The global effort to stem climate change could soon include paying countries in the tropical belt not to cut down their rain forests, beginning with a World Bank pilot project, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The World Bank is planning to start a 250-million-dollar investment fund to reward countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and Congo for "avoiding deforestation," according to the report.

Until now, efforts under the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to cut greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, have centered on reducing emissions from industries, said the report.

The Group of Eight industrialized nations, after meeting last week in Germany, concluded that stopping deforestation could provide a "significant and cost-effective contribution toward mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions" and encouraged the development of the World Bank's project, the report said.

The report said that deforestation accounts for some 20 percent of global carbon emissions, mainly from fires started in forests to clear land. It is the major cause of greenhouse gases in some developing nations such as Indonesia. The World Bank says forested areas equivalent to the size of Portugal are being cleared each year.

Many details of the project remain to be ironed out. The World Bank hopes the Group of Eight nations will supply most of the 250 million dollars, Benoit Bosquet, a senior natural-resources management specialist at the World Bank who is leading efforts to develop the pilot project, was quoted as saying.

The World Bank will work with governments, local communities and non-governmental organizations to set guidelines on how to monitor projects and make sure money will be channeled only to those that strictly protect forested areas, said the report.

To qualify, governments also will have to sign up to nationwide-action plans combating issues such as illegal logging, the report said.

Source: Xinhua