An agreement signed Wednesday between Denmark and Estonia is the first step toward construction of a 13-turbine windmill park near the Estonian capital

Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard formalized an agreement on Wednesday with Estonian colleague Villu Reiljan for Denmark's first purchase of CO2 credits in Estonia. The deal was signed at the UN climate conference in Buenos Aires. Under the terms of the agreement, Denmark will erect 13 windmills with a total production capacity of more than 21 MW at a disused Soviet military base outside the Estonian capital, Tallinn. The Danish Ministry of Environment will be eligible to buy quotas worth some 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the project. The clean wind energy will be used in place of electricity from Estonia's severely pollutant oil shale-fueled power plants. CO2 emissions saved from the power production process will be deducted from Denmark's total climate spreadsheet.