Carbon Cowboys

Whatever grand statements emerge from the climate change summit in Copenhagen, any deals reached will surely involve tough negotiations over money. 

There may be agreement about stopping global warming but there is much less about how it should be funded.
 
Against this background, much attention is being paid to a project known as REDD, a scheme for paying billions of dollars to some of the world’s poorest countries for protecting their forests.

It is a crucial matter because almost one-fifth of global carbon emissions are the result of deforestation.

Many in the West think that rainforest nations should raise this money by selling carbon credits on the open market, to governments or industries seeking to offset their own emissions.

But others fear that unless the scheme is properly regulated, it could just be a charter for speculators to make massive profits at the expense of indigenous peoples.

So who is right? Juliana Ruhfus went to Papua New Guinea to meet an entrepreneur whose carbon trading projects reflect this growing controversy.

This episode of People and Power was first broadcast on Al Jazeera English in 2009.