VietNamNet Bridge –For the first time, Vietnam has issued 510,952 emission credits for the project on the Vietnam livestock biogas program.

The project monitoring report of Gold Standard organization showed that in the period from June 2010 to the end of 2012, the biogas program issued 510,952 emission credits, which meant that 510,952 tons of CO2 was reduced, thanks the project implementation in Vietnam. This is really an encouraging result for the 10-year implementation of the project.

The national biogas project has been carried out in Vietnam by the Dutch organization SNV and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, with the financial support from the Dutch government.

It aims to provide the solutions allowing to convert the waste into the sustainable source of energy for the families in rural areas. It is estimated that 130,000 biogas works have been built so far, which has benefited 650,000 rural people who can get the clean and cheap energy in a sustainable way.

According to Hoang Kim Giao, Director of the Livestock Department, there are about two million households in Vietnam earning their living on livestock farming. The carbon credits would encourage the further cooperation which would help more and more people get benefits from family-scaled biogas works.

To date, the project has helped reduce 350,000 tons of CO2 of emission a year, which means that every household has helped reduce 5 tons of CO2 a year thanks to the use of biogas instead of firewood and fossil fuel. Especially, the project has created thousands of jobs, thus helping improve the living standards for hundreds of thousands of the rural poor people.

Eric Buysman, advisor to Nexus, the organization which develops non-profit cooperation projects to develop and commercialize carbon credits, recognized by Gold Standard, said the certified quality of the bigogas project and the credit issuance show that the carbon market absolutely can support the popularity of the technology to improve the living standards.

Sources said a lot of clients, including the French Midi-Pyrénées, have committed to buy carbon credits from the Vietnam biogas project to compensate their carbon emission volumes.

Dagmar Zwebe, the SNV’s advisor to the biogas project, said it’s wonderful to have the Gold Standard’s recognition for the success of the project. The success can shows the big influences the cooperation project between Vietnam and the Netherlands to the environment quality and Vietnamese farmers.

The biogas project has begun welcoming the organizations which are interested in buying carbon credits from the project. The sale of the carbon credits on the market would provide a long term source of income for the development of the biogas market in Vietnam.

As for the developing countries like Vietnam, joining the carbon market can bring the great opportunities to access to the modern technologies, create financial income sources and join forces with the world to reduce the emission and get adapted to the climate change.

According to Nguyen Khac Hieu, Deputy Head of the Department of Hydrometeorology and Climate Change, Vietnam is considering the solutions to develop a low carbon economy. However, in order to build up a low carbon market and a low carbon society, it would need to have a big financial capability

Thien Nhien