Replanted forests. Wind farms. Low-impact hydroelectric plants. Natural-gas-powered bus fleets. Environmental advances like these could become more common in Latin America following the approval here this month of key details of the Kyoto Protocol climate-change accord. Meeting at the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP7), negotiators approved rules by which developed countries could score compliance points by sponsoring green projects in poorer regions. “It’s a race against the clock now to qualify for projects,” says Hernán Carlino, a climate-change expert with Argentina’s Environment Secretariat. “There is good potential not just for the typical forestry schemes in Latin America, but for the energy sector, including renewables like wind and solar.” The Kyoto Protocol... [Log in to read more]
