Doha • Qatar has become the first GCC country to join a World Bank programme to bring down its greenhouse gas emissions, which are among the highest per capita in the world. The ambitious programme aims to drastically reduce the gases by controlling gas flaring.

The World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) project is a public-private partnership that brings together oil-producing countries, state-owned companies and major international oil companies so that they can overcome the barriers to reducing gas flaring.

The World Bank fact sheet on GGFR partnership says that more than 80 percent of global venting and flaring occurs in fewer than 15 countries, including Qatar.

Qatar's partnership comes in the wake of recent visits by officials connected to GGFR to the Gulf countries to explore the ways in which these countries and GGFR partners can collaborate and make further progress in reducing gas flaring.

GGFR's work programme for 2007-2009 focuses on the 'high impact regions'. The Middle East is one of those regions, and GGFR has been promoting the partnership through visits.

Earlier, there were reports that Qatar, Kuwait and Oman were expected to sign up to the World Bank programme. However, only Qatar figures in the latest World Bank partnership programme data. Qatar is expected to reduce 13,734 tMCO2e by year 2012.

The 2007-2008 Human Development Report states the per capita emission rate of CO2 is high in the GCC region. Though the total emission of the toxic greenhouse gas is low in the region, the per capita emission has been rated as very high due to the low human population here. The report says Qatar has the highest per capita CO2 emissions in the world. However, Qatar's total emission rate is very low (46m tonnes) when compared to other countries in the region.

the peninsula

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