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COP28: Govt working on regulations to implement Green Credits
The project will be implemented in public private partnership mode with Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education acting as nodal body, an official said
The Union environment ministry is working on rules to guide the Green Credits Programme, pitched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ongoing United Nations Climate summit (COP28), and these will be published soon, senior officials said on Saturday.
“The green credits (programme) is based on the idea on how can we convert ecosystem services and activities into an economic resource. How can we incentivise afforestation of degraded lands? We have asked government departments to identify degraded or community waste lands for this,” an official aware of the details said on condition of anonymity.
The project will be implemented in the public private partnership (PPP) mode with the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) acting as the nodal body, the official said.
PM Modi on Friday pitched for the more “holistic” Green Credits instead of carbon credits which he said had a limited purview and were plagued by a commercial element.
The Green Credits Programme has been conceptualised to incentivise voluntary efforts to address the challenge of climate crisis, the PM said at a high-level event on the Programme at the World Climate Action summit on Friday.
“I have seen a major lack of a sense of social responsibility in the system of carbon credit. We will have to emphasise on a new philosophy in a holistic manner and that is the foundation of Green Credit,” the PM said.
The initiative has been launched along with UAE, the COP28 Presidency and India expects participation from several countries in knowledge sharing and conceptualising the scheme so that it can be used globally to trade in green credits.
But the initial focus of the project will be degraded and waste lands in India, the official cited above said.
“We are first looking at creating carbon sinks in India. To meet that goal, we are focusing on greening degraded lands, community lands and waste lands and benefit those who are doing it by compensating them. Those credits can then be traded in,” the official said.
A Green Credit Registry and a trading platform have been developed by ICFRE to facilitate the registration, and trading of green credits.
The Green Credit Programme seeks to replicate the carbon market system where carbon credits can be used by companies or governments to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions. They can purchase carbon credits from entities that worked to remove or reduce emissions.
To obtain green credits, companies must register their activities through www.moefcc-gcp.in.
But the initiative has come under criticism with several experts raising concerns about how widespread afforestation projects will impact local ecology and forest dwellers rights. The GCP notification came months after the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act was passed by Parliament and received the President’s assent on August 4.
