During the event “Rio, the Capital of Green Investments in Brazil”, promoted by Santander at the Museum of Tomorrow, BlockC's CEO, Carlos Martins, revealed details about the operation of AirCarbon Brasil S/A, the first carbon credit exchange in the parents. The new company, the result of a partnership between Singapore's AirCarbon Exchange and BlockC and with the support of the City of Rio de Janeiro, is already operating from its office on São José Street, in the center of the capital of Rio de Janeiro. Its first auction of projects by Brazilian carbon credit developers will be held in the first quarter of 2022.
At the same event, Arminio Fraga, former president of the Central Bank, stated that the carbon credit market will be a “gift” to Brazil. “When you look at the value of 1 ton of carbon, it is easy to reach the conclusion that, in fact, it is a huge space of opportunity”, he said, noting that the development of this market involves certification services for environmental projects. For Carlos Martins, Brazil should be included in global production chains as a major exporter of capital goods with low carbon intensity, and the city of Rio de Janeiro has an important position in the command line for decision-making in the context of these chains' .
“An excellent Brazilian example of the production of capital goods with low carbon intensity is Weg, which is able to produce the lowest carbon intensity electric motor in the world. That's because it can buy steel from Ternium, Arcelor or Gerdau, which use biodiesel and biomethane in their supply chains, in addition to using electricity generated by renewable sources”, explained the executive.
According to BlockC's CEO, Rio's leading role in the Brazilian carbon context is due to the fact that the city is home to key companies in economic development in segments considered “hard to slaughter” by specialists, such as fertilizers, steel and plastics. “Hard to abate” segments are those in which there is no economically viable technology to eliminate carbon emissions completely. As these companies have greater difficulty in mitigating or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, they are naturally the most interested in signaling prices for the national carbon credit market, says Martins. He cites Petrobras, which supplies the gas to the fertilizer industry and naphtha to the plastics industry, and Vale, with its leadership in iron production for steelmakers, as an example of companies based in Rio with a fundamental role in responsible value chains by large CO2 emissions.
