Official jet offset

Foreign Office flight emissions fund pays to boost clean energy in South Africa

A South African wind power project is to be the first beneficiary of the UK government’s commitment to offset emissions caused by official and ministerial air travel.

The UK is the first in the world to make such a commitment. The Cape wind project deal is also the first use of a new facility set up by the global Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership, which matches appropriate offset projects with government requirements.

This particular deal, arranged by carbon-broking firm CO2e, covers over 38,000 tonnes of CO2 and other greenhouse gases generated by flights by UK-based Foreign Office staff and ministers in 2004. Other government departments only began keeping track of their air miles in 2005.

Now it’s a comprehensive cross-government scheme. To cover the emissions caused by all UK official and ministerial flying from April 2006, the new Government Carbon Offsetting Fund will buy offsets covering 255,000 tonnes of CO2 between now and May 2009. Its purchases will take the form of carbon credits (known as Certified Emission Reductions, or CERs) generated by new low-carbon-energy projects in developing countries that have been approved under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism. - Terry Slavin

11 January 2007

Terry Slavin