Bitfury and UN jointly implement environmental project in Kazakhstan

Mining company Bitfury will start cooperating with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on a project to preserve andincrease in forest lands of Kazakhstan.

According to Astana Times, the project aims toto help the country reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% over the next decade in order to fulfill its obligations under the 2016 Paris Agreement. At the end of this month, Bitfury and UNDP will sign an agreement on the creation of forest land in the Pavlodar region with the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan.

The project will begin with the fulfillment of the development goal.20 hectares that will consume carbon dioxide produced by local coal-fired electricity suppliers to support Bitfury's operations. This can offset the carbon footprint of Bitfury by 100-110%.

While Kazakhstan now owns 29 million hectares of forest, most of the forest land is faced with forest fires, illegal logging and land-use change.

Meruert Sarsembaeva, financial expertthe Biodiversity Financing Initiative (BIOFIN) mechanisms, told reporters that only a fraction of 29 million hectares is protected, while other lands remain excluded from the state forest fund. Sarsembaeva explained:

“We will work with forests that are notprotected by the state forest fund. It is these forests that are threatened by forest fires and other problems. If they are not transferred to the state forest fund, this may lead to the fact that they will contribute to even more emissions. ”

Bitfury and UNDP Emission Reduction Initiativecarbon is part of BIOFIN's activities as part of the latter's work to improve forest management practices by amending legislation and raising public awareness of emission reductions.

With UN support, Kazakhstan has already reduced its25–45% annual energy consumption over the past five years through a pilot project for heating residential buildings. The country is committed to generating 50% of its energy from environmental sources by 2050. The UNDP Resident Representative in Kazakhstan, Yakup Beris, expressed his opinion on the Bitfury-UNDP-BIOFIN project:

"This is the first initiative to reduce carbon emissions in Kazakhstan [...] we hope it will acceleratedevelopment of the country's projects to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in partnership with the private sector.These practical solutions will need to be institutionalized and scaled up."

Blockchain companies are not the first to participate inenvironmental projects. Recall that in December, the International Chamber of Commerce announced that it uses blockchain to reduce carbon emissions in commercial aviation. In November last year, the German waste recycling association Biota launched the Deposy system using IOTA distributed ledger technology for collecting plastic and recycling it.

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