PRESIDENT, Dr. Irfaan Ali, announced on Friday that Guyana stands to earn US$750 million from the sale of its carbon credits to Hess Corporation.
At a signing ceremony, it was announced that the multi-year agreement is for 37.5 million REDD+ jurisdictional carbon credits.
These credits will be included in the REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard 2.0 register maintained by ART (Architecture for REDD+ Transactions) and will undergo independent verification.
The least amount Guyana anticipates receiving from Hess is the US$750 million payment. Guyana will be able to receive more money if the price of carbon credits rises on the global market.
The Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) had issued the world’s first The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES) credits to Guyana, marking the first time a country has been issued carbon credits specifically designed for the voluntary and compliant carbon markets for successfully preventing forest loss and degradation – a process known as jurisdictional REDD+.
“Following completion of an independent validation and verification process and approval by the ART Board of Directors, ART has issued 33.47 million TREES credits to Guyana for the five-year period from 2016 to 2020,” ART said in a press release.
Those serialised credits, listed on ART’s public registry, are available to buyers on the global carbon market, including for use by airlines for compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s global emission reduction programme, CORSIA, as well as for use toward voluntary corporate climate commitments.