Zoomlion Partners UK For Carbon Trading To Reduce Global Warming

ZOOMLION Ghana Limited is entering into partnership with the UK government to sell carbon to the UK under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) developed as part of measures to reduce global warming and its consequent devastation on the environment.

Ghana will be the first country in Africa to have entered into such an agreement when the deal is finally concluded and sealed on December 15, 2011 with the Standard Bank Group (SBG) of the UK, representing the UK government.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of the ongoing Conference of Parties (COP) 17 meeting organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the leader of the Zoomlion delegation to the COP 17 meeting, Mr George Kwesi Rockson, explained that the CDM was introduced in 1992 but Ghana had not yet benefitted and this would be its very first project.

The 10-year contract, according to Mr Rockson, was to enable Zoomlion to sell approximately 60,000 tonnes of carbon to the UK annually.

The SBG’s carbon trading division has nine years’ experience on international climate financing mechanisms, such as the CDM, and operates within the primary and secondary carbon markets. It has the track record of having traded 95 million tonnes of carbon, with 20 million tonnes of carbon emissions abatement last year.

The CDM was introduced to allow countries that are unable to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to the required amount under the Kyoto Protocol due to high industrialisation to buy them from developing countries that emit less. By such an arrangement, such developed countries are expected to balance their emissions with those bought from the developing countries.

“Zoomlion is the first company to put Ghana on this leverage. We are extremely enthusiastic about this and highly optimistic about the prospects,” he stated.

Explaining further, Mr Rockson stated that the project would take off in January 2012 when its compost plant at Adjen Kotoku began operations.

The Adjen Kotoku Compost Plant is the first modern plant for Accra expected to convert 900 metric tonnes of solid waste (organic waste) daily into fertiliser to boost agriculture.

Currently, Accra is not benefitting from its 2,000 tonnes of solid waste generated daily as it is merely dumped in final disposal sites and illegally into major and minor drains, which often results in flooding due to the fact that the drains meant for waste water carry garbage instead.

It is, however, expected that once the compost plant begins its operations next year, the chunk of this solid waste will be diverted to the plant to turn it into useful commodities such as organic fertiliser, the carbon trading, among others.

Other members of the Zoomlion delegation were Mr Yao Kuma Edem, George Owusu Afriyie, Mrs Rhoda Donkor and Lyndon Sackey, all working under various departments of Zoomlion.

Mrs Donkor told the Daily Graphic that Zoomlion had been participating in the UNFCCC conference on climate change to explore more business opportunities in other African countries, as the company was currently in various projects and programmes directly related to climate change.

Currently, Zoomlion is operating in Angola, Liberia, among others, and with the participation of 195 countries, including those from Africa, the company found it necessary to market some of its services, which include Zoil (cleaning of beaches and coastline) and solid waste management.