"Through the Working Group on Climate Change, the UK and Brazilian Governments have agreed to launch a number of new initiatives on climate change and clean energy. It demonstrates a commitment to tackling the challenges of climate change as well as progressing on a long-term climate change agreement.  This agreement provides policy makers with an important platform to improve UK-Brazil understanding, exchange lessons and undertake joint action.

The Working Group on Climate Change will focus on five areas:

· Global promotion of low carbon technology - including the possibility of  increasing the contribution of sustainable bioenergy to the global energy mix. The UK and Brazil are currently conducting a joint scoping study on the potential for bioethanol from sugar cane in Southern Africa. Brazil has also agreed to host the follow-up to the Workshop on Innovation and Energy Research, which brings together representatives from the G8 plus five developing countries and research agencies.

· Improving the scientific collaboration on assessing the impacts of climate change - the UK's Hadley Centre, Exeter, is involved in a key project to identify dangerous climate change for Amazonian Ecosystems.

· Exchange views on key policy issues relating to possible forms of long-term cooperative action on climate change - including further discussion on the +5's proposal for a new model on international cooperation on climate change and the potential role of carbon capture and storage and forest sinks within future climate change discussions.

· The development of Brazil's leading role in the emerging Latin American carbon market - including promoting links through UK and Brazilian financial markets to improve conditions for investment in the Clean Development Mechanism, which will improve access to investment and cleaner technologies. There is also agreement to explore a program for CDM investment. Brazil is currently the UK's second biggest investment partner in terms of projects.

· Dialogue on the links between climate change, poverty eradication and social development.

The activities will feed into the UNFCCC dialogue on long-term cooperative action, the ongoing Gleneagles Plan of Action and Dialogue and the UK-Brazil Sustainable Development Dialogue (SDD). The key themes in the UK-Brazil Sustainable Development Dialogue are: 1) Natural Resource Protection and Sustainable Management - including increased dialogue with Brazil on biodiversity issues, support for regional and international measures on sustainable forest management and enhanced law enforcement; 2) Climate change, and energy for sustainable development; 3) sustainable consumption and production; 4) poverty and inequality;  5) capacity building and institutional development; 6) science for sustainable development

There are a number of UK-funded Sustainable Development projects in Brazil supported by the Global Opportunities Fund.  For example, the Soya Certification Project, run by The Nature Conservancy, helps to combat deforestation in the Amazon by developing and implementing an independent certification scheme for "forest friendly" soya.

The Forest Canopy project, implemented by the Global Canopy Program, aims to raise awareness of the value and significance of tropical forest canopies, and develop strategies for their sustainable use to conserve forest ecosystems and promote sustainable development in areas next to forests.

The Clean Development Mechanism is one of the "flexible mechanisms" under the Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol provides for a CDM as a means for companies to undertake projects in countries without a Kyoto target (ie developing countries), which reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases and contribute to sustainable development. Projects are then credited with "Certified Emissions Reductions", which can be used for compliance either by a) Governments using them to help meet their Kyoto targets or b) companies surrendering them to meet their allocations under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.”

Source: UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) “UK Brazil Working Group on Climate Change” 03-07-06