World Bank to buy $63 mln in Costa Rican forest carbon credits

[Judi Lynn]

World Bank to buy $63 mln in Costa Rican forest carbon credits
Source: Reuters Point Carbon - Wed, 11 Sep 2013 04:30 AM
Author: Marcelo Teixeira

SAO PAULO, Sept 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The World Bank’s Carbon Fund signed a deal on Tuesday with the government of Costa Rica to buy up to $63 million worth of forest-based carbon credits, the bank said.

The agreement will allow the Central American country to expand a local program that pays landowners for conserving forests to an additional area of 340,000 hectares.

The final price for each credit will depend on negotiations that will be carried by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) with Costa Rica’s officials, according to the bank.

Some projections published last year during the 5th Carbon Fund meeting of the FCPF in Paris, indicated that Costa Rica would offer around 12.6 million emission reductions to the bank as part of the deal, indicating a price of $5 for each credit.

Costa Rica’s program to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), funded by a domestic tax on gasoline, has been active for over a decade and is the world’s first nation-wide system.

More:
http://www.trust.org/item/20130911114847-dbm87/?source=hptop

[NoOneMan]

1. Your credits will buy you a nice palm oil farm!

After they clear out the jungles of course

[Bacchus4.0]

2. no but its somewhat of a scam. Selling ecosystem functions for a price

The forests are already performing the carbon sequestration function so there is no increase in carbon being sequestered. They are not creating new forests, simply paying farmers to not cut them down.

You are not getting any additional ecological benefit, just creating a commodity out of thin air thats bought and sold. And the polluters continue to be able to pollute as before. The only real benefit is the preservation of the forests themselves.