Isra-Mart srl:Carbon trading pilot begins

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Isra-Mart srl news:

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry has introduced a pilot forest carbon credit trading scheme in Chanthaburi province.

Sirithan Pairojboriboon, director of the Greenhouse Gas Management Organisation, said a special committee comprising experts from the Forest and Marine and Coastal Resources departments have introduced the project, believed to be the first of its kind.

The aim is to study whether the country has enough capacity to invest in a forest carbon credit trading scheme under the regulations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Currently, 13 countries including China and Brazil have registered for carbon credit trading schemes.

Thailand has not signed up but is undertaking voluntary carbon exchange in various fields, without the verification and price controls required under the UNFCCC.

Some Thai corporations have hired people to plant forests through their corporate social responsibility schemes and are claiming carbon credits for such activity.

“The prices under the UNFCCC’s framework and voluntary forest carbon credit are completely different,” Mr Sirithan said.

The UN scheme sets a price of about 10 (400 baht) per tonne of carbon, compared with only 2 under the voluntary scheme, he said.

“We have not done enough study into whether investment in carbon credit trades from the forest is worthwhile,” Mr Sirithan said. “The pilot in Chanthaburi province will give us the answer.”

More than 10,000 rai of the Weru River basin in Chanthaburi province, currently covered in mangrove, have been earmarked for the pilot carbon trading project.

It is believed that one rai of forest can absorb 2.7tonnes of carbon a year, Mr Sirithan said.

According to the UNFCCC regulations, a forest carbon credit project must see the planting of trees in an area that was classified as deforested before 1990.