Vatican to be carbon neutral

Although the Vatican started a new airline recently, it is interesting to see a report in the International Herald Tribune about the Catholic nation's carbon offsetting program. A "denuded" forest in Hungary was donated to the Vatican by the Klimafa company, who will plant enough trees that they claim will absorb all the carbon emitted from the nation-state's "various activities."

"In so doing, the Vatican announced, it would become the world's first carbon-neutral state. 'As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, recently stated, the international community needs to respect and encourage a "green culture," ' said Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Planting forests is only "a partial solution, and a temporary one. [It] will only compensate for a small fraction of emissions, even if you cover all of Hungary in young trees," said Laszlo Galhidy, forestry officer for the environmental group WWF Hungary, although he praised the [Vatican] project as a useful step."

Read the full report: Vatican agress to a carbon offset scheme