The National / March 2, 2023 / Carbon trading lacks regulations
THE Government does not have regulatory powers to control operations of carbon trading in the country, an official says. Climate Change Development Authority’s (CCDA) measurement, reporting and verification, and national communication division acting general manager Debra Sungi said the Government did not even have power to stop investors negotiating directly with locals.
Sungi said this was because the country did not have a carbon marketing policy framework to allow the Government to monitor, regulate and allow for carbon marketing to take place, whether it be in the forest or marine environment. “We need a regulatory framework to ensure everything that everyone is doing is working for a common goal,” she said. “There are a lot of activities, not only carbon marketing, but also in the conservation, preservation, agriculture, manufacturing and waste management in large companies, as well as academic research done by academia, all these need to be monitored and regulated.
“As we speak there is no national carbon policy framework to give the Government the powers to control or oversee those activities. “So with the policy framework, we hope to connect these activities, bring them under a common framework so we all work toward a common goal.”
Sungi said carbon marketing was one of the reasons why the Government needed to have a policy frame work. But before addressing carbon marketing, the CCDA needs to address two key areas, implementation of an inventory, and a blue carbon framework to capture the marine ecosystem which also plays a vital role in controlling carbon emissions. Sungi said this during the Blue Carbon Framework for Papua New Guinea workshop yesterday in Port Moresby.
The workshop was attended by key shareholders and development partners acting country manager for The Nature Conservancy, Ruth Konia, said blue carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass beds and saltmarshes constitute two to six per cent of the total area of tropical forests, however, their degradation accounts for 19 per cent of annual carbon emissions from global deforestation. She said TNC would work with the Government through the CCDA to develop the regulatory framework which could capture both the blue (marine) and red (forest) carbon markets.
