Why carbon trade matters to conservation
MANYARA: TANZANIANS are making great strides in conservation, part of which is due to embracing carbon trade opportunity.
Carbon trade agreements allow for the sale of carbon credits in order to reduce total emissions. Several countries and territories have started carbon trading programmes.
Carbon trading is adapted from cap and trade, a regulatory approach that successfully reduced sulfur pollution in the 1990s.
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In order to safeguard wildlife and natural resources conservation programmes leaders in Manyara region have introduced a hands-on approach for then advantage ofvillagers.
Manyara Regional Assistant Administrative Secretary, Mr Faraja Ngerageza noted recently that it is pertinent to involve people from the grassroots if conservation efforts are to be effective.
“We have to be creative, but following closely on historical events so that we are successful in conservation. if we do not involve people from the grassroots we are doomed to fail,” Mr Ngerageza said.
He was addressing journalists under the umbrella of the Journalists Environmental Association of Tanzania (JET), saying the region has prospered on that front because of its participatory approach that not only helps conservation, but also earn people a living.
The implementation is done under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Tuhifadhi Maliasili Project.
Carbon trade is the buying and selling of credits that permit a company or other entity to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. The carbon credits and the carbon trade are authorized by governments with the goal of gradually reducing overall carbon emissions and mitigating their contribution to climate change.
Carbon trading is also referred to as carbon emissions trading. The measures are aimed at reducing the effects of global warming but their effectiveness remains a matter of debate.
Rules for a global carbon market were established at the Glasgow COP26 climate change conference in November 2021, enacting an agreement first laid out at the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
-Carbon trading is based on the cap-and-trade regulations that successfully reduced sulfur pollution during the 1990s. This regulation introduced market-based incentives to reduce pollution: rather than mandating specific measures, the policy rewarded companies that cut their emissions and imposed financial costs on those that could not.
The idea of applying a cap-and-trade solution to carbon emissions originated with the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations treaty to mitigate climate change that took effect in 2005. At the time, the measure devised was intended to reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions to roughly 5% below 1990 levels by 2012. The Kyoto Protocol achieved mixed results, and an extension to its terms has not yet been ratified.
