Nations say they will pay to save trees

Signaling a breakthrough on a key climate-change issue, the United States and five other nations pledged $3.5 billion over three years yesterday to preserve the world's forests.

"Protecting the world's tropical rain forest is not a luxury; it is a necessity," said Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, noting that deforestation accounts for 17 percent of humanity's emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The United States said it would contribute $1 billion from 2010 to 2012.

As a comprehensive agreement remains elusive, negotiators this week nonetheless reached a tentative consensus on rules to preserve forests, including verification measures, the need to protect biodiversity and the recognition of indigenous peoples' rights.

Tropical nations have refused to commit to a timetable to stop deforestation unless wealthy countries agree on long-term financing for the effort.

To slow deforestation by 25 percent by 2015 would require $20 billion to $35 billion a year through 2015, according to scientists and economists.

The pledges yesterday build on the $1 billion that Norway pledged in 2008 and has begun spending in the Amazon. With additional offers from Australia, France, Japan and Britain, the pledges reach $3.5 billion -- far short of the $10 billion hoped for by tropical nations and conservationists.

"It's a start, but we'll need a lot more," said Gov. Eduardo Braga of the heavily forested state of Amazonas, Brazil. "Industrial nations are responsible for most of the emissions in the atmosphere; they owe us a debt."

Under cap-and-trade programs, including one pending in Congress, rain-forest protection could be paid for in part by utilities, refineries and other companies as a substitute for reducing some of their own emissions.

Yesterday's progress was mainly concerned with just one of the conference's sticking points: how much the rich should pay the poor. On other questions -- including to what extent industrialized and major developing countries should reduce their emissions, and how to include these pledges in a global pact -- the talks only inched forward.

Some environmentalists expressed hope that President Obama's appearance Friday, the final day of the 12-day talks, could help conclude these two chaotic weeks with a global deal.

"If the pieces are here, President Obama is the only person who can pull them together into an agreement," said Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund. "We expect him to do so."

Even before the United Nations-led talks began, it was clear they would not deliver what environmental groups had initially hoped for: a global treaty on climate change, with high-emitting countries formally pledging to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions in the coming decades.

Instead, the goal was to sign a "political agreement," in which nations would pledge to tackle emissions but without making a binding commitment under international law. The understanding was that a formal treaty would come in 2010.

That goal still seemed within reach yesterday, one day before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives to take part in the negotiations.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters that it is typical of global conferences that some differences remain when heads of state arrive. Obama, who has made phone calls this week to the leaders of developed nations, such as Germany and France, and developing countries, such as Bangladesh and Ethiopia, will join 118 other world leaders in the Danish capital.

"I think you've seen in some ways people say that ... some of this is just going to get hashed out when leaders of these countries get here to start hashing it out," Gibbs said.

In a moment that distilled the diplomatic dance in Copenhagen, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi -- who is representing all of Africa here -- unveiled his proposal yesterday for a system in which rich countries would provide money to poor ones to help deal with the effects of climate change. These effects might include rising sea levels, droughts and changing rainfall patterns.

Zenawi said he would accept $30 billion a year in the short term, rising to $100 billion a year by 2020, for poor countries worldwide. This was seen as a key concession by developing countries, who previously spurned that figure -- originally proposed by European countries -- as too low.

Japanese officials said their country would provide $15 billion over the next three years to help impoverished countries adapt to climate change and lower emissions. But that offer would be good, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Tetsuro Fukuyama said, only if a global agreement is reached this week.

"We have to move forward," Fukuyama said in an interview. "We have to have an agreement."

The United States has yet to say how much money, if any, it will offer to poor countries for this purpose. But the U.S. pledge of $1 billion to help developing countries preserve their forests drew praise from environmentalists.

"These types of announcements are exactly what's needed to build trust for an ambitious outcome by the end of the week," said Andrew Deutz, who directs international climate policy for the Nature Conservancy.