Government official: Carbon bonds will support Iraq’s budget

Baghdad – I.A.
The Ministry of Environment confirmed, on Friday, its determination to invest international support to reduce pollution, support the adaptation plan, and increase the vulnerability of the Iraqi population to the effects of climate change. While it indicated that it is working to complete the requirements for establishing the General Company for Carbon Economics, it indicated that its bonds will support the Iraqi budget, noting that its sale is based in accordance with the global Kyoto Protocol.
The technical advisor to the Minister of Environment, Nazir Abboud, told the Iraqi News Agency (INA): “The establishment of the General Company for Carbon Economics is one of the decisions of the Council of Ministers to move from the planning stage in climate action to the implementation stage. After the decision of the Council of Ministers, the founding statement was published in the Iraqi Gazette, and the Ministry of Environment is now working with the Special Diwani Order Committee on Carbon to write the internal regulations as well as appoint the Director General and the Board of Directors.”
Aboud added, “The establishment of this company is a new topic in Iraq and we hope that it will open the way for trading in the topic of carbon bonds and carbon markets to support the green economy because one of the most important directions of the government is the topic of diversifying the Iraqi economy,” indicating that “carbon bonds represent the backbone of the work of the Carbon Economics Company and work on the climate issue, and the topic is not new as it was approved in the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 with a clean mechanism and was traded in, but Iraq at that time was not a member of the climate agreement.”
He added, “Iraq’s situation is different now, so it wants to enter the carbon markets because the global trend is towards reducing emissions and limiting pollution. Iraq has a point of view in which we see that dealing through the carbon company correctly will support Iraq’s budget, and we will try to work on what is called compensation for this issue because the issue is complex.”
He noted that “Iraq has a plan called national contributions, and in this plan we have very clear steps in the process of investing international support to reduce pollution and reduce emissions in this area on the one hand, and on the other hand we are also developing what is called the adaptation plan and increasing the vulnerability of the Iraqi population and Iraqi society towards the effects of climate change.”
The Council of Ministers, in its forty-eighth regular session held on November 28, 2023, approved the establishment of a public company called (the General Company for Carbon Economics) affiliated to the Ministry of Environment with a capital of (10) billion dinars, to be paid from the state treasury in one payment or instalments; based on the provisions of the Public Companies Law (22 of 1997) as amended. The text stated that the activity of the aforementioned company shall be; developing, issuing and marketing carbon and greenhouse gas certificates through an internationally accredited platform, and the Ministry of Environment shall take the appropriate measures specified in Article (4) of the aforementioned Public Companies Law, and the share of the public treasury from the company’s profit referred to in Article (111/Fourth/1) of the aforementioned law shall be (95%), based on the authority of the Council of Ministers stipulated in Clause (Fifth) of the same article.

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