Specialist chemicals group Omnia on Monday announced its intention to apply to become eligible for emission-reduction projects under the Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect on February 16.
In terms of the protocol, industrialised countries are given limitations on the amounts of greenhouse gases they can emit.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a tool adopted by the protocol that allows developing nations to sell carbon credits to the industrial sector, which uses these carbon units (usually traded in tonnes) to offset the carbon emissions that it produces.
The Kyoto Protocol requires that all CDM-projects be subjected to validation and verification by an operating entity or an approved third-party verifier.
The companies are then responsible for implementing the registered monitoring plan and calculating the emission reductions.
Omnia Fertiliser has started preparing its Sasolburg plant to decrease its greenhouse-gas emissions by between 500 000 and 600 000 tonnes per year.
This move is in line with the group’s commitment to sustainable development and its continual improvement in environmental matters, Omnia said.
The project might generate between R80-million and R100-million in revenue, based on the current €22,47-a-tonne projection for certified emissions reductions.
These units can be traded like other commodities, with the price depending on supply-and-demand factors that vary from day to day.
The majority of industrialised countries that have signed up to the Kyoto Protocol have committed to reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.
The European Union is due to initiate its carbon-trading programme in 2005 and this could allow for the use of carbon credits from countries outside the EU, Omnia said.
Almost all the industrialised countries have committed to reductions in their collective greenhouse-gas emissions between 2008 and 2012.
The penalty is €40 a tonne of carbon dioxide emitted from next year to 2008, which rises to €100 per tonne from 2008. — I-Net Bridge