Rwanda has the potential to benefit from the carbon market considering its current conservation commitments, Faustin Vuningoma, a climate activist who is attending COP26 UN climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, has said.

Vuningoma who heads a network of 63 environmental and climate change organisations in Rwanda said that one remaining task from the Paris Agreement in 2015 is to set rules for carbon markets, particularly how countries can trade carbon credits with each other, or between a country and a private company.

Such market framework would allow nations to finance carbon-cutting projects in other countries and count the avoided emissions towards their own climate targets as a way of fighting global warming.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement signed in 2016 would set up a sustainable development mechanism that could allow, for instance, a rich nation to offset its industrial emissions by paying a poor country to protect tropical forests, or to set up a solar power plant among others.

But there are no agreed-upon rules for accounting for emissions savings generated by such initiatives.

The carbon market mechanism was designed under the Paris Agreement and the rules governing this mechanism are expected to be agreed upon at the ongoing climate talks.

"Rwanda with our current conservation commitments should be benefiting from the carbon market. All our reserves such as forests of the national parks of Nyungwe, Volcanoes and Gishwati-Mukura, protected wetlands and many other forests across the country remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere and avoid climate change,’’ he said.

He explained that developed countries that are major polluters can buy carbon credits from Rwanda depending on the amount of carbon emissions they emit in the atmosphere.

"Carbon emissions that Rwanda emits are less than what it removes from the air meaning it can sell carbon credits,’’ Vuningoma explained.

The climate change expert and activist said that the carbon credit limits the emission to one tonne of carbon dioxide or the mass of another greenhouse gas with a carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) corresponding to one tonne of carbon dioxide.

In other words, he explained, one carbon credit corresponds to one metric tonne of carbon dioxide prevented from entering the atmosphere.

"If you prevent one metric tonne of carbon dioxide from polluting the atmosphere depending on forests you have that absorb such emissions, you should be paid for it. Negotiations on how countries could do this are going on at the climate conference,” he said.

Today, the current country’s forest cover is equivalent to 30.4 per cent - about 724,662 hectares. Of this, 53 per cent are plantations, 21 per cent are wooded savannas, 19 per cent are natural mountain rainforests and 6.2 per cent are shrubs.

Currently, 23,456.15 hectares (equivalent to 38.4 per cent of state forests) are now managed by private investors through long-term concession agreements.

The carbon price

Vuningoma said that the weighted average price per ton for credits from forestry and land-use projects that reduce emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere has been on a steady upward path, rising from $4.33 per credit in 2019 to $4.73 per credit in 2020, with a spike to $5.60 per credit in 2021.

In high rainfall zones with good soil, he said it may take 3-5 trees over 25 years to sequester one tonne of carbon emissions while in lower rainfall zones with poorer soil, it could take as many as 15 trees.

"On average, one acre of new forest can sequester about 2.5 tons of carbon annually. Trees reach their most productive stage of carbon storage at about 10 years,” he said.

Speaking ahead of the second week of negotiations that started on Monday, Rwanda’s Deputy Lead Negotiator Herman Hakuzimana said: "Rwanda’s team of negotiators is working hard to represent the interests of Africa in the negotiations. We are confident and optimistic that we will have good results on the common timeframe for NDCs (climate plans), on carbon markets and on climate finance.”

One side of negotiations is to ensure there are no double reporting of emission reductions by both the carbon credits seller and the buyer.

Some delegates fear Article 6 might fail to be resolved in Glasgow and could be delayed again to 2022 when the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) is slated to be held in Egypt.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement aims at promoting integrated, holistic and balanced approaches that will assist governments in implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions through voluntary international cooperation.