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VOLUNTARY CARBON
Painting the Town REDD: Merrill Lynch Inks Massive Voluntary Forest Deal
Last week, an Aceh, Indonesia based conservation project became the first avoided deforestation project verified to the Climate Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standards. Carbon Conservation began developing the project together with Fauna & Flora International and the government of Aceh Province a year ago. The organizations have now partnered with Merrill Lynch to supply a potentially massive number of credits into the voluntary carbon markets. The investment firm is raising equity for the 100-million-ton, for-profit project from which it plans to source voluntary carbon credits for its retail and commercial clients.
– Read the Ecosystem Marketplace article
California Assembly Bill 1851: Regulating the Voluntary Offset Suppliers
At the end of January, California Assembly Member Pedro Nava introduced Assembly Bill 1851, which will require that California-based retail offset providers pass a certification process. "My legislation will protect the public and ensure that greenhouse gas emission reductions are achieved," said Nava. "We must have confidence when we purchase a carbon offset that the company selling it is legitimate and has met clear and consistent standards. It is necessary to ensure that these companies who take the public´s money are actually investing in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
– Read the California Chronicle article
Asia Carbon Exchange Transacts VERs
According to Carbon Positive, the Asia Carbon Exchange (ACX-Change) recently transacted 15,000 VERs. The credits came from an Indian wind project and sold for about €4 a tonne.
– Read the Carbon Positive article
Carbon Credit Cards
In the past year, a handful of credit card companies have given the consumers the option of funneling a percentage of their spending into GHG emissions reduction projects. According to a Wall Street Journal article comparing the cards, General Electric's Earth Rewards MasterCard targets as much as 1% of total spending on the card toward emission-reduction projects. Bank of America's Brighter Planet Visa matches every dollar spent with one point that can be accumulated and traded in for carbon offsets. Likewise, MetaBank's GreenPay MasterCard allows users to accumulate carbon offsets with each purchase. However, consumers hoping to retire offsets may be better off using a cash back card and purchasing their own offsets. The article also notes that the cards' benefits may be less generous compared to other cash-back cards, which pay back in cash up to 3% of total spending.
– Read the Wall Street Journal Article
Another Offset Expose
Three months after the U.S. House of Representatives invested $89,000 in carbon offsets, a Washington Post article questions the validity of the credits purchased from Chicago Climate Exchange. Much like several other recent articles in the mainstream press, the Washington Post was focused on financial additionality. The 30,000 metric tons of credits originated from an Iowa power plant's shift to cleaner burning that had been completed more than a year ago as well as North Dakota farmers ongoing efforts to reduce tillage. Some have argued that without such "additionality" a carbon offset is worthless, a point CCX's chairman and CEO Richard Sandor, along with some others in the marketplace, disputes.
– Read the Washington Post article
Too Legit to Quit
In response to a range of criticisms and exposes, carbon offset providers have sought to prove their legitimacy in a variety of ways. For example, the carbon offset retailer Terrapass, which was critiqued in a 2007 Business Week article on the Oscars' offsets, recently announced their latest effort at transparency -- asking for stakeholders to comment on potential offset projects before adding them to the Terrapass portfolio. Before purchasing credits, the company will post a Project Information Report (PIR) on each project, which includes information on the project design, location, ancillary impacts, and unique benefits. Stakeholders will then have 30 days to comment.
– Terrapass blog
– Terrapass project feedback site
Voluntary (Business) Efforts May Not Be Enough
Nine out of 10 of the largest businesses worldwide do not rank climate change as a priority, according to a new poll conducted by Accenture. Of all business concerns, it ranked eigth and only one in five of the 500 global companies had done anything about it. And four out of five businesses wanted government to take the leading role in combating climate change--a repudiation of the Bush administration's focus on voluntary business initiatives.
– Read the London Independent article
Companies Analyze Supply Chain Emissions
HP, L'Oreal and PepsiCo are the latest members of the Carbon Disclosure Project's Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration. By March, the companies hope to work with their suppliers to understand exactly how much greenhouse gas emissions are produced during the manufacture of their products.
– Read the Environmental Leader article
Intel Ranked Biggest Green Power Buyer
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Intel is now the single-largest corporate purchaser of green power in the United States. The company plans to purchase more than 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy certificates. According to Dave Stangis, the company's director of corporate responsibility, the company is also looking at how it can reduce its emissions. “We mapped our carbon footprint and we are looking at all aspects of our business -- manufacturing, shipping, business travel -- to see where we can make reductions,” he said.
– Read the Arizona Central article
– Read the Intel press release
Another Supplier Certification Program Hits the Market
Detroit based Carbon Credit Environmental Services (CCES) recently announced it has applied for an Intellectual Property Patent to assist business and corporations in assessing their GHG emissions and offsetting them through its “Green Alternative Energy Projects” or “Carbon Sequestering Projects.” CCES is working with several clothing and personal product manufacturers to assess the GHG emissions from their products. Once this has been accomplished CCES, will issue the product a “GHG, CO2 Carbon Neutral” label, which will apply to that product for one year.
– CCES blog
REDUCE & RETIRE: THE LATEST ON CARBON NEUTRAL
Masdar: Climate Neutral Mirage or Miracle in the Desert?
Financed by the oil wealth of the United Arab Emirates: a new city will rise in the desert outside of Abu Dhabi. Dubbed Masdar, or "the source" in Arabic, the city aims to be eco-friendly and climate neutral. Electricity will come from abundant sunshine, water from desalination plants run on this electricity, and no air conditioning -- despite temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Farenheit). Construction is planned to begin this year. In addition, Abu Dhabi plans to build the world's largest carbon capture and storage facility at a cost of $4 billion in order to inject as much as 15 million metric tons beneath the desert to enhance oil recovery and trap the carbon permanently.
– Read the Financial Times article
– Read the Time article
– Read the Globe and Mail article
X Games Get Aggressively Green
From plastic made of corn to prizes for fans who separate cans and plastic into recycling bins, the Winter X Games are aiming to be green. Given that the games rely on snow, their efforts at carbon neutrality--planting trees in nearby forests--may need to become as aggressive as the sports themselves.
– Read the Vail Daily article
CLIMATE NORTH AMERICA
Even As Lu'au Host US Deemed Climate 'party pooper'
Last week the United States hosted delegates from 16 nations, plus the European Union and the United Nations to discuss global climate change policy in Hawaii (even the meeting location seemed to compete with the UNFCCC event in Bali...). Not surprisingly, the meeting ended without achieving a goal of setting reduction targets, which the US had opposed in Bali. During a break, Britain's environment minister, Phil Woolas, noted to the United States. "Bali has put the spotlight on you, doesn't it. There's no country that wants to be the party pooper." However, many countries were pleased at the US’s continued interest in moving forward on the issue.
– Read the Washington Post article
– Read the Reuters article
Alberta Emissions Set to Rise
No worries on ballooning emissions from Alberta's oil sands, the provincial government has no plans to implement restrictions anytime soon. Greenhouse gas emissions from the energy-producing province will be allowed to rise for more than a decade, and the overall goal is to simply lower them by 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. The risk of cutting off oil supplies apparently outweighs the need to do anything about melting permafrost in Alberta's north.
– Read the Reuters article
A TOUCH OF KYOTO
EU Announces Energetic Plan for Climate
The 27 nations of the European Union have received their marching orders: a 20 percent cut in overall EU greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 that could rise as high as 30 percent if a global deal is struck. Estimates of the cost to consumers? Three Euros per week for every EU citizen or EU$ 60 billion per year for the next 12 years. Other components include expanding the emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) to more industrial sectors, including aviation, and all allocations would be auctioned after 2013 -- a proposal businesses have vociferously opposed.
– Read the BBC article
– Read the Reuters article
– Read the Reuters article
– Read the Reuters article
– Read the Economist article
Japan Offers New Climate Change Initiatives
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda offered a new proposal for carbon controls at Davos: national reduction targets for the largest greenhouse gas emitters, and a 30 percent more efficient use of energy by 2020. The prime minister also argued for pushing back the baseline year for emissions to 2000, in order to make it easier for countries like China and India to join international efforts. Finally, he offered $10 billion in aid to poorer countries efforts to combat climate change -- five times the amount offered for "clean technology" by President Bush in his State of the Union address.
– Read the Japan Times article
– Read the AFP article
– Read the Reuters article
CARBON FINANCE
Banks Won't Pay Coal’s Climate Costs
Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley have decided (after consultation with power companies and environmental groups) upon a new set of financing guidelines that will help them avoid the climate costs of coal. Their so-called "Carbon Principles" call for greater due diligence in assessing the climatic -- and therefore economic -- risks of financing the construction of new coal-fired power plants. Environmentalists would like to see the principles extend beyond coal-fired power plants all the way back to coal mining and beyond to oil drilling and transportation.
– Read the Citi press release
– Read the Wall Street Journal article (subscription)
Stock Markets Bet on Carbon
Financial markets are investing in carbon credits in the wake of the EU program to fight climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, and other regional efforts to stave off global warming. An international exchange jointly launched by NYSE-Euronext and Caisse Depots et Consignations called BlueNext will allow spot and futures trading for carbon markets. More than $60 billion worth of allowances were traded in 2007, or nearly double 2006 levels. But the managing director of U.S. bank Goldman Sachs' U.S. carbon emissions desk argues that the cap-and-trade efforts such schemes are designed around will not be enough.
– Read the Financial Times article
– Read the Reuters article
– Read the Reuters article
Greenhouse Gases Set New Record, Again
Atmospheric levels of globe-warming pollution have reached 394 parts-per-million (ppm), about 1.5 ppm higher than previous records, according to scientists measuring such trends in the Arctic. Levels typically peak just before spring in the northern hemisphere (when growing plants then begin to diminish greenhouse gas levels) and the record highs have been driven by the booming economies of Asia. However, the peak could climb still higher yet this year.
– Read the Reuters article
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
American Geophysical Union Urges Carbon Cuts
The largest professional association of scientists studying the Earth has called for reductions of at least 50 percent in carbon dioxide emissions in order to forestall dire consequences. The goal: preventing more than 2 degrees Celisus (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming, which could reduce food yields, kill wildlife, and raise sea levels. The new statement also calls for scientists to become more engaged in educating citizens and policymakers on the reality of climate change.
– Read the Scientific American article
Amazon Deforestation Speeds Up Again
Rising grain prices has fueled the fastest rate of forest-clearing in the Amazon in years. From August through December of last year, 3,235 square kilometers (1,250 square miles) was cut down or burned away. And the large increase may prove even larger after a more detailed study of satellite imagery. The Brazilian government will turn to the army to help try to stem the land rush.
– Read the BBC article
– Read the Independent article
– Read the Reuters article
Human Health Major Victim of Climate Change
The already vulnerable poor will be hardest hit by climate change, thanks to an increase in the spread of infectious diseases and a decrease in the ability to grow food. Researchers from Australia's Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health estimate that between 20 and 70 million more people will be at risk of malaria and other diseases (including potentially entirely new ones) by 2080.
– Read The Australian article
– Read the Reuters article
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