Zimbabwe’s environment ministry plans to closely regulate voluntary carbon offset trading to curb greenwashing and ensure benefits go toward local communities.
The global $2-billion voluntary carbon offset market involves companies purchasing credits from emission-reducing projects such as renewable energy or planting trees to offset their own emissions.
Organizations operating carbon credit projects in the country were largely unregulated because they were only registered with local councils and traditional community leaders, as a result, Zimbabwe's carbon market lacks reliable data, Zimbabwe says.
The government now is requiring all carbon projects to be registered with authorities within the next two months.
Of all revenue from carbon projects, the government will take 50%, with foreign investors limited to 30%, and the balance of 20% going to local communities, said Mangaliso Ndlovu, Zimbabwe's environment and climate minister.
"We are determined to make sure that climate finance resources, meant to empower the country, accrue to the most deserving. We do not want instances of climate washing," Ndlovu said during the launch of the new carbon market policy.
Zimbabwe’s company Carbon Green Africa (CGA) has partnered with Switzerland's South Pole to protect the 785,000-hectare Kariba forest and implement the forest protection project which has sold 23 million carbon credits since 2011. CGA said it is waiting to see the impact of the new policy on existing projects.
"We need to see the money going to the respective communities so they don't continue decimating forests if they understand that they will be deriving benefits from them," said Charles Ndondo, CGA’s managing partner.
