• The 120 hours course shall take place from the 6th to 17th of October in Seville.
• The new course it’s the first worldwide master degree in this speciality.

Seville, May 6, 2008.- Focus-Abengoa Foundation and the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) have signed an agreement to turn Seville in the venue of the first carbon markets training course with the same characteristics to be held in Spain. This is an initiative within the Focus-Abengoa Forum on Energy and Climate Change which shall be carried out face to face from the 6th to 17th of October this year at the Hospital de los Venerables, the headquarters of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation. The training course launching was made during Carbon Expo 2008. Registration can be made from the web www.carbon-training.com where all the detailed event information can be found.

The objective of this course is to train international level professionals with a global and integrated vision about carbon markets and, at the same time, to develop practical skills to trade in these markets.

The 120 hours length training course will be address, to all kind of professionals working into the carbon market such as CDM/JI project managers, verifiers, carbon funds managers and consultants.

The newly appointed president of IETA, Henry Derwent, has said: “With the maturing of the Carbon Market in recent years there is a clear need adequate training the business community that prepares participants for the GHG market but also meets the ever growing need to incorporate the GHG market in to days business decision making, as such we proud to be part of this new initiative”.

The programme will be managed by a steering committee which shall be include key players of the GHG market as well as representatives of the two founding organisations, such as Henry Derwent, president of IETA, and Emilio Rodríguez-Izquierdo, general manager of Zeroemissions.

Felipe Benjumea Llorente, Abengoa’s President, has declared that “this initiative responds to Focus-Abengoa strategy to promote sustainable development and specially to fight Climate Change. Carbon Markets are a useful tool in our hands we should not miss, as they provide value to the transfer and promotion of clean technologies”.

In the carbon markets participants are buying and selling emission allowances and reduction emission credits. The Kyoto Protocol, the first important binding global agreement about emission reductions, considers in its text the possibility to count as emission reductions those credits obtained from projects that apply greenhouse gases reduction or removal technologies.

The initiative shall be labelled as carbon neutral through the Zeroemission Programme, the programme will calculate the carbon footprint of the course and all unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions produced during the organization of this event shall be offset. Zeroemissions is an Abengoa company working to provide global solutions to climate change.

The objective of the course is to become a master-course next year with on-line and in-person classes in order to fit with a working schedules and increase its scope.

The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) is an independent non-profit organization, headquartered in Switzerland. It consists of 175 of the highest companies of the market affiliated to it, and dedicated to the establishment of effective systems for trading in greenhouse gas emissions by businesses.

The Focus-Abengoa Foundation was created in 1982 as the outcome of the cultural efforts begun by Abengoa back in 1972 with its publication of Sevillian Topics and Iconography of Seville. During this same period, a collection of documents, books and engravings on the Kingdom of Seville and Sevillian authors was also amassed. This initial cultural impetus led Abengoa’s leaders to realise the importance of going beyond the company’s merely technological functions with activities that would benefit society. Thus, the Fondo de Cultura de Sevilla Foundation was born.