Financing biodiversity conservation through emissions trading

The opportunity of linking two Rio Conventions – the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) – through the Kyoto Protocol could potentially create incentives and generate significant financial resources for more effective and sustainable management of forests and other carbon-sequestering ecosystems. Three measures are included: joint implementation, the clean development mechanism and emission trading. These measures will allow countries to buy, sell or trade reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It is still too early to assess the potential impacts of the Kyoto Protocol for biodiversity, but with careful consideration of both the climate change and biodiversity agendas, the Kyoto Protocol could be developed as an innovative financial instrument that supports the objectives of both the FCCC and the CBD.