UAE to buy US$450 carbon credits from Zim

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has pledged to buy carbon credits worth US$450 million from the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI) as Africa’s carbon credit production is targeted to grow 19-fold by 2030, according to reports.

ACMI was launched in Egypt last year.

The pledge was made at the continent’s first climate summit held in Nairobi, Kenya between September 1 and 3 and officially opened by Kenyan President William Ruto.

Zimbabwe is the first southern African nation to regulate its carbon offset market after canceling the existing projects early this year.

It then allowed the developers of carbon credits to keep 70 percent of the proceeds during the first decade of the project, with 30 percent paid as an environmental levy.

Being the first country to regulate carbon credit marketing could make the country a preferred beneficiary of the global pledges, according to some climate change activists.

“We must see in green growth, not just a climate imperative but also a fountain of multi-billion dollar economic opportunities that Africa and the world is primed to capitalise,” President Ruto told delegates.

The offset market was worth around US$2 billion in 2021 and Shell and Boston Consulting Group jointly forecast in January that it could reach between US$10 billion and US$40 billion by 2030, reports say.

Zimbabwe is believed to be the world’s 12th largest producer of offsets, with 4,2 million credits generated from 30 registered projects last year. The country’s largest project, encompassing a 785-000-hectare stretch of forest in northern Kariba, is run in part by the South Pole, the world’s foremost seller of offset, according to reports.

However, the project promoters are being probed for allegedly making super profits by inflating the number of carbon credits and sidelining local communities. The project spans four Zimbabwean provinces: Matabeleland North, Midlands, Mashonaland West and Central. It is community-based and consists of the implementation of activities in conjunction with locals and is administered by four Rural District Councils: Binga, Nyaminyami, Hurungwe and Mbire.

There is also suspicion that some players have been clandestinely profiteering in the brisk carbon entrepreneurship by claiming they are conserving forests even in areas under Forestry Commission and the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.-ebusinessweekly