Blue Carbon, a Dubai-based company, signed a memorandum of understanding with Zimbabwe to generate carbon credits from about a fifth of the African country’s 150,000 square-mile landmass.
The planned deal, which Blue Carbon Chairman Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum said may bring $1.5 billion of climate finance into the country, was announced on Friday in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.
The deal, based on forest protection and rehabilitation, is the latest foray into Africa by Blue Carbon. The company is already working to produce the offsets from 10% of Liberia’s land.
It’s also a potential boost for Zimbabwe’s government after it roiled the $2 billion global carbon credit market in May by scrapping existing projects overnight and declaring it would take half of all revenue. That prompted concern among project developers that other nations would follow suit.
Zimbabwe has since softened the regulations and will now take a 30% share.
A single carbon credit is equivalent to one ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent either removed from the atmosphere or prevented from entering it in the first place. The offsets are bought by emitters of the climate warming gases to compensate for their activities.
Zimbabwe has close ties with the United Arab Emirates, which is the largest destination for exports from the African country, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
--With assistance from Ray Ndlovu.
