UAE’s Blue Carbon is looking to create more carbon credits from offsetting projects in Zimbabwe: Dubai-based offsetting company Blue Carbon signed an MoU with Zimbabwe worth USD 1.5 bn to finance forest protection and rehabilitation projects to generate tradable carbon credits, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The project would cover 30k sq miles — or around one-fifth of Zimbabwe’s total landmass.

Carbon offset market? Carbon credits are a tradable instrument that allows companies, governments or other organizations to neutralize their overall carbon footprint by financing projects that reduce or remove CO2 from the atmosphere, with one carbon credit representing one ton of CO2 removed.

The partnership with Blue Carbon could mend the damage done to the African country’s carbon market earlier this year: In May, the Zimbabwean government marked all carbon credit agreements “null and void,” declaring that it would take a 50% cut of revenues from all carbon offsetting projects. The government share of income was later softened to 30% in August, and the projects reinstated. However, the move still left a dent in the USD 2 bn global carbon credit market, alarming investors and causing other governments in Malawi and Zambia to consider following suit.

Zimbabwe is Blue Carbon’s fourth foray into Africa this year: The nature-based solutions firm, which was launched in 2022 by the Private Office of Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, inked an agreement with the Liberian government in March to offset greenhouse gas emissions from 10% of Liberia’s land, having also signed partnerships with Tanzania and Zambia back in February, to conserve some 8 mn hectares of forest land in each country in exchange for carbon credits.

Zimbabwe is the third largest source of carbon credits in Africa, and the 12th largest in the world: In 2022, the country delivered 4 mn carbon credits from various projects, according to Carbon Credits. The Kariba Project is its largest project, operated by finance group South Pole.