UN, World Bank Unveil Carbon Finance Program for Philippines Pig Farmers

by | Aug 7, 2012

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A UN and World Bank initiative has begun providing pig farms with incentives for using Earth-friendly waste treatment facilities.

On July 26, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change registered a Programme of Activity for piggeries under the Methane Recovery from Waste Management Project, which allows farms across the Philippines to generate carbon credits. Implemented by the Land Bank of the Philippines and supported by the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Unit, the project provides an additional income stream in the form of carbon finance to operators of piggeries to encourage them to install proper waste management systems and reduce the emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The Spanish Carbon Fund, administered by the World Bank, is buying the piggeries’ carbon credits.

Under the program the pig farmers earn carbon credits for each ton of methane captured. When fully implemented, the program is expected to produce over 100,000 tons of carbon credits per year from dozens of pig farms across the country.

This is the first program of activities from the Philippines to be registered and it is the first registered biogas PoA in the animal waste sector in south-east Asia, a region home to a significant number of the world’s pigs, the Wold Bank said.

Carbon finance facilitates financial rewards through carbon credits for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by emitters in developing countries, like the Philippines, through the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.

The CDM allows industrialized countries and companies to fulfill some of their greenhouse gas reduction commitments through the purchase of carbon credits in clean-and-green projects in developing countries, according to the World Bank.

In September 2011, Google invested in a pilot project by Duke University and Duke Energy that, similar to the Philippines program, converts waste from a pig farm into usable energy that can then be sold for carbon-offset credits. By capturing greenhouse gases from hog waste and burning them to run a turbine, the system produces enough electricity to power 35 homes for a year.

At the time the story broke, the two Dukes had spent $1.2m on the system so far. Google has not disclosed the size of its investment.

Picture credit: Vicky Sawyer

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