Copenhagen may fuel push for US carbon exchange...

Posted by admin in Carbon Offset News on December 6, 2009 | No Comments

Wall Street is watching the climate talks in Copenhagen closely, fully aware that the clean energy bill currently being debated by the US Senate could introduce cap and trade for US greenhouse gas emissions. A cap and trade scheme could transform US industry by forcing the biggest companies to calculate the amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases they emit and then pay for them. Estimates of the size of the US cap-and-trade market range from $300 billion to $2 trillion.

According to the Boston Globe, banks intend to become the intermediaries in this fledgling market. JPMorgan, for instance, purchased ClimateCare in early 2008 for an undisclosed sum. This month, it was set to pay $210 million for London-based EcoSecurities Group, the biggest developer of projects used to generate offsets.

Yet given the banks involvement in the near-collapse of the financial system, many environmentalists and independent observers are skeptical. Michelle Chan, a senior policy analyst in San Francisco for Friends of the Earth, reflected,

“Should we really create a new $2 trillion market when we haven’t yet finished the job of revamping and testing new financial regulation?’’ she said. “What we have just been woken up to in the credit crisis – to a jarring and shocking degree – is what happens in the real world.’’

DECC information bulletin...

Posted by Department of Energy and Climate Change in Carbon Offset News on December 20, 2009 | No Comments

Low Carbon Communities Challenge

Communities in Norfolk, Isle of Wight, London, Nottinghamshire, Pembrokeshire, Cheshire, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and Devon are the first of twenty communities to benefit from a £10million fund as part of the Low Carbon Communities Challenge. Around a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating, lighting and powering electrical appliances in homes. By 2050 this needs to be almost zero if the UK is to cut its emissions by 80% highlighting the importance of local action. The winning projects will spend the cash on things like solar panels and wind turbines, insulating homes, low carbon heating systems and electric car charging points. Installing energy generating kit will not only cut carbon and save money on energy bills, but will also create an income for the communities through the Government’s clean energy cashback scheme. DECC is now looking for an additional ten communities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to take part in the next phase of the Challenge.

CERT extension

It was announced in the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan that the Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) would be extended by 21 months until December 2012. CERT obligates the larger energy companies to meet household carbon emission saving targets. Suppliers meet these targets by promoting, typically with subsidy, a range of energy efficiency and low carbon measures including cavity wall and loft insulation. This helps households to reduce carbon and save energy, helping in the fight against climate change and in helping consumers heat their homes for less. The consultation Extending the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target raises key proposals for a new higher target of 293 million tonnes of lifetime CO2 savings by December 2012; for an insulation minimum so as to drive insulation delivery; and, for a Super Priority Group obligation to ensure that the most vulnerable householders who are least able to afford energy saving measures are offered assistance. Between 2002 and September 2009, under the supplier obligation 7 million homes have been insulated in Great Britain. In reality this means some two-thirds of cavity walls are now filled and 35% of lofts have basic insulation. By extending CERT, it is estimated an extra 4 million homes could be insulated. This should help meet the 2011 target to lag 6 million homes in Great Britain over three years and be on course to the longer term target of insulating all lofts and cavities where practicable by 2015.

Climate Change Agreements

We are publishing the Second consultation on the form and content of new Climate Change Agreements. Introduced in 2001, Climate Change Agreements allow eligible energy intensive industries to benefit from a reduction in the Climate Change Levy if energy efficiency targets are met. The aims of the Agreements are to incentivise energy efficiency and emissions reductions in energy intensive industries. The second consultation builds on the findings from the first. It seeks views on a specific proposal for the form and content of the new Climate Change Agreements, due to be introduced in April 2011.

Geothermal grants

DECC has awarded the first grants from the Deep Geothermal Challenge Fund, launched earlier this year. The winning projects are:

£2.011 million to EGS Energy Limited, to purchase capital items associated with their exploratory borehole at the Eden Centre, Cornwall;
£1.475 million to Geothermal Engineering Ltd, to purchase capital items associated with their exploratory borehole at Redruth, Cornwall; and
£461,000 to Newcastle University (supported by engineers Parsons-Brinckerhoff) for recasing an existing 1km deep borehole and boring a new 410m borehole with the intention of providing heat to the proposed Eastgate eco-village, County Durham.

Climate, Environment, and Conservation: The U.S. I...

Posted by Climate, Environment, and Conservation in Carbon Offset News on December 15, 2009 | No Comments

Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State

Op-Ed

International Herald Tribune

December 15, 2009

Our world is on an unsustainable path that threatens not only our environment, but our economies and our security. It is time to launch a broad operational accord on climate change that will set us on a new course. A successful agreement depends upon a number of core elements, but two are shaping up to be essential: first, that all major economies set forth strong national actions and resolve to implement them; and second, that they agree to a system that enables full transparency and creates confidence that national actions are in fact being implemented. Transparency, in particular, is what will ensure that this agreement becomes operational, not just aspirational. We all need to take our share of responsibility, stand behind our commitments, and mean what we say in order for an international agreement to be credible. Representatives from more than 190 countries have gathered in Copenhagen in the hopes of meeting this urgent challenge to our planet. If we are serious about that goal, we will all embrace these principles. It is no secret that the United States turned a blind eye to climate change for too long. But now, under President Obama’s leadership, we are taking responsibility and taking action. Already, the Obama administration has done more at home to promote clean energy and address climate change than ever before in our history. We are investing more than $80 billion in clean energy and working with Congress to advance comprehensive climate and energy legislation. And we have announced our intention to cut our emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and ultimately in line with final climate and energy legislation. In light of the president’s goals, the expected pathway in pending legislation would extend those cuts to 30 percent by 2025, 42 percent by 2030, and more than 80 percent by 2050. These are the kind of strong national actions that a successful agreement requires. The United States has also pursued an unprecedented effort to engage partners around the world in the fight against climate change, and we have produced real results. President Obama launched the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate which brought together key developed and developing countries to work through issues essential to an accord. He also spearheaded an agreement, first among the G-20 and then among the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations, to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. This effort alone could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent or more by 2050. So there should be no doubt about our commitment. We have come to Copenhagen ready to take the steps necessary to achieve a comprehensive and operational new agreement that will provide a foundation for long-term, sustainable economic growth. This needs to be a common effort. All major economies, developed and developing, need to take robust and transparent action to reduce their carbon emissions. Of course, the actions required of the developed and major developing countries will not be identical, but we must all do our part. The simple fact is that nearly all of the growth in emissions in the next 20 years will come from the developing world. Without their participation and commitment, a solution is impossible. Some are concerned that a strong agreement on climate change will undermine the efforts of developing nations to build their economies, but the opposite is true. This is an opportunity to drive investment and job creation around the world, while bringing energy services to hundreds of millions of the world’s poor. That is why United States is supporting an accord that both complements and promotes sustainable development by moving the world toward a low-carbon economy. The accord we seek will provide generous financial and technological support for developing countries, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, to help them reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. And we are prepared to join an effort to mobilize fast-start funding that will ramp up to $10 billion in 2012 to support the adaptation and mitigation efforts of countries in need. We can all see the way forward that has emerged from months of negotiations: decisive national action, an operational accord that internationalizes those commitments, assistance for nations that are the most vulnerable and least prepared to meet the effects of climate change, and standards of transparency that provide credibility to the entire process. The United States is ready to embrace this path, and we hope that the rest of the world will rally around it this week.

UK energy system gets smart...

Posted by JayGAF in Carbon Offset News on December 1, 2009 | No Comments

Smart meters will be rolled out through energy suppliers to every home by the end of 2020 under final plans published today by Energy and Climate Change Minister Lord Hunt. A paper setting out the case for developing smart grids in the UK is also being published.

All homes will have smart meters from their supplier by end of 2020
Smart energy use will save consumers money, make electricity use more efficient and cut carbon emissions

The case for developing smart grids in the UK is also being published
£6 million to develop smart technology

(more...)

Tiny Township victory sets a big example...

Posted by DSF in Carbon Offset News on September 4, 2009 | No Comments

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." ~ Margaret Mead

Anthropologist Margaret Mead's words came to mind when I heard about a recent victory for the citizens of Tiny Township and surrounding communities in Simcoe County, Ontario. The people banded together to stop a garbage dump from being built on one of the purest sources of water on the planet - the Alliston aquifer, a subterranean lake that stretches from Georgian Bay to the Oak Ridges Moraine in southern Ontario.

As well as being the source of drinking water for residents in the region, the aquifer provides cold water to the Wye River and surrounding wetlands. The river and wetlands, in turn, support important wildlife species, including many amphibians, song birds, and fish.

Citizens in the area, including many First Nations, have argued for nearly 30 years that Simcoe County and the provincial government should explore other options to manage the region's garbage, such as composting programs, upgrades to existing landfills, and improved recycling. Despite those alternatives, local authorities and the Ontario Environment Ministry gave the go-ahead for a solid-waste landfill to be built in and on top of the Alliston aquifer, on a parcel of land known as Site 41.

It's another clear example of our tendency to ignore the real costs of getting rid of our garbage. We create a lot of solid waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and other forms of pollution, and then we bury them in the ground, dump them into our waters, or pump them into the air and think we can forget about them. In doing so, we fail to take into account the real value of the goods and services that nature provides.

Site 41 became a flashpoint of conflict this summer when area residents peacefully blockaded the landfill site. As the blockade dragged on and the number of people (including elders) being hauled off to jail increased, the "grassroots" struggle to close Site 41 attracted the support of the "grass-tops", powerful advocacy organizations and unions such as the Council of Canadians, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees. I got involved, in part, because I was impressed by the organizing skills, courage, and dedication of the citizens of Tiny Township and local First Nations in trying to protect our most precious resource, our drinking water.

How this dump got approved in the first place boggles the mind. Experts believe that for the landfill to be built at Site 41, as much as 225 million litres of clean groundwater would have to be pumped out and disposed of before construction. Over the life of the landfill, even more groundwater would have to be pumped out to maintain the dump's structural integrity. Concerns have also been raised about potential long-term engineering problems and landfill leakage that would contaminate the aquifer.

Landfills are often the preferred solution for dealing with garbage because the costs appear low when compared to other methods of waste management and disposal. But they only seem low because we fail to include the very real costs that dumps incur when they degrade the natural services that watersheds, forests, and other ecosystems provide for our health and well-being - like clean air, clean water, and healthy food.

When these natural services are degraded by development activities such as landfills, they must be replaced with expensive substitutes, such as water-filtration plants, dykes, and other engineering. The economic arguments against the Site 41 dump, with its potential to harm the local drinking-water supply, should kill this landfill plan once and for all.

In response to efforts of local citizens, the province and the government in Simcoe County have approved a one-year moratorium on the Site 41 landfill so that further scientific assessments can be done. This shows that people who join together for a common cause really do have the power to affect the decisions of governments and corporations.

The backhoes and other equipment at Site 41 are now silent, at least temporarily. Let's hope that the politicians continue to listen to the people of Tiny Township and work to find better ways to deal with our waste.

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