Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday he will offer to reduce the pace of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest by 80 percent by 2020 when he attends December's global climate talks in Denmark. Lula said his pledge will come during talks in Copenhagen that seek to push 192 countries towards a climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. “We are in the process of preparing our proposal for Copenhagen,” Lula said on his weekly radio program. “I foresee that by 2020, we will be able to reduce deforestation by 80 percent. In other words, we will emit some 4.8 billion fewer tons of carbon-dioxide gas.” Brazil's rainforest, the biggest in the world, is shrinking at the rate of 12,000 square kilometers per year as farmers and loggers cut trees. Lula also said he would demand in Copenhagen that industrialized countries pay their fair share of the costs of reducing greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Proposals offered by developed countries should not only cover “initiatives to reduce their emissions, but all the other harm they already have inflicted on the planet,” he said. “We have to draw a line between rich countries, which have had an industrial policy in place for more than 150 years, and the poor ones which only now are beginning to develop,” the Brazilian leader said. “With respect to global warming, the responsibility of the rich countries is much greater than that of emerging countries.”
