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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Costa
Rica to Save Forest with Carbon Credits
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
4/25/98
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by EE
Costa
Rica's cutting edge rainforest conservation rhetoric continues,
as the
country moves to harness carbon credits to finance rainforest
conservation. While acknowledging justifiable concerns regarding
the
South
forgoing development to subsidize continued Northern over-
consumption,
in is inarguable that carbon swaps appear uniquely
capable
of providing financing to pursue large scale rainforest
conservation. Carbon swapping will address global warming
while
changing
the economics of tropical forests, tipping the scale towards
conservation
rather than large-scale exploitation.
While ensuring
that a
carbon trading system does not lock in place development
disparities,
it is my opinion that any strategy that addresses two
major
World concerns--global warming and deforestation--while
transferring
much needed financial resources to developing countries,
needs
to be rigorously pursued.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Costa Rica to save forest with carbon
credits
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1998
Date: April 24, 1998
Byline: Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Costa Rica launched a program Friday to save
more than
1.25 million acres of rainforest by selling companies
allowances
to emit carbon gases.
Costa
Rican President Jose Maria Figueres said the rainforest will be
protected
by the first greenhouse gases trading project developed
under
the guidelines of the global climate change agreement reached in
December
in Kyoto, Japan.
"Costa
Rica is proud to take the lead in an initiative that can save
forest
land around the world," Figueres told a news conference in
Washington.
The
project, which makes the rainforest's ability to absorb carbon
gases a
quantifiable asset, could earn Costa Rica more than $20
million
this year, and $300 million over the life of the project,
government
officials said.
With
that revenue, the government will be able to buy land in the
rainforest,
most of which is privately-owned, they added.
"This
program is a model for North-South cooperation to help meet the
world's
environmental challenges," Figueres said.
The
emissions credits would be sold to companies in industrialized
countries
that produce heat-trapping carbon gases by burning fossil
fuels.
Buying these credits would help industrialized countries meet
emissions
reductions goals of the Kyoto agreement.
A Swiss
company, Societe Generale de Surveillance Holding S.A. (SGS),
operating
under the Kyoto agreement's procedures, verified the plan
would
remove more than 1 million metric tons of carbon from the
atmosphere.
Costa
Rica has established environmental bonds called Certified
Tradable
Offsets, with each corresponding to one ton of carbon to be
absorbed
by its trees. It sold some credits last year, but this will
be the
first such project using criteria from the Kyoto protocol.
"Independent
certification such as that provided by SGS created the
confidence
necessary to make trade in greenhouse gas reductions a
reliable
financial tool for industrialized countries to meet their
emission
reduction commitments in a cost-effective manner," Figueres
said.
He and
company representatives said this should help create a
marketplace
for emissions credits that could be used to save forests
around
the world as well as bring down costs of cutting carbon
emissions
that are heating the atmosphere and changing the world's
climate.
"Creating
a market for carbon offsets provides developing countries
additional
financial resources from their tropical forests -- money
that
can be earned without cutting down their trees," Elisabeth Salina
Amorini,
SGS chairman, said at the news conference.
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