Blantyre, Malawi —
Julius Ng'oma, National Coordinator of the Civil Society Network on Climate Change , says carbon trading can also boost Malawi's biodiversity conservation drive and strengthen its contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Ng'oma's view is that Malawi has not benefited as much as it should have from such projects,"as the money realized mostly benefited the international project developers."
After the evaluation, Malawi registered 11 projects and accessed about USD 40 million in socio-economic development financing, he says. C-Quest Capital's Chief Executive Officer, Jules Kortenhorst, says the company, established in 2008, has issued up to 9 million credits on the voluntary carbon market and has invested more than USD 40 million in Malawi since it started its projects.
Having administrative structures in place would help to organize carbon credit transactions and enable global South countries, like Malawi, to sell credits in places such as Switzerland or Singapore. "But also, we know that if we have to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, we can use the beautiful invention of Mother Nature--trees. Looking at nature-based solutions, countries like Malawi have tremendous opportunities to combine better agriculture and restoration of ecosystems--all of which can contribute to the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere while the country also generates money. So it is a win-win-win situation," he says.
In addition, the National Determined Contributions , which the government updated in 2021 and whose implementation plan it launched in August 2022, provides a platform for carbon trading project developers to design projects that support Malawi's targets in mitigation as part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.