Maldives to pilot biochar technology

The Republic of the Maldives has announced it is to undertake a series of biochar projects on three of the islands that make up the Indian Ocean archipelago.

The technology works by heating wood and crop waste using a process known as pyrolysis to create a carbon-rich substance called biochar that can be mixed with soil and buried underground. Advocates of the approach, including controversial British scientist James Lovelock, argue that it provides an effective means of removing carbon from the atmosphere.

Biochar schemes are an approved technique under the UN-backed clean development mechanism offset scheme, but some green groups remain highly critical of the model, predicting that it will prove unviable on a large scale and that "biochar plantations" could contribute to deforestation in a manner similar to that associated with biofuels.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives said the country will work with the company Carbon Gold to introduce a number of biochar pilot projects.

"The Maldives is already adversely affected by climate change so I warmly welcome this relationship with Carbon Gold," he said. "Biochar has a crucial role in helping us achieve carbon-neutral status as well as providing an economic and environmental boost to our people."

As part of the projects, small kilns would be installed in villages across the Maldives, with residents using them to dispose of waste such as coconut shells.

Dan Morrell, Carbon Gold co-founder, said the technology could bring significant benefits to the Maldives, adding that if successful, the pilot schemes could be expanded. "This is the only technology that enables us to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and, by ploughing it into the ground, improve soil fertility and prevent the CO2 going back into the atmosphere," he said.

The Maldives has emerged as a high-profile player in international climate change negotiations, largely because the low-lying islands would be inundated by rising sea levels. Earlier this year the Maldives – a chain of nearly 1,200 mostly uninhabited islands off the Indian sub-continent – announced it would become carbon neutral by 2010.