BRUNEI has a renowned reputation for preserving its pristine forests, which covers 76 per cent of the country's total land area. In July this year the Forestry Department announced that it will be expanding the country's forest reserve cover from 41 per cent to 55 per cent of forested areas to fulfill the commitment embodied in the 1989 National Forestry Policy.
The sultanate's participation in the Heart of Borneo (HoB) project, further strengthens the government's stance on forest protection and illegal logging.
Other than serving as an epitome for the country's efforts in forest conservation practices in the global arena or simply winning the hearts of environmentalists, the HoB or even just Brunei's forests alone are also in effect "carbon sinks". Can Brunei's very own "carbon sink", or on a more bigger scope the HoB, be sold as an "absorption ability" to other nations that produce more carbon dioxide (CO2) than it can absorb in order to offset the gas emissions?
Carbon trading is making a foray into the global currency market. The European Union had already set up a carbon trading market in 2005 to get industries such as steel makers or oil refineries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
The carbon trade came about in response to the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997 that calls for 38 industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between the years 2008 to 2012 to levels that are 5.2 per cent lower than those in 1990.
The idea behind carbon trading is quite similar to the trading of securities or commodities in a marketplace, according to Investopedia, a Forbes subsidiary.
Carbon would be given an economic value, allowing people, companies or nations to trade it. If a nation bought carbon, it would be buying the rights to burn it, and a nation selling carbon would be giving up its rights to burn it.
The value of the carbon would be based on the ability of the country owning the carbon to store it or to prevent it from being released into the atmosphere.
Hence, the better you are at storing it, the more you can charge for it. A market would be created to facilitate the buying and selling of the rights to emit greenhouse gases. The industrialised nations for which reducing emissions is a daunting task could buy the emission rights from another nation whose industries do not produce as much of these gases.
Even though Brunei is not party to the Kyoto Protocol and is unable to officially trade in the carbon market through the United Nations, it can do so voluntarily through numerous brokers such as www.ecosystemmarketplace.com.
As there is no carbon trading yet in Asia and since it is restricted to big energy intensive producers and users, the carbon credits generated here will not be considered "real" carbon credits yet, until the project is verified and realised, Professor Kenny Tang, the author of "WASTEnomics: Turning Liabilities into Assets", told The Brunei Times in an interview recently.
However, in the future, with Brunei taking the lead in making use of carbon credits, hopefully neighbouring countries with higher pollution levels and more industrialised economies such as Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines will take notice and follow suit, he said.
Such an initiative will definitely go hand-in-hand with Brunei's new initiatives for the recently-concluded Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem), where His Majesty announced during the final day of the meeting that Brunei will be hosting an international workshop on environmental protection involving young scientists from Asia and Europe to tackle the need for a long-term global goal for greenhouse emission reductions to achieve sustainable development.
The Brunei Times
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
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