UAE, India hail green credit initiative at COP28
DUBAI, December 2, 2023
UAE President HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday (December 1) witnessed the launch of the Green Credit Initiative at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) at Expo City Dubai.
The Green Credit Initiative aims to promote environmental conservation through voluntary opportunities for organisations and individuals. The aim is to encourage proactive environmental actions beyond legal requirements, making sustainable practices simple and widespread.
The initiative encourages large-scale participation in greening the planet and includes launching a web platform as a repository for environmentally friendly policies and practices, featuring case studies, webinars, and opportunities for international cooperation.
During the Green Credit Initiative launch event, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed expressed his appreciation for the initiative and its importance in supporting the environment and providing a global platform for dialogue and cooperation on climate solutions that serve the common global goal of combating climate change.
It was first introduced by Modi government in India on October 13 keeping two main priorities - water conservation and afforestation.
India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change defined the initiative as a "market-based mechanism designed to incentivize voluntary environmental actions across diverse sectors by various stakeholders like individuals, communities, private sector industries, and companies."
While launching the web portal for the scheme at COP28, PM Modi said, "The manner in which we give importance to our Health Card in life, we have to similarly start thinking in the context of environment. We will have to see what is to be done to add positive points to Earth's Health Card. I think this is what Green Credit is."
Under this initiative, green credits will be assigned to specific environmental activities, and will be treated as tradable commodities. These green credits will be able to be sold on domestic market platforms.
The main purpose of this initiative is to boost voluntary environmental activities like tree plantation, water conservation, sustainable agriculture, and waste management by incentivizing it for big corporations and private companies, bringing about a change in the climate issues faced by the country.
-TradeArabia News Service
