Kathmandu, January 5:

The Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) of the World Bank is going to pay about $500,000 annually to Nepal for contributing in reducing the greenhouse gases by using biogas plants.

“Nepal stands to earn carbon revenues of about $500,000 annually from the World Bank,” said Sushila Maharjan, consultant for the Environmental Sector Unit of the WB, at a press meet today.

She said that the two biogas projects have been registered at the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board and the money will come after the projects are verified by the third party, which might take three or four months.

The CDCF estimates that each biogas plant reduces 4.99 tonnes of CO2 gas per year, by replacing the conventional firewood fuel. Thus it is going to purchase one million tonnes of

CO2 emission at the rate of $5 per tonne of CO2 emission, making the total annual revenue equivalent to Rs 36,500,000.

Maharjan added, “The WB is committed to continuing its support to work towards a new methodology for the registration of the rest of the projects with the CDM Executive Board.”

Jiwan Acharya of Winrock International Nepal, who has been involved in technical assistance of the project, said that Nepal bears a huge potentiality of selling more carbon credit to the world.

“Nepal has many prospects for clean energy investment, including micro-hydro projects, biogas plants, hydropower projects, cement, brick and other industries,” he said.

Madan Basnet, the executive director of Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, said that having the biogas projects registered is not enough. “It is now our shared responsibility to monitor if the plants are operating properly,” he said.

He also said that the sale of carbon credit to the WB will help Nepal continue the project independently as some of the donors of the ongoing project have indicated that they will give up assistance.