Carbon trading gets a green light from the U.N., and Brazil hopes to earn billions
Carbon offsets got a big boost from November's U.N. climate summit. New rules could make it easier for companies to pay for carbon-cutting projects in other countries, rather than doing it themselves.
Carbon emissions trading is poised to go global, and billions of dollars — maybe even trillions — could be at stake. That's thanks to last month's U.N. climate summit in Glasgow Scotland, which approved a new international trading system where companies pay for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions somewhere else, rather than doing it themselves.
In theory, it's a more efficient way to fight climate change, paying for clean energy or forest preservation in countries that lack the resources to do it on their own.
"Those financial flows are so crucial to climate action," says Kelley Kizzier, Vice President for Global Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
Yet emissions trading has who say it allows companies to
