Two Chinese companies signed greenhouse gas emission reduction purchase agreements with the World Bank on Friday. The deal involves a reduction of about 300,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year. The bank, which signed the two deals on behalf of the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) and the Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF), said the projects are a hydro project and a wind farm project in China.

 

Under the wind farm project deal, 50 to 100 wind turbines with a total generation capacity of 100 megawatts will be installed in Ulanqab County in north China's Inner Mongolia, to supply 245 gigawatt hours to the north China Power Grid.

 

This project is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 240,000 tons a year by replacing coal-fired generation. The PCF will purchase 1.6 million tons of certified emission reductions from the project.

 

The second project is the China Hubei Guangrun Hydro Development Project, located in Guangrun County in central China's Hubei Province.

 

According to the deal, three power stations, with a combined generating capacity of 28 megawatts, will be installed on the Guangrun River.

 

When they reach full capacity at the end of 2008, the hydro stations are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 72,560 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year.

 

Through the World Bank, the CDCF will purchase around 485,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from this project.

 

According to the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

 

To do this, apart from cutting their own emissions, they can also acquire reductions in emissions from other countries, which count toward their reduction targets.

 

The PCF, started in 2000 and managed by the World Bank, is a pioneer in the market for project-based greenhouse gas emission reduction, while the CDCF, created in 2003, is a public/private initiative which provides carbon finance to projects in poorer areas of the developing world.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 28, 2006)