GenZero, a subsidiary of global investment company Temasek based in Singapore, is investing in a forest restoration project in Ghana aimed at generating carbon credits.
Businesses in Singapore, according to The Straits Times, can potentially use the credits to offset part of their carbon tax.
GenZero is collaborating with AJA Climate Solutions, another Singapore-based firm, to pump almost $30mn “to restore about 100,000ha of degraded land in the Kwahu region of Ghana,” said GenZero chief executive Frederick Teo on the sidelines of the Ecosperity Week conference.
The funds will be deployed progressively across the project’s two stages – with the first phase set to start in the last quarter of 2023 and the second phase in 2027, Straits Times added.
Singapore’s carbon tax, which is applicable to facilities producing more than 25,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, is set to increase fivefold to $25 per tonne in 2024 and $80 per tonne by the end of the decade.
Singapore-based companies can offset 5% of their taxable emissions using high-quality carbon credits.
According to a GenZero statement issued on Thursday (June 8), Ghana has a rich, diverse forest ecosystem and productive agricultural land, but has been threatened by deforestation arising from agricultural expansion and logging.
Therefore, embarking on nature-based solutions could help the West African country with reforestation and remove planet-warming gas from the atmosphere, thus mitigating the effects of climate change.
Illegal mining has resulted in Ghana losing more cocoa hectares year on year, which is affecting the economy of the debt-distressed West African country.
The project will involve replanting degraded forest reserves, including growing cocoa trees sustainably in shaded farms to shield these plantations from potentially damaging climate impacts such as floods, heat stress and pests. More than 20mn native species seedlings will be planted over seven years.
StariTimes
