UN registers carbon credit project for Baku waste plant
By Nigar Orujova
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has registered a carbon offset credit project for Baku Waste-to-Energy Plant presented by the Tamiz Shahar company.
The volume of the Certified Emission Reduction in the frame of the 10-year project is expected to be around 661,462 tons of greenhouse gases including CO2.
A carbon offset credit is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere.
One carbon offset represents the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases.
Greenhouse gas emissions amount to 52.5 million tons of CO2 in Azerbaijan, which is 0.1 percent of the worldwide greenhouse gas emission volume.
Azerbaijan's GDP has increased six to seven times in the last ten years, however, greenhouse gas emissions remain at the level of 45-50 million tons of CO2 a year.
A greenhouse gas is a gas released into the Earth's atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect, which results in an elevation of the average surface temperature above what it would be in the absence of the gases.
The waste-to-energy plant opened in Azerbaijan in December 2012 is the largest plant in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc CIS for production capacity, planned to prevent greenhouse gas emissions that emerge during the breakdown of waste.
Tamiz Shahar, which was established to work to improve the environmental situation of the capital city through disposal of solid household waste in accordance with modern standards, presented the project to the UN in the frame of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) at the end of 2012.
The CDM, created based on the UNFCCC, helps to obtain carbon credits to reduce hazardous emissions into the atmosphere in developing countries.
Along with developing countries providing aid to reduce emissions, the CDM stimulates sustainable development in the area of environmental protection.
The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty negotiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro June 3-14, 1992. The objective of the treaty is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenicinterference with the climate system."
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the goal of not only environmentalists, but also of every government in the world.
About 192 countries have adopted the Kyoto Protocol that set binding obligations on the industrialized countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Azerbaijan ratified the document in September 2000.