Qatar first in carbon clean-up
Posted: 25 June 2007
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Qatar has become the first country in the GCC to successfully register a project under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a scheme under the Kyoto Protocol that allows rich countries to meet emissions targets by funding clean energy projects in developing nations.
In late May, Qatar Petroleum (QP) received formal approval for its Al-Shaheen Oil Field Gas Recovery and Utilistion Project that will prevent flaring of natural gas from the Al-Shaheen oil field, operated by Maersk Qatar Oil, part of Denmark 's A.P. Moeller-Maersk.
The project is the largest CDM project yet in cutting emissions – other than the most potent greenhouse gases, hydrofluorocarbons and nitrous oxides - and will prevent an estimated 2.5 million tonnes a year of greenhouse gas emissions until 2014.
The registration of the Al-Shaheen CDM project ranks Qatar eighth worldwide in terms of the average annual greenhouse gas emission reductions expected from CDM project activities.
To date, the UN Framework on Climate Change has issued over 50 million certified emissions reduction credits, each equivalent to the reduction of one tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2), to 684 different projects in over 40 countries.
Projects that destroy industrial hydrofluorocarbons, a greenhouse gas 12,000 times more potent than CO2, have been the most lucrative under the CDM scheme, and are now almost exhausted. |
