Germany seeks carbon credits to offset official travel

Germany has launched a tender process to buy more than 235,000 credits to offset last year’s carbon emissions from business travel. The government is compensating for the climate footprint of […]

Germany has launched a tender process to buy more than 235,000 credits to offset last year’s carbon emissions from business travel.

The government is compensating for the climate footprint of all its official travel through UN-certified carbon offsets, according to the UN Framework for Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The tender process is open until 16th August.

The transport sector is responsible for around 23% of total energy-related global CO2 emissions and the German Government wants to play its part in tackling the problem by using credits obtained from projects that are certified according to UN rules under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

It is part of the government’s ‘Avoid-Reduce-Offset’ strategy for business travel, which includes cutting or avoiding emissions caused by travel and offsetting those which cannot be avoided by investing in emission reductions elsewhere.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast transport emissions could increase globally by up to 50% by 2035 and double by 2050.

Federal Minister for Environment Barbara Hendricks said: “Avoiding emissions should always be first choice. But the Federal Government offsets what is unavoidable by investing in high-quality climate change mitigation projects. We will be doing this for the Climate Change Conference in November 2017 in Bonn, keeping emissions and pollution as low as possible and offsetting unavoidable emissions.”

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