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On Wednesday, November 9, local time, US climate envoy John Kerry announced the country's latest "carbon offsetting" plan to help developing countries get rid of fossil fuels by raising cash from private companies.
At the United Nations Climate Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Kerry called the "Energy Transition Accelerator" and that when implemented, it will "catalyze private capital and accelerate the energy transition in developing countries."
According to him, the U.S. government will work with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation to launch the program to attract private companies to buy "carbon credits" to unlock $100 billion in financing for green projects by 2030.
Kerry explained that the money to purchase these "carbon credits" will be made available to developing countries to help them transition to renewable energy. In return, participating companies will receive emission reductions commensurate with previously purchased "carbon credits" to achieve "carbon offsets."
"Our aim is to make the carbon market work, deploy capital that would otherwise be undeployable, and accelerate the transition from unclean to clean energy, especially by decommissioning coal-fired power that continues unabated and accelerating the construction of renewable energy," Kerry said.
For now, Nigeria and Chile have expressed interest in the program, Kerry said.
But as Kerry launched the program, a Native American climate activist taunted him in the audience and was escorted away by security guards. "All I did was tell him that we needed to act on climate and what he was proposing was the wrong solution," activist Micah Carpenter-Lott told the outlet.
The announcement of the plan comes a day after the United Nations warned that some private companies, investors and local governments were using dubious "carbon credit" trading to achieve carbon neutrality. The UN urges countries to set stricter guidelines for carbon markets.
(Editor: Jin Liwei)