The long-term objective of Nitric Acid Climate Action Group (NACAG) is to incentivise the installation of effective N2O abatement technology in every nitric acid plant worldwide. NACAG’s vision is for the N2O emissions of an entire industrial sector to be mitigated on a global scale. The NACAG was launched by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) in order to increase mitigation action in the chemical industry. Considering technical and economic aspects, GHG abatement in the nitric acid sector is generally easy to implement and can be done at relatively low cost. This is the reason why this sector was chosen in the first place.
The NACAG initiative offers financial and technical support to individual nitric acid plant operators until the end of 2023. While the technical support is available to all governments and nitric acid producers worldwide, the financial support is bound to the condition that the government of the country in which the plant is located commits to sustaining the emission abatement from year 2024 onwards. Support is available through grants and climate auctions. This support covers not only the procurement and installation of the abatement technology and monitoring equipment required, but also any necessary plant modifications and labour costs related to monitoring and maintenance.
The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU)
Currently under development
GIZ will act as grant managing and contracting authority. It is committed to ensuring that the process for assessing applications under the NACAG Support Facility is fair, transparent, and in accordance with the Green Climate Fund Performance Indicators.
Eligibility Criteria
1. Eligible countries
The N2O installation for which a grant application is submitted must be located in a country eligible for official development assistance (ODA). However, a country’s ODA eligibility does not automatically qualify for eligibility under the Programme.
2. Eligible organisations
Applicant organisations must be legal entities. They can be fully or partly public or private bodies. Private bodies must be properly constituted, present and operational in the country or region covered. Both for-profit and not-for-profit entities are deemed eligible.
Applicant organisation must operate a nitric acid production installation, exercise effective control over it, or hold decisive economic power over the technical functioning of the installation, in accordance with national legislation.
3. Eligible activities
The activities eligible for funding from the NACAG Support Facility are the following:
• Purchase, shipping and installation of a technical device or technology that either removes N2O (i) through the installation of a secondary N2O destruction catalyst in the oxidation reactor (“secondary abatement”), or (ii) from the tail gas through either thermal or catalytic destruction (“tertiary abatement”), or (III) a combination of both;
• Purchase, shipping and installation of monitoring equipment;
• Staffing for additional environmental management; as well as
• External verification of climatic benefits (after technology is installed), which will be commissioned directly by GIZ and is not part of the grant agreement contract
4. Exclusion Criteria
Applicants will be excluded from participating in the call if they are in any of the following situations:
• the installation for which the application is submitted supplies the production of or producers of weapons or ammunition;
• they are bankrupt or being wound up, are having their affairs administered by the courts, have entered into a debt settlement arrangement with creditors, have suspended business activities, are the subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or are in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
• their permit to operate the installation is presently revoked or suspended or has been revoked or suspended during the period of three (3) years preceding the grant application, or they have been fined or entered a settlement during that period, or such enforcement and/or settlement proceedings are pending, for violation of elementary health and/or environmental safety standards;
• they or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, professional misconduct, involvement in a criminal organisation, money laundering or any other illegal activity.
When submitting the grant application, applicants must make a declaration of honour as per Annex B. As part of the grant agreement, applicants must further make a declaration on climatic benefits as per Annex C.
More details can be found here
ODA countries that have committed to take political measures to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from nitric acid production by signing the Statement of Undertaking
The Grant Application Programme is open. The Grant Application Notice can be downloaded here. Eligible grant applications qualify for due diligence assessment as well as intervention advice. In the due diligence assessment framework, GIZ will evaluate applicants‘ technical, legal, financial and operational capacity and the existence of environmental, social, health and gender safeguards and sufficient policy guarantees. In case of a positive outcome of the due diligence assessment, GIZ will adopt a grant award decision and issue a grant agreement for signature to the plant operator.