Brazilian farmers suspected of setting thousands of fires in the rainforest could instead find themselves being paid to preserve trees rather than burn them down—with money from California.
A vote next month by the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, would enact guidelines for national or local governments in tropical countries who want to build markets for CO2 emission credits generated by forest protection. The credits are known as “offsets” and can be sold to companies as a way to counterbalance a portion of greenhouse-gas emissions through payments rather than reducing pollution itself.
The California regulatory effort has been in ...