Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk

The G8 meets this week in Scotland, where Tony Blair says he will be steering conversation in the direction of global climate change and poverty alleviation in Africa. In an attempt to walk the talk, Blair, who holds the G8 presidency this year, has also said he will be taking the meeting carbon neutral. Britain has yet to reveal how it plans to offset the emissions generated by the trains, planes and automobiles responsible for carting the delegates from A to B, but officials have hinted that energy efficient housing projects in Africa may play a starring role (read more).

The decision to offset the high profile meeting has won Britain both fans and critics. Those in the first camp commend the money where your mouth is approach, while those in the second, decry the attempt to "greenwash" a G8 session unlikely to produce a clear plan of action for addressing climate change (read more).

Debate over what should, or should not, be done to combat climate change has also been a hot topic in the US of late. The decisive defeat of the McCain-Lieberman Bill in June might suggest that Washington hasn't changed its position much on global warming in recent years, but beneath the surface an important shift seems to be underway (read more). Conversation in Congress, this time round, wasn't about whether or not the planet was heating up, but rather, about what steps should be taken to fix the problem. In this, congressional politicians are joined by high-power corporate allies, 610 city Mayors and, of course, the terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And climate isn't the only thing on the collective mind of the US Congress. Senate politicians also find themselves in the midst of important conversations about new regulatory guidelines for the mitigation banking industry, renewable energy, and revised tax codes concerning the donation of conservation easements. All in all, this legislative session looks set to be an important one for the environmental markets that the Ecosystem Marketplace covers.

So that's what lies ahead, now for a quick look at what's already been accomplished.

Since the last newsletter, EM has been looking closely at how to measure the successes and failures of ecosystem markets in environmental, economic and social terms. We've checked in down-under to canvas the results of Australia's bold two-year experiment with market-based conservation (read more). We've gone digging to find out more about the businesses responsible for verifying that greenhouse gases are actually being reduced by carbon offset projects around the world (read more). We've investigated how green venture capital funds are making sure that their ledger books show two shades of green: the environmental and the financial (read more). And we've followed the telling trail of two successful, though very different, carbon offset deals in Mexico; a story that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the highly regulated CER market in developing countries (read more).

Since scientists remain the true specialists when it comes to measurement, we have also hunted down a couple of ecologists to ask about the science behind the markets. Can you really rebuild a wetland? (read more) How much do we actually know about watershed services? (read more). We hope you will enjoy reading some of the answers to these and other questions in the articles below.

Amanda Hawn, Assistant Editor
Ricardo Bayon, Managing Editor
Adam Davis, Editor-in-Chief
Michael Jenkins, Publisher