The presence of the minister responsible for forestry, Yvonne Mboissona, in the high level delegation accompanying president of the Central African Republic François Bozizé on his visit to the Middle East next week highlights the potential of Kyoto Protocol to make preservation of the country's forests economically worthwhile.
Zen Carbon Management, an international carbon trader and consultant, has been working with President François Bozizé's team to develop the country's carbon trading strategy in a way that maximizes its economic and environmental benefits. With the company's strong ties with the Central African Republic and other African states, it seems Zen Carbon Management boasts the potential to become one of the world's leading companies in this sphere.
The company's strategist, Mr. H. Edo, explained this economic potential: "The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty that requires the industrialized countries to reduce their emissions of gasses that affect global warming, such as carbon. The Protocol also gives these countries permission to "trade" with other nations. For example, a big factory in the EU which must reduce gas emissions can pay for a project in an African country that reduces emissions there, and this will be a substitute for the gas reduction in Europe. Companies such as Zen Carbon Management participate in trading these credits on international exchanges, and in developing new carbon-reducing resources for use in this "Carbon Trading" market."
The Central African Republic has a natural ecosystem of Rain Forests, but has suffered extensively from deforestation in the past decades. The government has taken several measures to limit this, but the causes of deforestation, such as cutting down trees for export to Europe, are the country's key sources of trade income, and so they cannot be abolished.
However, Kyoto now gives an economic basis for stopping deforestation: Destroying the rain forests not only harms the local ecology, it also produces a lot of carbon emissions that impact the entire world. Therefore, if Western companies pay for projects that reduce deforestation, they can receive carbon credits in return. "It is an exciting development when Europe will be paying Africa to keep the trees healthy rather then to cut them down", explains Mr. Edo.
President François Bozizé's visit highlights the potential that the Middle East also has to benefit from the Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol encourages the switch to natural gas, from which several of the exporting countries benefit, but it also provides all the countries of the region with the potential to develop projects for local carbon reduction that will be tradable commodities.
There is also logic to developing the market for trading these means locally, especially as the extent and the sophistication of the local markets that trade commodities and other non-stock instruments has been growing rapidly over the recent years. Several such organizations have expressed interest in this area.
