Now, Brazil is saying it won't meet emission targets....

China, India..and now Brazil aren't playing the game of Kyoto...so, why should we?

Brazil appears to be about to pass over a prime opportunity to affirm itself as a leading environmental power in negotiations to bring the threat of global warming under control, according to environmentalists and analysts.

Crowned with the dubious honour of being one of the five countries that produce the most greenhouse gases, Brazil is unique in that three-quarters of its emissions of these gases are due to deforestation.

A drastic reduction in deforestation could be achieved simply by enforcing what is already official policy: that is, stemming the advance of agricultural and mining activities as they illegally encroach on the Amazon rainforest.

But the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is refusing to commit to specific emission reduction tar

gets, which so far are compulsory for only 35 industrialised countries.