Businesses earn carbon credits by trapping or reducing pollution under the United Nations Kyoto Protocol's joint implementation scheme, now a burgeoning multibillion-dollar market.
Russia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for developed nations to reduce carbon emissions blamed by most scientists for global warming, and is considering a draft of a law to regulate and award carbon credits.
"London understands markets and understands trading. It is something that London has been doing for centuries," said the mayor of the City of London, John Stuttard, who represents the British capital's financial district.
Stuttard was speaking at the British Embassy in Moscow, which Ambassador Anthony Brenton also pledged to turn into the first carbon-neutral embassy in the world. Brenton said London had developed a carbon trading system that dominated the market.
Russia is considered potentially the largest seller of carbon credits because of its often heavily polluting habits that can in some cases be easily changed.
According to one estimate, the new law could release up to 1 billion euros ($1.33 billion) of carbon credits from 2008 to 2012 in Russia.
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