Some countries want to count only the actual reductions in emissions from the sources of greenhouse gases. Others would count any net reduction in emissions, including reductions achieved by increasing forests, for example. Nevertheless, it is important to open such additional paths for protecting the climate, and steps such as reforestation would help preserve biodiversity as well. No movement on this so far. There probably won't be any movement until the very end of the conference, when the issues mentioned above have been worked out.
Time is short.
Many issues are still unresolved that should have been settled long before the delegates arrived in Kyoto. Yet we remain hopeful that an agreement will be reached. Whether it will couple significant environmental gains with enough flexibility to win U.S. ratification remains uncertain. We must keep in mind that many important treaties that the U.S. has signed have yet to be ratified by the Senate, such as The Law of the Sea and the Biodiversity Treaty.