Norway hopes to boost aid to combat tropical deforestation at a conference on Thursday and set in motion a partnership to help unlock cash pledged at the Copenhagen summit to help slow climate change, Reuters reported. Norway says that developed nations have promised some $500 million to fight deforestation by 2012 on top of $3.5 billion agreed to last December in Copenhagen, and new pledges at the conference may bring the total aid closer to $5 billion. Some 50 nations will take part in the Oslo meeting, to be attended by Britain's Prince Charles and financier George Soros, to forge a "partnership" between donors and countries from the Amazon to the Congo basins for protecting forests. Plants soak up carbon dioxide as they grow, helping to curb a surge in carbon levels since the Industrial Revolution. -- SPA
