The inclusion of UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programme in a new agreement to extend or replace the Kyoto Protocol could generate between 8 billion and 16 billion U.S. dollars annually in carbon credits for Brazil, the Brazilian Association of Carbon Market (Abemc) said on Monday.
Currently, the UN-REDD is not covered by the Kyoto Protocol, which recognizes only the carbon credits for the recovery of lost areas or
reforestation in areas where there were no forests.
The UN-REDD is a positive incentive mechanism for financing actions to reduce deforestation and forest degradation resulting in the preservation of native forests and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Abemc President Flavio Gazania Rufino said the Brazilian government, which had rejected the inclusion of the UN-REDD in the Kyoto negotiations, recently changed its position and prepared to recognize the mechanism at the
15th UN Climate Change Convention in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.
To Abemc, mechanisms for reducing emissions should be aimed at the maintenance of standing forests as well as being associated with the
sustainable exploitation of forests.
Forests, especially tropical ones, play a key role in the global carbon cycle because they are both sources and absorbers of atmospheric carbon.
Currently, deforestation of tropical forests contributes to approximately 25 percent of annual global carbon emissions.
The Brazilian government announced it will take to the Copenhagen climate change convention the proposal to reduce 80 percent the Amazon
deforestation until 2020 as a contribution to overall efforts to protect the environment.