The European Parliament has sent a strong signal that the price of carbon emissions must be raised by fixing the Emissions Trading System (ETS) – one of the EU’s key laws on climate change. The Parliament’s Environment Committee voted in favour of withholding carbon allowances in the ETS – a move that would increase the carbon price if it was adopted.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
EU signals the price of carbon emissions must be increased
The European Parliament has sent a strong signal that the price of carbon emissions must be raised by fixing the Emissions Trading System (ETS) – one of the EU’s key laws on climate change. The Parliament’s Environment Committee voted in favour of withholding carbon allowances in the ETS – a move that would increase the carbon price if it was adopted.
Big carbon and higher incomes don't equal better quality of life
A central finding of this study is that a moderate income, corresponding to a Gross Domestic Product of between $2,000-$12,000 per capita, is currently a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement for sustainable development: ‘necessary’ because no high-income country has carbon emissions below 1 tonne of carbon per capita; ‘not sufficient’ because moderate incomes do not guarantee either high life expectancy or low carbon emissions.
Carbon tax surcharge imposed by Quantas
Qantas and Jetstar are increasing their domestic and international fares because of rising fuel costs and carbon pricing. Qantas says its fuel costs increased about $450 million in the second half of last year. To claw back some of that, the airline will this month increase its surcharge on international fares by up to $60 while domestic fares will jump 2.5 per cent.
Southern Environmental Law Center's Top 10 Regional Endangered Places
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), an environmental advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the Southeast, recently announced its fourth annual list of the top 10 places in the South that face immediate, potentially irreparable threats in 2012.
A case of "hot ice"
As a result of climate change, Chile’s Jorge Montt Glacier receded nearly a half-mile just last year alone — but, as it turns out, global warming isn’t the only thing robbing the region of its ice cover. Recently, Chilean police arrested members of a crime ring as they drove a refrigerated truck filled with over 5 tons of ice stolen from the already dwindling glacier. Authorities say they’ve never seen a case quite like this before — of ‘hot’ ice, that is.
Climate Change: Today's Scopes Monkey Trial
The various attacks on public and private unions orchestrated across the states has clear, direct ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. But did you know that a host of anti-science bills mandating the teaching of climate change denial or “skepticism” as a credible “theoretical alternative” to climate change is also an ALEC bill?
Who is secretly bankrolling The Global Warming Policy Foundation?
The world’s leading climate scientists have thrown public support behind a freedom of information request filed against the London-based conservative thinktank, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, the Guardian reports. The thinktank, chaired by former British chancellor and conservative politician, Lord Lawson (pictured above), is being asked to disclose the identities of its financial supporters. Brendan Montague, who filed the request with his organization, the Request Initiative, described Lawson’s thinktank as being “bankrolled by shadowy funders, [and] lobbying government for a change in climate policy that would affect the lives of millions of people.”
Are the World's Largest Organisms Doomed?
The existence of some of the “largest organisms that have ever lived” – 3,000-year-old sequoias, the 2,000-year-old giant redwoods, big trees around the world in Amazonia, Africa and central America — is in danger as never before, says New Scientist magazine. We human beings who build roads, farms and settlements are certainly to blame. But longer and more extreme droughts and the introduction of new pests and diseases are also contributing to big trees’s demise with repercussions for the climate.
Green investments outperform 2 to 1
One of General Electric’s top executives called the belief that the economy and the environment are competing concerns “nonsense.” Marc Vachon, the vice president of GE’s Ecomagination program, made the statement while speaking at a clean energy investment conference earlier this month. According to this ThinkProgress article, GE has been heavily investing in “clean technologies” since the founding of Ecomagination in 2005, and revenues from green investments have actually been double that of other portfolios.
Climate change for the ethically challenged
Here’s an ethical quandary for you. In the morning you get up, head out to work, swing by your local coffee shop for an espresso, and continue on your way. The espresso ends up being more than three dollars with tax, and you hand the barrista four and tell them to keep the change. Four dollars for a cup of coffee. How indulgent. On the radio you hear an ad for an international aid organization that you could sponsor a child for a dollar a day. Or an entire family, for what you spent on your morning caffeine fix.
First the left with the fiat currency; Now the right with environmentalism as a stalking horse for socialism. Give me a break!
To the power brokers of America’s right, climate change poses a dire threat to business as usual. Environmentalism, in fact, is seen by many of them as a stalking horse for an even more sinister force: socialism.
Supply Chain Emissions Reductions Missing
Multinational companies are failing to encourage similar levels of emissions reductions in their supply chains as they are managing in their own operations – despite high levels of supply-chain climate risk.
Another emissions trading desk bites the dust
The announcement yesterday by insurer Aviva that it is to close its sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) equities desk is part of a wider realignment of the fund management industry, and does not reflect on the health of the SRI market, according to the head of UKSIF.
MSCI Environmental ratings system launched
Index provider MSCI has launched sovereign environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings to complement traditional analysis of the credit worthiness of 90 countries. The ratings identify a country’s exposure to, and management of ESG risk factors (see table) and countries are scored on a seven point scale from ‘AAA’ (best) to ‘CCC’, with 0-10 scores on these underlying factors.
$30B to Climate Projects from Germany
KfW Committed $30B to Climate, Environment in 2011 - Bloomberg
KfW, Germany’s state-owned development bank, committed 22.8 billion euros ($30 billion) to climate and environment projects last year, almost a third of all its lending, and said it will increase this share in 2012. The bank provided about 32 percent of all its funding to these areas, compared with 31 percent in the previous year, Wolfram Schweickhardt, a KfW spokesman, said today by e-mail. In 2010, such lending amounted to 25.3 billion euros, he said.
Would Australia’s CO2 Cap Benefit the EU?
The European Union carbon market, where prices have plunged by half in the past year, should consider installing a more flexible cap such as that proposed in Australia, said the Carbon Market Institute.
Prices in the EU program, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas market by traded volume, dropped as the region’s sovereign- debt crisis exacerbated an oversupply through this year and beyond. The cap for 2020 was set in 2008. In the Australian market, annual supply of permits will be set five years in advance.
REDD Credits: Part of the solution or part of the problem?
This article is the first in a three-part series that explores the issue of deforestation and climate change. In part one, GlobalPost considers how a proposed international carbon-credit market could slash greenhouse-gas emissions and save the world's surviving forests. Part two shows how forest people can benefit from carbon credits, while part three looks at "carbon cowboys" accused of abusing the system.
REDD credits: Part of the solution?
This article is the second in a three-part series that explores the issue of deforestation and climate change. In part one, GlobalPost considered how a proposed international carbon-credit market could slash greenhouse-gas emissions and save the world's surviving forests. Part two shows how indigenous people can benefit from carbon credits, while part three looks at "carbon cowboys" accused of abusing the system.
REDD Gauchos of the Amazon
This article is the last in a three-part series that explores the issue of deforestation and climate change. In part one, GlobalPost considered how a proposed international carbon-credit market could slash greenhouse-gas emissions and save the world's surviving forests. Part two highlighted how forest people can benefit from carbon credits, while part three looks at "carbon cowboys" accused of abusing the system.
Latest Carbon News Headlines
Latest news
- 01 Feb 12 14:42 U.S. Congress to oppose EU law on aircraft emissions
- 01 Feb 12 13:34 Super CO2 bourse plans quashed as EC nixes merger
- 01 Feb 12 10:45 EUAs up 4 pct amid gains in energy, equities
- 31 Jan 12 23:17 Linking concerns holding up Quebec CO2 market
- 31 Jan 12 18:12 Pakistan CDM officials unpaid amid govt turf war
Monaco to host CleanEquity event
ZURICH, Feb. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The Nobel Sustainability Trust announced today that it will co-host CleanEquity Monaco 2012, the established emerging cleantech event, alongside Innovator Capital and the Principality of Monaco.
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