The supply of forests for offsetting pollution in developed countries is, potentially, almost infinite. There are an estimated 90 billion tons of carbon in Brazil's forests alone, and billions of tons more are sequestered in Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and other nations with substantial tropical forests, which are considered the most vulnerable to deforestation. The world has a major stake in keeping all that carbon where it is. The question now being debated in Washington and Copenhagen is whether the fate of the forests—and their people—will rest on the ability of industries to pay for preserving distant trees rather than reducing emissions closer to home.