or facilities previously identified by the government of Nigeria and international agencies as indicators of commitment to transparent and equitable governance, only three were evident in the local REDD+ office as ‘very functional’ or ‘fairly functional’.

At the local level, the risks of corruption and elite capture of the benefits of climate action are high in decentralised regimes (Persha and Andersson 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r972|972]]</sup> ). Rahman (2018) discusses elicitation of bribes (by local-level government staff) and extortion (by criminals) to allow poor rural people to gather forest products. The results are a general undermining of households’ adaptive capacity and perverse incentives to over-exploit forests once bribes have been paid, leading to over-extraction and biodiversity loss. Where there are pre-existing inequalities and conflict, participation processes need careful management and firm external agency to achieve genuine transformation and avoid elite capture (Rigon 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r973|973]]</sup> ). An illustration of the range of types of elite capture is given by Sovacool (2018) <sup>[[#fn:r974|974]]</sup> for adaptation initiatives including coastal afforestation, combining document review and key informant interviews in Bangladesh, with an analytical approach from political ecology. Four processes are discussed: enclosure, including land grabbing and preventing the poor establishing new land rights; exclusion of the poor from decision-making over adaptation; encroachment on the resources of the poor by new adaptation infrastructure; and entrenchment of community disempowerment through patronage. The article notes that observing these processes does not imply they are always present, nor that adaptation efforts should be abandoned.

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