Brazil's Lula to challenge Bush on environment

[Kadie]

Brazil's Lula to challenge Bush on environment
By Andrea Welsh
2 hours, 21 minutes ago


BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil will challenge President Bush to cut emissions of carbon gases that cause global warming when he visits Latin America next month, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Monday.

"Brazil has the political and moral authority to demand that rich countries uphold their obligation to reduce world pollution, instead of creating protocols they don't sign," Lula said in his regular address on state radio.

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U.S. leaders want Brazil's cooperation as they try to develop a market for corn-derived ethanol to ease dependence on oil and on oil-producing nations like Venezuela and Iran, a senior State Department official said during a visit to Brazil last week.

Brazil has been eager to jump on the bandwagon because cane producers want to create more foreign demand for their cheaper, more efficient cane ethanol.

"We are doing our part," Lula said. "We must demand that rich countries, which are responsible for 70 percent of the global carbon gases emitted, reduce their pollution."

The United States charges steep tariffs on imports of Brazilian ethanol, and Brazil has struggled to export elsewhere because so far it is the only reliable producer of the fuel.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070212/pl_nm/brazil_environment_bush_dc_1