Kenya to launch new emissions trading scheme

Kenya will launch an emissions trading scheme to help local companies sell carbon credits, Business Daily Africa reported on Tuesday.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange said the scheme will help Kenyan firms including the country’s largest utility KenGen, Mumias Sugar, East Africa Portland Cement and grid operator Kenya Power, to sell their emissions credits.

A launch date has not yet been confirmed but Rogito Nyangeri, the NSE’s head of strategy and research, said: “We are 65 per cent done with taking a carbon market live in Kenya, and are now looking to draft rules and the legal framework.”

Nyangeri  added: “We are dealing with our listed institutions who have amassed a war chest of carbon credits, trying to create a board much like is in existence in [South] Korea where we get the big industries and industrialised nations to come to Kenya and buy the credits from our companies. We view it as tied up cash.”

The NSE hopes that a formal emissions trading scheme will be an easier way for firms to sell their credits to foreign buyers compared to emissions reduction purchase agreements, which are harder to negotiate.

The new NSE platform could also be used to trade the new type of carbon units that will be generated by the future international market-based mechanism, which was agreed at the Paris climate summit in December.