Estonia to sell about a billion kroons worth of carbon credits
04.03.2010, 09:55Estonia may sell about $87 million worth of spare United Nations carbon credits this year assigned to the east European country under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, double the initial plan, a senior government official said according to Bloomberg.
Estonian officials are holding talks with about 10 interested buyers, Keit Kasemets, strategy director at the state chancellery in Tallinn, said in a phone interview today. Sales will probably double the budgeted 500 million kroons as demand is higher than expected, he said.
“Talks with interested buyers over the last few months have made us double the initial plans even though the market is fragile at the moment,” Kasemets said. “Boosting sales much over a billion krooni is probably not realistic since there are bigger sellers in the market now, such as Poland and Russia.”
Estonia’s Environment Ministry last August proposed to sell as many as 85 million metric tons of so-called Assigned Amount Units, or AAUs, over coming years by starting a Green Investment Scheme, as part of efforts to boost budget revenue hit by the third-worst recession in the 27-member European Union. Such programs are designed to make sure the money is spent on projects that curb greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Cabinet will tomorrow formally authorize Environment Minister Jaanus Tamkivi to sign a first deal to sell units to Austria, the government said in an e-mailed statement today, without giving further details.
AAUs are assigned to developed and emerging nations that have greenhouse-gas emission targets set as part of the protocol. The Kyoto treaty allows countries with spare AAUs to sell them to nations that have exceeded their quota.