Oslo: A United Nations (UN) scheme to promote renewable energy use in poor nations is growing sharply and will cut down emissions of greenhouse gases by more than a billion metric tonnes by 2012, the UN Climate Change Secretariat said on Friday.
The programme, is a part of the UN's Kyoto Protocol meant to combat global warming by curbing fossil fuel use, has more than 800 projects such as wind farms in India and power plants burning sugarcane waste in Brazil.
The first project under the scheme was approved only in late 2004.
By giving rich nations incentives to invest in green energy ranging from hydro to solar power, the program aims to brake a build-up of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fuels such as coal or oil.
"The known project potential is presently estimated to generate around a billion tonnes of emission reductions by the end of 2012," the Secretariat said in a statement.
Annual world greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, mainly from fossil fuels burned in power plants, vehicles and factories, exceed 25 billion tonnes. About a quarter is from the United States.
"The one billion tonne mark in emission reductions corresponds to the present (annual) emissions of Spain and the United Kingdom combined," the secretariat said.
Britain emits about 650 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and Spain emits 350 million.
The secretariat said more than 200 green energy projects had now been approved under the programme, known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), with about 600 others in the pipeline.
Under the CDM, rich nations can invest in renewable energy projects in developing nations, such as hydroelectric power plants in Guatemala or a methane capture scheme in China, and then claim credits back home for the emissions they save.
Those credits can in theory then be sold, giving the rich nations the incentive to invest.
Some experts say that the CDM could eventually channel more than $100 billion to renewable energy schemes from Africa to Latin America.
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