Brazil may earn pollution credits from forestry
Date: 06-Aug-02
Country: BRAZIL
Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes said the 60 million reais tree planting programme was just a start.
"It could be increased later," Pratini told a news conference at the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES).
The Kyoto protocol, which grew out of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and signed in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, aims to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, that raise temperatures.
Countries unable to achieve emission reduction targets can buy carbon credits - giving the right to pollute - from "greener" countries, such as Brazil.
Other new initiatives in the 2.9 billion reais ($915 million) investment plan were aid for irrigated farming and development of cocoa tree varieties resistant to witches' broom disease - a deadly white fungus that has sharply reduced Brazilian cocoa output.