Environment ministry agrees to sell 2.5 million carbon emission credits to Japan

The Czech Ministry of Environment announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to sell another 2.5 million carbon emission credits to the Japanese company Mitsui & CO. No financial details of the transaction were revealed. Earnings from the sale of the excess to requirement Czech units were not disclosed. The money earned will be channelled into the Czech government’s “Green Savings” programme which encourages energy saving initiatives by Czech households. The Czech government has so far been one of the most successful sellers of excess emissions allocation with 71 million credits sold, primarily to the Japanese government and to Mitsui, as well as to the Austrian and Spanish governments. Under the Kyoto protocol the Czech Republic was given the rights to emit 900 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent between 2008 and 2012. The country’s real needs are currently estimated to be around 17% lower than that.