DOHA: Qatar submitted a proposal to amend the rules of United Nations' emissions-market to include carbon capture and storage projects, the country's oil minister said. “Qatar Petroleum has officially submitted to the UN a proposal for a new methodology that could enable carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological formations to be part of the Clean Development Mechanism,” Qatari Minister Abdullah Al-Attiyah said Monday at a conference in Doha. “We believe that Qatar's proposal, if adopted, could make a major contribution to controlling the global emissions of carbon dioxide.” Adding carbon capture to the list of projects approved by the UN, which runs the world's second-biggest emissions market, will be debated at global climate talks starting Nov. 29 in Cancun, Mexico. The process involves piping CO2 into storage underground or aging oil fields before its escapes into the air. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are among the first oil producers in the Middle East to seek UN credits for alternative-energy projects. Qatar has registered a project to reduce flaring of natural gas from the Al-Shaheen oil field. Qatar qualified for UN credits known as offsets, designed to encourage richer countries to finance carbon reductions in developing nations. China and India together have supplied 68 percent of UN offsets so far. Climate change has the potential to affect every country. By introducing a carbon-management strategy, GCC countries could reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, and conserve their oil and gas resource for future generations.
