Climate change: Waste to energy plants in city soon

Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC executive secretary, appreciates the role of Pakistani stakeholders.

LAHORE: Christiana Figueres, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary, on Sunday appreciated the role of Pakistani stakeholders in projects related to climate change in the context of Conference of Parties, held in December 2010, in Cancun, Mexico.

Figueres was presiding over a seminar on Pakistan’s Vulnerability to Climate Change and Responses. She appreciated the role of Waste Busters, a private waste management company, which has recently concluded the financial close of a 10 million euro project to divert over 300,000 tons of municipal solid waste from landfills and produce energy from it.

The UNFCCC, she said, would support this project with confirmation of the Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) earned in the very first Clean Development Mechanism project in the Waste to Energy field in Pakistan.

Figueres said that Waste Busters had proven the market leaders in Pakistan for the Carbon Credits Scheme and paved the way for many other private entrepreneurs to follow suit in this sector. She said that the company was expected to earn over US$1 million per annum from the CERs generated in these projects over 15 years.

She said that the Carbon Credits Scheme project was being financed by an international consortium led by the Saudi conglomerate, Xenel Industries, Baladarrie Group and Invisor Securities. The consortium planned to establish Waste to Energy plants in all major cities of Pakistan. Agreements with Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar were already under way, she added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2011.