Former President Jacob Zuma with an examination of carbon credits on behalf of the Afro-Belarusian Trade Organization. Supplied: JZ Corporation
The Carbon Registry and Exchange, which was due to be launched in Zimbabwe next month, has cast doubt on the fate of the two million Russian offsets that a Belarusian trading company said it would list on the stock exchange.
It said in a statement that the voluntary carbon credit market in Africa would only offset originating on the continent. At a conference this month, former South African President Jacob Zuma, representing the Belarusian-African Foreign Trade Association, BAFTA, announced that the credits obtained by the union would launch trade on the stock exchange. Belarusian government officials later confirmed that these funds were from the Siberian Forest Project.
The exchange will “only trade carbon credits of its platform originating from countries on the African continent and not any other jurisdiction,” Kanili Hlapangana, chairman of the center’s board of directors, said in a statement on Tuesday. He made no reference to Zuma’s announcement other than to say that the foreign media had “sought to drag our organization into geopolitical issues”.
An official from the National Agency for Investment and Privatization of Belarus, in response to an inquiry, said that BAFTA respected the “commercial decision” made by AVCCM. “Our commitment and resolve when it comes to Zimbabwe remains unchanged.”
A carbon credit is a ton of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide or equivalent either removed from the atmosphere or prevented from entering in the first place. It is purchased by greenhouse gas emitters to offset their activities.
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