UGANDA is to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in a bid to conserve the environment and attract investment for tree planting projects.

Dr. Kezimbira Miyingo, the State Minister for Environment said at the closing of a three-day consultative conference on Uganda's forests that the Cabinet recently approved signing of the global treaty.

The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 as a mechanism for encouraging polluters to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

Accumulation of Carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere is dangerous because it traps the heat escaping from the earth surface, thereby causing global warming and climate change.

Miyingo said the most industrialised countries, which are the biggest polluters, are obliged by the Kyoto Protocol to invest in projects that sink or reduce carbondioxide.

"United States of America (USA) pulled out of the negotiations last year, but the ratification can take place even without them," he said.

However, he said they were still persuading USA to come back to the negotiations.

"Carbon trading in Uganda is being handled by the Department of Meteorology," he said.