First Sudanese Project to Enter the Global Carbon Market
09 May, 2016KHARTOUM (SUDANOW)--The carbon sequestration is the first project for minimization of emissions to be carried out in the forests sector in Sudan aimed at marketing the idea of the global carbon market financed by the Global Environment Facility and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as part of the mechanism for minimization of the carbon dioxide emissions. The project is expected to be of benefit to some 10,000 families in the Butanah region.
According to the national director of the Sudanese Carbon Sequestration Project, Sumaya Abdoun, the project is funded by a 3.650 million US dollar grant from the Global Environment Facility. It is a complementary program with the integrated Butanah Rural Development project of Gedaref and Gezira states which is financed by an IFAD loan of more than 10 million US dollars for the carbon project.
Abdoun added that the project would be carried out in four years' time 2014-2017 by the National Forests Corporation, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, the Butanah Development Corporation and the High Council for Environment and Natural Recurses.
Acacia trees will be planted over an area of 10,000 hectares, equivalent to around 24,000 feddans, applying different methods, including forestation and reforestation and mixed farming systems.
The project is aimed at consolidation of the rural development friendly to the climate change by increasing the carbon stock and decreasing the net emissions of the warm gases in the country, preserving the rural development and the constant administration in the region of the project.
It consists of activities of the forestation and reforestation to increase absorption of the carbon and protection and improvement the administration of the forests by preservation of the carbon stock and improving the methods of its management, consolidation of production of the sustainable energy at the local level and capacity-building at the national level for monitoring and reporting on the carbon stock in addition to the local awareness.
The project is run by a national steering committee, a technical committee and a national executive committee in the Khartoum-based National Forests Corporation besides two executive units from the two states.
Abdoun said the project is executed by the National Forests Corporation, as a government unit, but as regards the carbon both the government and the private sector may benefit from the forest resources and sell their stock of the new carbon dioxide commodity in the international market, if they can administer and protect their trees in a proper way.
She said the market is of two kinds- formal and voluntary and the private sector and communities, whether government or citizens, individuals or organization, can present the carbon commodity at a price of 3 to 13 US dollars or more per ton. Abdoun added that for instance a 10,00 hectares can bring USD 4,400,000 over four years if the ton is sold for 7 US dollars.
Abdoun underlined that a better planning, protection, refraining from cutting for other purposes like farming constitute a wise administration of the forests to ensure benefiting from them as sources of carbon that bring in considerable revenues for the state.
She indicated that the global carbon market has a method for verification of the sustainability of the trees and protection of their lands and a method for measuring the quantity of the stocked carbon for agreement on the price which will be paid later on.
The forest resources and their ownership must be registered from the start to be used for the specific carbon market purpose, Abdoun said.
She elucidated that the idea of considering carbon dioxide as a commodity that the can sold arose during negotiation of Kyoto Agreement on the climate change in 1997 and was based on simple principle that a tree stores carbon in its trunk and other parts and therefore minimizes its release in the atmosphere, cuts down the rate of warm emissions and decreases the temperature on the earth.
In the meantime, there are certain countries which, as a result of their indispensable heavy industries increase the release of carbon gas and thus raise the temperature of the earth. Kyoto Agreement provided that those countries pay funds to the developing countries which are affected by the emissions, provided that those affected countries plant more trees that store the carbon and this process came to be known as the carbon market. The idea simply means growing more trees that can store the carbon which is responsible for raising the temperature of the atmosphere.
Abdoun added that the acacia hashab tree stores 12 tons of carbon on each hectare which the sunut, another acacia species stores 25 tons in a year and every country has to plant the tree that suits its local environment and that can absorb and store the carbon.
There are presently two available ways for making use of the carbon emissions which are the voluntary carbon market and the clean development mechanism which was included in Kyoto protocol. There are conditions of eligibility and steps for implementation of the activities for earning the stocks of the carbon emissions and the eligibility depends on several conditions including the method, the timing, the kind of the soil for planting the trees.
The coordinator of the national forest resources count program of the federal Ministry of Agriculture, Salah Yusuf Mohamed, said according to an account recently made by the Ministry of Agriculture, there are 184 local species of trees and shrubs which are all good for storing carbon. The stored carbon can be measured in a certain method by determining the bulk or the dry part of the tree which can be made by dried by burning rather than long exposure to the sun for getting rid of the humidity.
He added that the National Forests Corporation has now the bulk weights of a few acacia trees, including sunut and hashab, recommending that the research centers and universities conduct extensive studies and research activities to make available data and information for assisting the Sudanese and foreign businessmen concerned with the carbon business.
Mohamed also recommended that the private sector, the associations, the civil society organizations and the native administrations, particularly those of the gum Arabic regions, properly manage and protect their forests and to possess formal ownership documents.
The carbon trade is the short name given by the industrialists to warm gases trade which has as an international carbon market, like any other commodity, with a fixed price for a ton of carbon which is released in the atmosphere by the industrial countries. Every industrial country which has signed Kyoto treaty should observe the clean development mechanism and be obliged to cut down the carbon emission to a specific figure for each country.
As it is difficult for the industrial nations to reach the set figure, they resort to decreasing a certain degree of the emissions and get the remainder through funding green projects in the developing nations.
In this case the seller will be from nations of low carbon dioxide emissions and the purchaser will be the nation with increasing emissions and the commodity will be the carbon dioxide which constitutes 50% of the warm gases while the price will be subject to the supply and demand.
Kyoto Protocol which was approved in 1997 provides for reducing the gaseous emissions by the industrialized nations and those which are heading towards the market economy. The Protocol is based on the carbon market, the joint implementation of the projects of the protocol and the clean development mechanism.
It helps the industrialized nations achieve their goals by trading in the emissions amongst themselves and by carrying out projects for decreasing the emissions in other nations. The joint implementation is concerned with the projects which have begun in countries which are committed to the set rates of emissions while the clean development mechanism include the projects which are presently being implemented in the developing countries which are not committed to decreasing the emissions because they have none.
The treaty permits purchasing units of decreasing emissions amongst the nations and among companies within one nation and the EU has begun the trading mechanism in 2005.
Certificates are distributed for each allowed ton of carbon dioxide or any other gas which causes a similar harm. The certificates may be exchanged amongst the nations or the companies. This trade covers specific sectors like the energy and such industries as those of iron, steel, paper and wood. The first ever bourse for circulation of such certificates has been established in Germany.
The experts generally regard the carbon trade as complicated and indicate that the prices were very low during the past period and they predict that the political commitment decreasing boost the prices. The European Union has made a commitment that by 2020 the emissions would be cut down by 20% compared to the level of 1990.
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