Friday, March 7, 2008

International carbon credit company starts NZ forest deals

NZPA
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An international company selling "carbon credits" around the world has started signing deals with New Zealand foresters to obtain rights to credits from their forests. The company, GreenAir Ltd, is lining up owners of forests planted since 1990 to sell the carbon credits from their plantations when the Government allows forestry emissions trading later this year. One carbon credit is equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere. GreenAir said today that its NZ forestry projects will provide valuable premium "UN-quality carbon credits". Forestry has become the first sector to benefit from the emissions trading market that will be created by legislation now before the Parliament, with landowners able to generate additional revenue by maintaining existing forestry or by developing new forestry projects. GreenAir has other forestry projects in South America, South East Asia and the Pacific, and has said it will try to raise up to $100 million through a share offering on the Australian Securities Exchange later this year. The company chairman, Himanshu Dua, said today that the law changes now underway in New Zealand will mean owners of post-1990 forests will be able to generate additional revenue through sustainable management and selling carbon credits internationally.GreenAir would ensure the projects were established in line with the new legislation and would provide funding and technical expertise, and expected to commercialise at least three million tonnes of forestry carbon credits in New Zealand. The company said its initial pipeline of projects represented over nine million tonnes a year of carbon credits at maturity, compared with the current pool of 80 million tonnes of carbon credits globally that had been approved by the United Nations. Analysts expected there to be a global shortage of carbon credits in coming years because the creation of credits will not be able to keep up with demand, Mr Dua said.

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