WORLD NEWS | Hess to buy $750m in carbon credits from Guyana

GEORGE TOWN, Dec. 3 (AP) — U.S.-owned Hess Corporation, a consortium partner in Guyana’s offshore oil sector, has agreed to buy $750 million worth of carbon credits from the South American country over the next decade to ensure Guyana’s nearly Intact The Amazon rainforest will remain standing for decades to come, officials said Saturday.

Guyanese government officials and executives from New York-based Hess signed the agreement late Friday under the United Nations’ program to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

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It is the second major agreement of its kind that the country has negotiated in the past decade. Back in 2009, Norway signed a $250 million deal to help keep the country’s 18 million hectares of forest intact.

The government says it will try to win the market for carbon credits as it works to ensure that harvesting of forest resources is minimized in a country the size of the UK or the US state of Idaho and with a population of fewer than 1 million people. to more partners.

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“Guyana is one of the most densely forested countries in the world. We admire Guyana’s efforts over the years to protect the country’s forests, and the government’s tireless efforts to combat climate change, and to serve other countries, other businesses and other governments provide a strong example,” said John Hess, CEO of Hess Corporation. At the signing ceremony.

Meanwhile, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said about 30 percent of the $750 million would be used to develop Native American Indian communities. There are nine such tribes in Guyana, comprising about ten percent of the population.

“I would like to thank Hess Corporation for making this agreement. It is clearly transformative and brings us closer to what we are trying to achieve,” Jagdeo said.

Hess is the main 35 percent partner of ExxonMobil and China’s CNOOC, working in Guyana’s lucrative offshore oil and gas sector, following a major discovery near the Suriname border in 2015. (Associated Press)

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