XINHUA: First African carbon forum ends in Senegal

As part of my resolution to study Chinese harder, i'm going to start translating an article a day from the Xinhua news agency. It's mostly just to make myself do it, but i'll try to choose somewhat interesting ones that haven't been published on the English version of the website. My style of translation will be deliberately direct and literal - more so than real translators due to both my limited ability (i.e. dictionary use), and my belief that the original language's attitude, idioms, turns of phrase etc. should rightly be retained.

So here goes.

FIRST AFRICAN CARBON FORUM ENDS IN SENEGAL

Dakar, Xinhua, 9-5 (Journalist Hu Huo, Chen Shun): The curtain has fallen on the first African carbon forum in Dakar, the capital of Senegal in Africa's western corner. This carbon forum effectively promoted investment in an African carbon trading market, advancing the clean development mechanism project in Africa one step.

Senegal's environment minister's representative, said at the closing ceremony: "Buyers, sellers and investors are here in one room, cherishing a common objective, that is to advance carbon trading."

While the forum was taking place, the World Bank released a report that indicated there were up to 3,200 low-carbon energy projects in Africa which conform to the clean development mechanism, and that if these projects were all realised Africa's greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by 740,000,000 tons a year - more than Africa's current total carbon dioxide emissions of 680,000,000 tons.

One related achievement of the forum was the reaching of agreements on several aspects of carbon trading, for example, the Senegal Electricity Board and World Bank have undersigned Senegal's first protocol on the clean development mechanism project. Another achievement was consolidating the support of private enterprise and public institutions' for an African biofuels and renewable energy fund, and some African governments have already approved the setting up of a specialised fund, agreeing to provide US$20,000,000 in investment.

The first African carbon forum was held from the 3rd to the 5th of September, and was attended by more than 600 representatives from more than 60 countries and related international institutions.