The World Economic Forum (private international lobbying organization) relayed, in a study made public recently, that Gabon is the second most forested country on the planet with 88% of its surface covered by trees, just after Suriname (97 %). These forests in the Central African country sequester 140 million tons of carbon every year.
According to this organization, Gabon has successfully established a balance between the carbon emitted and the carbon absorbed. This is how since 2010, its special economic zone of Nkok, specialized in wood processing, has been implementing best practices and respecting the strictest international standards, achieving its objective of carbon-neutral industrialization for the years 2019. , 2020 and 2021. This is a first for an industrial zone in Africa.
The same source also informed that Gabon is in the ranking of the 7 countries in the world (Bhutan, Suriname, Panama, Guyana, Gabon, Madagascar and Niue), which are already net zero emissions. In other words, these countries have balanced the carbon they emit with the carbon they absorb. Bhutan, for example, has 72% forest. Its trees absorb 9 million tons of carbon dioxide per year while it contributes less than 0.0001% of global emissions.
The World Economic Forum also detailed that, in the case of Gabon, the country annually sequesters the equivalent of 140 million tons of carbon, while it only emits about thirty. Thus, with a difference of more than 100 million tons of carbon each year, Gabon can sell its carbon credit to companies that need it.
The country has just been certified for the carbon credit of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the period 2010-2018, recalls Le Nouveau Gabon.
Moctar STAYED / VivAfrik