Environmentalists urged to produce carbon credits with transparency, integrity

 

William Asiko Vice President Rockefeller Foundation (Left) Paul Muthaura CEO Africa Carbon Market Initiative (Middle) and CEO and Founder of BURN Peter Scott

Integrity in carbon markets space has been cited as one of the key aspect stakeholders need to uphold in a bid to support communities through finance development.  

Speaking at a press briefing in Nairobi, William Asiko Vice President Rockefeller Foundation emphasized on the need to have producers, producing high quality carbon credits with integrity and transparency.

While calling for market inter-mediation, he noted that “developers must build a functioning market for carbon credits with integrity in Africa.“

Speaking at the same forum, CEO Africa Carbon Market Initiative Paul Muthaura called on stakeholders to support local project developers to be able to start generating solutions and revenue.

“There was a need to make sure that taxation is not disincentivizing people from coming to the carbon markets space for equitable allocation of carbon revenue to all layers of the society and communities that are involved.” Said Muthaura.

Additionally he mentioned that the Africa Carbon Market Initiative was working closely with the government so there is a true understanding of what it means to build a conducive legal regulatory environment for carbon markets to function.

Africa Development Bank funding

On 14th of May 2024 at a landmark summit on Clean Cooking in Africa held in Paris, the Bank Group’s President Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said the institution would commit 20 per cent of all its financing of energy projects towards promoting safe alternatives to cooking with charcoal, wood and biomass.

On his part, Regional Principal Officer Africa Development Bank Olufunso Somorin, noted that the bank has committed $2 billion over the next 10 years towards clean cooking solutions in Africa, a major step along the road to saving the lives of 600,000 mainly women and children each year.

“School feeding programme is a growing initiative in many governments in Africa and especially in Kenya which will be among the countries to benefit.” Somorin said.

Somorin said the Africa Development Bank will also support private sector individuals that are into clean cooking spaces to get receive cheap capital to support their ventures.

By Christine Muchira