Minister of Environment and Climate Action presented the Voluntary Carbon Market Project

"To be carbon neutral we must work on emissions, yet we must also boost the country’s carbon sinks’ capacity", claimed Duarte Cordeiro, Minister of Environment and Climate Action when presenting the Voluntary Carbon Market project in Coimbra.

 Duarte Cordeiro noted that "this project, among others, contributes to the goal of finding a framework to hit the target of being carbon neutral by 2050", underlining that "not only is that target no assured, we also have a risk: wildland fires".

 "The carbon market is an opportunity, first off, to bring, first off, income to the forest sector, short-term income that doesn’t have to wait for the cycle" of growth in forest plantations or landscape change, with diversification of the species. 

 The Government intends for "EU regulations to contribute to the increase in the level of trust of investors in forests, nature conservation, and to bring additional resources to sectors that are oftentimes lacking capital".

 Opportunity

 The voluntary carbon market "must push forests towards biodiversity and determine the projects considered a priority", he said, adding that the Government wants "projects throughout the country, yet it wants to differentiate those that operate in vulnerable areas". "The good news is we have concrete projects ready to take off", he added.

 The Minister claimed that "our priority are the natural-base solutions. We need to invest in or forests to reach the goals of being carbon neutral. We have been working on other economic solutions to enhance forests and the issue of the voluntary carbon market shows up in all of them". 

 The voluntary carbon market "is truly an opportunity with which we wish to achieve several goals: protecting biodiversity, developing resilient forests, improving water quality through reducing erosion, and promoting soil quality".

 Duarte Cordeiro said he believes that "through this voluntary market, the country will be a benchmark, if we are able to build the market thresholds.". "We want to be forerunners in this project but we are aware it needs to evolve", he added.