According to the scheme’s website, Saudi Arabia will introduce a greenhouse gas credits program early next year, enabling businesses to offset their emissions by purchasing credits from initiatives that voluntarily reduce or eliminate them.
Launched at the United Nations MENA Climate Week in Riyadh, the Greenhouse Gas Crediting and Offsetting Mechanism (GCOM) of the kingdom aims “to incentivise the deployment of emission reduction and removal activities at scale to support and enable climate-related national strategies, policies, and programs,” according to the GCOM website.
The program is optional, project-based, encompasses greenhouse gas and non-greenhouse gas “metrics across all sectors,” is available to the public and commercial sectors and domestic subsidiaries of international corporations, and is by Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, said a year ago that it would establish the Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company (RVCMC) in partnership with the Tadawul Group, which runs the Saudi Exchange in Riyadh.
In June, 16 Saudi companies, including the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, and the country’s sole provider of electricity, the Saudi Electricity Company, purchased more than 2.2 million tonnes of carbon credits, which the auction’s organizer, RVCMC, claimed were verified and originated from initiatives that either reduced emissions through the use of green technologies or removed carbon from the atmosphere.
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