According to the decision of the Government of the Republic, the Ministry of the Environment will be responsible for compliance with the requirements under the Kyoto Protocol, which is a precondition for the sale of carbon emission credits through the green investment scheme. If a buyer is found, the Ministry of the Environment will have to prepare international transaction agreements in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The task of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be to inform foreign missions of Estonia’s willingness to sell emission credits and to forward the contacts of the representatives of potential buying countries to the Ministry of the Environment.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications has to develop procedures for allocating the income from the sale of emission rights to the projects in its area of government.
“Estonia is flexible about selling the rights, looking at each transaction separately and considering the wishes of each buyer,” said Jaanus Tamkivi, the Minister of the Environment. “With such flexibility, we try to arouse the interest of as many buyers as possible,” he commented. The details of the transactions will be specified in purchase and sale contracts, which will be signed by the Minister of the Environment. All purchase and sale contracts will be subject to prior approval of the Government.
“The main condition of successful sale of carbon credits is that the money earned should be certainly used in environmental projects,” Tamkivi emphasised.
Currently, Estonia has spare emission rights on 85.19 m tons of CO2 equivalent, i.e., 17.19 m tons of CO2 equivalent per year. The surplus of emission rights was caused by extensive restructuring of Estonia’s economy though implementation of modern technologies and alternative methods of energy production, increased utilisation of renewable energy sources, measures to optimise energy consumption, etc.
More information: (28/08/2009) |
