A UN-led conference on climate change will produce some 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide blamed for global warming, host Mexico said Wednesday, but it pledged to offset the impact.
Mexico's environment ministry came to the calculation based on the cost of maintaining the three main complexes at the beach resort of Cancun where the two-week conference involving more than 190 countries is taking place.
The figure includes the cost of transporting some 20,000 participants between buildings, along with lighting, air conditioning, food and communications lines.
But Manuel Herrero, an expert at the environment ministry, said that Mexico will offset 100 percent of the emissions as part of a program of buying emission credits from rural communities in southeastern Oaxaca state.
The communities, in an experimental carbon market program in partnership with non-governmental group Pronatura, will receive 10 dollars for every ton of carbon captured through the forests that they preserve.
Mexico also helped reduce the environmental impact of the conference by installing wind turbines outside the entrance of the convention center which produce between 2,400 and 3,000 megawatts of power an hour, Herrero said.
The conference center also has photovoltaic cells which carry 130 kilowatts.
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