Obama budget includes billions from CO2 trade

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's budget includes hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues from a greenhouse gas emissions trading system, an administration official said on Wednesday.

The revenues from the system would be spread out over many years starting in 2012, the official said.

Obama wants to help fight climate change by capping emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, from big industries and allowing them to trade rights to pollute. Such systems are commonly called "cap and trade."

The president's budget will be released on Thursday.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, editing by Chris Wilson)