The Global Carbon Council (GCC), a voluntary carbon market programme, has urged businesses in the Sultanate of Oman to register their climate mitigation projects to secure funding support and green finance through carbon offsets.
According to an official of the Qatar based body, around 1,480 projects from around the world have so far registered under the Council’s UN-approved carbon market programme. They include projects from the Sultanate of Oman, as well as an array of countries in the wider Middle East region.
“Tens of projects have been received from this region itself, but countries across most of the continents of the world are also submitting projects based on different mitigation activities, including renewables, sewage water treatment and transportation, and so on. Soon, green hydrogen will be added to the mitigation activity types,” said Kishor Rajhansa, Chief Operations Officer – Global Carbon Council.
Established in 2016, the Doha-headquartered institution operates a voluntary carbon offsetting programme that aims to assist businesses and organisations reduce their carbon footprints by adopting low-carbon pathways and embrace climate actions on the ground.
As part of this effort, the Council helps connect greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction project owners with the international carbon market system. Carbon offsets earned by the project owners under the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or the Paris Agreement can be offered for sale via established carbon markets. The project developers can also secure carbon finance for their ventures through these markets.
The Council says its universally approved certification processes help deliver cost-effective and sustainable carbon offsets to businesses and organisations.
Speaking at a green energy forum held in Muscat recently, Rajhansa said the Council can help bridge the yawning gap between carbon reduction pledges and actual targets that must be met to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Citing a 2020 report of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), he said that Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) submitted by countries under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are short in their aggregate pledges by a staggering 23 giga-tonnes of CO2.
“This is where a voluntary carbon market comes into the picture to support businesses and corporates achieve their targets, with hydrogen set to form a very big part in this journey to Net Zero,” the Chief Operations Officer noted. “Businesses and corporates are demonstrating clear appetite in their contribution to achieving the 1.5 degree C. goal with the help of the voluntary carbon market.”
According to Rajhansa, the voluntary carbon market has the potential to grow significantly in the coming decades. It is expected to grow 15-fold by 2030, with carbon prices currently in the range of $3 to $15 per tonne projected to reach between $30 and $50 by 2030, rising to around $100 per tonne by 2050.
As the only global voluntary carbon market programme in the MENA region, Global Carbon Council plans to issue about two billion credits over the next 10 years – at the rate of around 200 million per year, he said. At the same time, the Council is developing its own methodologies to issue carbon credits against green hydrogen – a move designed to enable green projects to secure carbon finance.
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