An interesting topic came up in the show, The Bottomline with Boy Abunda.
Boy Abunda was interviewing L-Ray Villafuerte, Camsur's maverick governor. Both were discussing the province's ongoing project, a plan to plant 12 million trees by 2012. Asked about the motive behind this, Villafuerte mentions carbon credits and how it can provide the necessary economic impetus for green projects, such as his province's tree planting movement.
Simply put, carbon credit refer to (as per Wikipedia) "any tradeable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or the mass of another greenhouse gas with a carbon dioxide equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide".
In step with the Kyoto protocol, nations have pledged to lower their overall greenhouse gas emissions after a given time period. In other words, countries have set themselves their own limits as to how much pollution they can spew out without severely compromising their economic development. However, industrialized nations who cannot or will not do so can opt to purchase "carbon credits" from nations who have lowered theirs. This way, they can technically stick to their limits by owning another country's right to foul the air.
That's where Villafuerte steps in. By planting a dozen million trees, he hopes to sell industrialized nations carbon credits, an ingenious way of preserving both the local environment and making preservation efforts sustainable.
I don't know how he will make such a project feasible though (as far as I know, measuring how much carbon dioxide a hectare planted with several certain tree species can absorb isn't an exact science yet). But he has definitely paved the way for how other green initiatives can prosper.
Boy Abunda was interviewing L-Ray Villafuerte, Camsur's maverick governor. Both were discussing the province's ongoing project, a plan to plant 12 million trees by 2012. Asked about the motive behind this, Villafuerte mentions carbon credits and how it can provide the necessary economic impetus for green projects, such as his province's tree planting movement.
Simply put, carbon credit refer to (as per Wikipedia) "any tradeable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or the mass of another greenhouse gas with a carbon dioxide equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide".
In step with the Kyoto protocol, nations have pledged to lower their overall greenhouse gas emissions after a given time period. In other words, countries have set themselves their own limits as to how much pollution they can spew out without severely compromising their economic development. However, industrialized nations who cannot or will not do so can opt to purchase "carbon credits" from nations who have lowered theirs. This way, they can technically stick to their limits by owning another country's right to foul the air.
That's where Villafuerte steps in. By planting a dozen million trees, he hopes to sell industrialized nations carbon credits, an ingenious way of preserving both the local environment and making preservation efforts sustainable.
I don't know how he will make such a project feasible though (as far as I know, measuring how much carbon dioxide a hectare planted with several certain tree species can absorb isn't an exact science yet). But he has definitely paved the way for how other green initiatives can prosper.
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