The United Nations has approved a Chinese chemical plant's sale of greenhouse gas emission credits to the World Bank in the largest-ever emission reductions deal.

 

The Changshu 3F Zhonghao New Chemicals Material Co. Ltd, in Jiangsu Province, will receive 438 million euros for cutting HFC-23 (trifluoromethane) emissions by the equivalent of 10.43 million tons of carbon dioxide annually for the next seven years.

 

The World Bank will buy the company's emission reductions on behalf of a partnership of overseas public and private sector buyers, the Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News reported on Thursday.

 

HFC-23 has a global warming potential 11,700 times greater than carbon dioxide. It is generated in the manufacture of HCFC-22, a gas used as a refrigerant and feedstock, and a raw material for other products.

 

HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons, are among the six heat-trapping gases covered in the Kyoto Protocol.

 

The deal will ensure the factory's HFC-23 is captured and safely disposed of.

 

The Umbrella Carbon Facility of the World Bank will buy the emission reductions for six euros per equivalent ton of carbon dioxide.

 

The Kyoto Protocol, which took effect in February last year, sets targets for industrialized countries on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that would lower the risk of global climate change.

 

The United Nations pact obligates industrialized signatory nations to cut their collective emissions of six key gases by an average 5.2 percent from 1990 levels during the 2008 to 2012 period.

 

Purchase deals on gas emission reduction can be negotiated under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol.

 

The CDM is a market-based mechanism that allows industrialized countries to invest in developing country projects and acquire emission reduction credits, or carbon credits, that they can then use to fulfill their commitments under the protocol.

 

Under Chinese regulations on CDM cooperation, the chemical firm will take 35 percent of the project's profit, while the government takes the other 65 percent to support future sustainable development programs.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 11, 2006)