United Nations Radio

Africa has the potential to become a goldmine for the type of clean energy projects that produce carbon credits traded under the Kyoto Protocol.

That according to a World Bank report which noted "there is tremendous potential locked up in African countries."

The Bank says African projects account for less than 2 per cent of 3,700 carbon-credit projects overseen by the UN.

The World Bank's report gives a boost to African countries pushing a host of proposals.

Nigeria is proposing a solar-powered university. Cote d'Ivoire wants to turn crop waste into fuel. And Senegal is shopping a wind farm.

Such proposals are the focus of a financial matchmaking this week at the Africa Carbon Forum in Dakar, Senegal.

At the conference, some of the world's least developed countries are wooing investors looking for carbon credits in demand by pollution-heavy industries in the West.

Head of the UN climate change convention Yvo de Boer says "there are relatively few projects to limit growth of emissions in Africa," adding that an event like the Senegal forum "is an opportunity to change things."

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

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