Today is Saturday, October 21, 2023.
Paraguay. Law 7190 on carbon credits for the voluntary market sanctioned on October 13, 2023.
According to the approved law, owners of natural areas - including the government itself - in which carbon capture occurs will be able to develop projects that generate carbon credits and sell these securities. To qualify, they must be carried out with a workforce of at least 50% Paraguayan workers. And the credits generated, which may be related to projects of different types and sectors, such as forestry, agriculture and livestock, industrial processes, waste, energy, transport, use of products, among others, must be registered within 30 days after issuance in the national "Register of Carbon Credits", with the aim of providing transparency, avoiding double counting and allowing centralized management, including the NDC. Registration is mandatory for anyone who wants to work in the Paraguayan voluntary market.
The law tasks the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADES) with enforcing the structure and monitoring carbon credits generated in the country and those acquired abroad, and defines carbon credit as a “tradable instrument represented through a title or certificate , which means an equivalence of reducing, avoiding or capturing one ton of greenhouse gases from a given project”.
According to article 9, being exempt from notary certification, legalization or apostille, carbon credits will be recognized through certificates or records issued by the "Carbon Standard Administrators" themselves, defined as "national or foreign legal, public or private person that certifies and/or records the carbon credits issued through a project, based on a series of rules, methods and criteria that constitute a carbon standard".
In order to safeguard Paraguay's NDC, the "Autoridad de Aplicación" (MADES) may retain between 3 and 10% of carbon credits.
The transfer of carbon credits will be exempt from value added tax and taxed on income.
Click here for the press release, and here a brief video on X.
According to the MADES Minister "We can have a double impact, conserve and sustainably manage our resources and generate income for our production system". Added to this is the "possibility of generating and diversifying the source of income for small, medium-sized and large producers, property owners and other key actors such as indigenous communities".
Click on the image below to access the law with 7 pages and 26 articles.
