Kyoto gives chemical plants windfall: UNEP LONDON (Reuters) -
Chemical plants in China can earn substantial windfall profits
by destroying powerful greenhouse gases, underlining the need
for changes to the rules of a Kyoto Protocol incentives scheme,
a U.N. report shows. Western investors who trade carbon credits
may also make windfall profits from the scheme in its present
form, Reuters data show. China, with its fast-growing economy,
has become crucial to the global fight against climate change.
It is set to overtake the United States this year as the biggest
emitter of the commonest greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. But it
has also become a big beneficiary of incentives to destroy more
powerful greenhouse gases, through a scheme set up under the
Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Those incentives now appear
very generous, the report by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) showed. Factories in China, and others in
India, Mexico, Argentina and South Korea, will earn up to 10
times more money than the