green credit program

​This programme ends up bypassing the whole forest clearance process just to help the industries get green credits

What is The Green Credit Programme ? 

1 this was announced by the Environment Ministry in October 2023.

2 This  is a market-based mechanism where individuals and companies can claim incentives called ‘green credits’ for contributions to environmental and ecological restoration.

 3 criticism of program 

that these initiatives may be used to circumvent बचने का उपाय खोजना  existing laws, particularly those that deal with forest conservation.

 

Can green credits benefit India’s forests? 

What is green credit program?

•  This is a market-based incentive mechanism, and it has six or seven sectors, including forest and waste management. 

• . It is taking a very narrow view of only planting trees to earn credits. It has missed out on several other aspects of the ecosystem.

Afforestation good or bad ? 

The guidelines aim to incentivise the restoration of degraded forest land. A forest can degrade for a variety of reasons, natural and man-made.

incentive scheme in a market-based formulation

 For example, the government could also incentivise planters by paying, say, ₹100 per tree. 

You get capital subsidies for solar plants. Being a market-based incentive approach, there has to be a demand and supply side. 

Can we regenerate a forest ecosystem in a market mechanism without compromising on biodiversity?

There are two aspects to it

1  the land where you’re going to have plantations 

2 how you’re going to do the plantations. The guidelines require States to identify degraded forests within their jurisdiction. 

Forest diversification

1 Now, a forest is not just trees; there can be open patches within it. We have more than 200 types of forests. 

2The forests of the Central Indian landscape, the whole Deccan Peninsula, and Leh-Ladakh are not dominated by trees. There are bushes and many other things.

 3 What happens when plantations come up in these areas? 

There’s a huge incentive now; it’s not small like the Compensatory Afforestation schemes. 

Plantation से नुक़सान भी होगा ?

We have seen forest departments promoting plantations by clearing existing vegetation, uprooting local trees, planting big ones using JCBs and tractors.

 Such approaches can impact local biodiversity, soil health... For regeneration, you don’t have to do any major intervention, you have to just protect the area from disturbances.

. Can we actually make a logical trading system?

Let’s say a 1,000 trees are planted. After two years, an independent body will do a verification

And let’s say growing 1,000 trees in a particular patch earns you one green credit per tree. 

आख़िर हम क्या चाहते हैं ? और मेजरमेंट की समस्या 

1 we incentivise biodiversity conservation of endemic forests, promote local species, etc. 

2 There will always be measurement problems. Like, how do you measure the biodiversity impact of two trees that are, say, 200 meters apart?.

.3  Ideally, the government should have a lot of money and there should be no need for a market mechanism; the government can already give money for these kinds of programmes.

4  So, these kinds of instruments where you are leveraging money from especially the private sector are good.

रेगिस्तान में कैसे होगा काम ?

in a desert or some other ecosystem trees don’t work and you need shrubs, for instance. 

Now, you can set a goal of reviving the ecosystem of this place. Can you say how many units of ecosystem revival is equal to the units of carbon that are captured?

 in the carbon market, there are many different kinds of projects

1  There is a solar project, there is a cookstove project, there is a forestation project. Ultimately, whatever they do, they save one unit of carbon and it can be measured. 

2 In green credits

 one is a biodiversity credit, one is a water conservation credit. How do you, on the same platform, equate a credit of one unit of water conservation with one unit of ecosystem restoration? So yes, fungibility is not there and that is a challenge.

Here, what you will end up having is five projects, which are about water conservation. And then on the demand side also five people who are interested in water conservation. So, they will be backing this trade. So the market will still function. But they are definitely not fungible commodities.

 One important aspect is how green credits will influence mandatory compliances

 1 For example, in the case of forest clearances, the guidelines say the green credits earned from these conditions can be used while applying for forest clearances.. 

clashes with any of our other environmental laws?

clearly the clashes with the Forest Conservation Act. 

1 First there’s no definition of forest, and no definition of degraded forest. 

So, we end up wrongly categorising open natural ecosystems also as forest. 

2 Second, this programme ends up bypassing the whole forest clearance process just to help the industries get green credits. 

While applying (for forest clearance) they will say, “I have already green credit, you give me the clearance quickly.” Normally. you have stage one, stage two – a step by step process — and this is a longer process but ideal. 

This is because when things are so complicated, we have to take a very nuanced approach and you have to follow all the principles of environmental law, which anyway is compromised in our country. So we should take the steps to strengthen it.

Source the hindu