A new ‘carbon grab’ is under way as governments and corporations seize valuable rights to the carbon stored in standing forests, with UN and World Bank support. But there’s no benefit for forest communities – who even risk expulsion to make way for ‘carbon plantations’. As the United Nations and the World Bank prepare to develop world carbon markets as a tool to halt deforestation under so-called REDD+,new research warns of a new ‘carbon grab’ in the making.