The Vatican has agreed to become the first entirely carbon neutral sovereign state.
In a brief ceremony earlier this month, the Vatican declared it had accepted KlimaFa's offer to create a new Vatican Climate Forest in central Europe that will offset all of Vatican City's carbon dioxide emissions for this year.
Cardinal Paul Poupard presided said the donation means an entire section of a national park in central Europe will be reforested.
"In this way, the Vatican will do its small part in contributing to the elimination of polluting emissions from CO2 which is threatening the survival of this planet," Poupard said in a statement.
The new Vatican Climate Forest will be created in Hungary's Bukk National Park under the KlimaFa Climate Parks program. Its dimensions will be determined by the Vatican's 2007 energy usage and the success of its current emission reduction efforts, the company said in a release.
Budapest-based KlimaFa is the EU forest subsidiary of climate ecorestoration pioneer Planktos Corp.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
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