Japan has signed a carbon offset deal with Palau to allow Japanese companies to earn carbon credits by helping the small Pacific island nation cut its greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters reports.
Per the agreement, both nations will select representatives to operate the so-called Joint Crediting Mechanism. Japan already has nine such bilateral offset agreements — with Mongolia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, the Maldives, Vietnam, Laos and Costa Rica — and wants the UN to count credits earned under these agreements towards its emissions reduction goals.
In other carbon offset news, PetroChina, the state-owned oil and gas company, bought 10,000 Chinese carbon offsets from wind power producer Longyuan in late November for 16 yuan ($2.62) each, which is six times higher than international prices.
The purchase, carried out on the China Beijing Environment Exchange, was the first Chinese Certified Emissions Reduction (CCER) transaction and happened a day after Beijing became the third Chinese city to launch a carbon trading program.