The MECA Carbon Market

The MECA Carbon Market

Meca is a broker that operates in the atmospheric pollutant compensation system that intermediates the purchase and sale of carbon credits to its clients.

By Ton Gomes

What is Carbon Market?

Carbon is one of the most present elements in the universe; it is in most materials combined with other elements.

Carbon Market is nothing more than the acquisition of carbon to offset the emission of atmospheric pollutants. They are bought by the processing industries when they are unable to reduce the emission of their atmospheric pollutants.

The release of pollutants into the atmosphere is monitored by a satellite that detects the location of the polluting source, when they are discovered; they are immediately notified to reduce the pollutant by the region's environmental agency, if there is no response or lack of interest in resolving within the stipulated period, they suffer severe penalties and may even have their activities interrupted.

Companies that fail to reduce their pollutant emission rates are not penalized if they purchase carbon credits from another company that does not emit pollutants.

Large amounts of pollutants from production processes are released into the atmosphere daily, this ends up interfering with the planet's climatic conditions, and it is not new that we are feeling this on our skin, starting with the planet's temperature increase, the melting of the polar ice caps is a good example of this, there are those who argue that there will be an imbalance taking the planet off its axis, this could cause the earth to approach the sun causing a catastrophe.

Another important mechanism created by government agencies is the release of financial resources, when companies need loans from the international monetary fund (IMF), they are subject to evaluation, informing through reports the amount of pollutants they emit, the report is confronted with the information from the satellite, if the emission level of atmospheric pollutants is out of the informed one, the loan is only granted if they somehow manage to make the reduction, when they cannot buy the carbon credit.

But, let's understand this better knowing the gases emitted by these companies, usually by burning fossil fuels, the main and most harmful to living beings and the environment, are: Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Oxide of Nitrogen (NOx), Sulfur Oxide (SO2), Particulate Materials (MP) and Black Smoke (FP).?

Let's talk about carbon monoxide (CO) first, it is a poisonous gas that can lead living beings to death quickly, the gas is imperceptible and can be breathed through the lungs, it enters the bloodstream killing red blood cells, creates drowsiness and with the lack of oxygen in the brain ends up shutting down the functional activities of the organs causing multiple failure.

The villain in the emission of this gas are automobiles, the burning of fossil fuels in automobiles emits large amounts of Carbon Monoxide, defenders of life and the environment would demand that the rulers of their country, take action, in the face of the problem, there are a few years ago, they started to demand that the automotive industries, put a device to eliminate the gas, on that occasion, the automobiles were equipped with the catalytic converter, a device that is placed in the passage of the exhaust gases to eliminate the gas, it has the function of transform carbon monoxide (CO) which is poisonous, into carbon dioxide (CO2) which is not poisonous, and water vapor, who has never noticed that the exhaust of their car is dripping water when it is stopped with the engine running, I think that all readers who own a car, I've seen people taking the car to the mechanic thinking that this was a defect in the engine, and the mechanic to solve the complaint removed the brains from the catalytic converter, but that was it is pretty clear that this is not the right thing to do.

Now I'm going to talk about Carbon Dioxide (CO2), which is the most remembered by people as being the carbon gas, causing the greenhouse effect, in my opinion I see this gas as being the most important for life, despite not allowing it to be breathed, it is the gas that we release when breathing, it is what gasifies soft drinks and beer, in the atmosphere it filters the sun's rays, thus preventing the ozone layer from dispersing.

It is harmless, so much so that the car catalytic converter transforms Carbon Monoxide (CO) into Carbon Dioxide (CO2), it is responsible for the growth of plants, who never heard that if you talk to the plant every day it grows faster, well, I talk to my plants every day and they are huge.

I understand that the concept that carbon dioxide is the villain of the greenhouse effect is wrong, and what companies actually buy is carbon dioxide (CO2) to offset the emission, I will explain this by talking about Nitrogen Oxide (NOx)

Nitrogen Oxide (NOx), it is the gas that interferes with the climatic conditions of the planet, it comes from baggage in the burning of fuel, and unlike carbon monoxide (CO), it is not reduced in the automotive catalytic converter, On the contrary, depending on the regulation of the engine's fuel air (stoichiometry) it increases, it is a difficult gas to reduce, it takes advanced techniques involving Urea injection to transform it into Ammonia, of course it doesn't rain in the wet, no one will throw ammonia in the atmosphere, then a catalyst is used to convert the ammonia into carbon dioxide and water.

Nitrogen Oxide is a gas that does not disperse in the air, it rises and reacts with Carbon Dioxide (CO2), altering the protection of the ozone layer causing the greenhouse effect, this I noticed in some laboratory tests I did.

Another material emitted with the burning of fuels is Particulate Material (PM), who never got home at the end of the day and when taking off their shirt, notice that the collar is black on the inside, well, well, that's the Particulate Matter (PM), some call it soot, but as I'm going to talk about black smoke, I thought it best to use the technical term, now imagine you working in large urban centers, how is your lung, yes, impregnated with material particulate matter, Particulate Matter causes irreversible diseases and pulmonary emphysema.

The way to reduce the Particulate Matter emitted by fixed emission sources is the gas washers, or a re-burn by recirculation, the gas washer uses water in the process, and after used it cannot be discarded in any way, it must be treated with chemical products or filtering systems, these systems end up generating waste that has to be disposed of in specialized companies, some of these companies incinerate using gas or heavy oil as fuel, others dispose of in sanitary landfills.

And so the particulate matter is walking from one side to the other polluting everything but that's not all, the Particulate Material, with the absence of winds, rises into the atmosphere forming heavy clouds, return to the ground in the form of acid rain, ending up in rivers, making it difficult to treat water for human consumption and recover the pH.

And finally the black smoke, it is an asphyxiating contaminant, it causes burning in the eyes, it covers all the pores, it irritates the nostrils and throat and to conclude it stains the skin, the absence of winds makes its dispersion difficult, it does not rise to the atmosphere to form clouds, parked as if it were fog, this is easy to observe visually in large urban centers.

The most common emission sources are the chimneys of the transformation industries, vehicle exhausts, stationary engines, equipment that generate electric energy that use fuels, charcoal ovens and any pipe that is pointed upwards that something comes out, it is in them that Atmospheric pollutants come out that are not always visible to the naked eye.

Many of them have treatment of pollutants, in some cases it is not possible to reduce the pollutants, companies when they need to increase production, buy carbon credits.

Ton Gomes

Director at Meca Mercado de Carbono, degree in Marketing from the Universidade de Guarulhos (UNG), Guarulhos, SP, Brazil.