U.S. investment bank Merrill Lynch said it has bought a minority stake in clean energy project developers the Russian Carbon Fund in a financing package worth around $200 million.

Carbon trading under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming allows rich countries that face caps on their greenhouse gas emissions from 2008-12 to meet these by funding cuts elsewhere, especially in poorer and former Communist nations.

The market is attracting Western intermediaries and speculators, which hunt potential projects to reduce or destroy emissions of greenhouse gases — buying the resulting carbon credits in order to sell them on.

“This deal shows our commitment to the global carbon market,” Merrill’s Chris Leeds was quoted by Reuters on Monday, Feb. 26.

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