Rio, China Say They Won’t Use Sold CO2 Credits for Limits

Rio, China Say They Won’t Use Sold CO2 Credits for Limits - Bloomberg
Officials from Rio de Janeiro and China said they would not use emission-reduction credits that have been exported when accounting for new domestic greenhouse- gas targets, potentially easing climate negotiations.  Brazil’s second-largest city will retire any reductions it uses when accounting for its 2020 target, said Rodrigo Rosa, special adviser on climate protection to Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes. “Either we retire through the targets, or we sell the credits,” Rosa said in an interview in Cologne, Germany.  China, which is setting up seven pilot carbon markets, also will ensure it doesn’t both sell reductions abroad and use them to meet its own limits, said Wang Shu, an official in the department of climate change in the National Development and Reform Commission in Beijing. “We cannot do double counting,” Wang said in an interview. “We will make that clear.”

Get-Neutral App Seeks Cash to Highlight Climate Harm

Get-Neutral App Seeks Cash to Highlight Climate Harm - Bloomberg
Get-neutral GmbH, a startup company with a mobile phone application displaying carbon footprint information about products that allows users to offset CO2 emissions, is seeking funding to grow across Europe.  The six-month-old company is looking to get 1.5 million euros ($1.9 million) by the end of this year to boost operations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg.  Get-neutral will seek as much as 6 million euros in a further round of funding in the second quarter of next year.  “We have to make money and we want to grow fast,” co- founder and Chief Executive Officer Holger Rupp said in a June 8 telephone interview from Reutlingen, Germany. “We can only have an impact against climate change if we grow fast and reach the mainstream population.”  Venture capital and private equity companies put $1.15 billion into new clean energy investments last year as innovators race to find solutions to curb climate-harming emissions, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The mobile apps market may reach $27 billion by 2015, according to Constellation Research Inc., an early-start technology adviser in San Francisco.

New York court nixes challenge to carbon market

New York court nixes challenge to carbon market | Reuters

A New York state court on Wednesday dismissed a Tea Party-backed lawsuit that tried to block the state from participating in a cap-and-trade system to cut carbon emissions in the Northeast, finding that the plaintiffs had no grounds to challenge the program.  State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who represented New York in the case, argued that they lacked a credible reason to challenge the state's participation in the program.  He also said the plaintiffs took too long to file their suit - nearly three years after New York began implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in late 2008.  Under RGGI, nine member states have agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in their electricity sectors by 10 percent by 2018 by participating in a carbon market in which they can buy, sell or trade carbon emission rights.

USDA announces 9,000 more acres for energy crop production

USDA announces 9,000 more acres for energy crop production Cattle News - Editorial, Grain & Cattle Markets, Current Stories
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today $9.6 million for the creation of two new Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) project areas in New York and North Carolina, and the expansion of an already established BCAP project area in Arkansas. The announcement provides the opportunity to expand the nation's non-food, energy crops used in the manufacturing of liquid biofuels and to help meet state mandated Renewal Portfolio Standards (RPS).  "Increasing the production of renewable, home-grown fuels is vital to reducing our country's reliance on foreign oil, while creating good-paying jobs and diversifying the agriculture economy," said Vilsack. "These projects are the foundation for an even stronger energy future in rural America. Because most energy crops are perennial and take time to mature before harvest, BCAP is designed so that sufficient quantities of feedstock will be available to meet future demand. Most importantly: these crops can grow where other crops cannot, providing farmers with new opportunities to diversify into more markets."

How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources

energyDigger :: 2012-06-09 - How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources
Everyone's heard of the carbon footprint of different energy sources, the largest footprint belonging to coal because every kWhr of energy produced emits about 900 grams of CO2. Wind and nuclear have the smallest carbon footprint with only 15 g emitted per kWhr, and that mainly from concrete production, construction, and mining of steel and uranium. Biomass is supposedly carbon neutral as it sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere before it liberates it again later, although production losses are significant depending upon the biomass. Carbon emissions and physical footprints are known as externalities and are those vague someone-has-to-pay-eventually kind of thing it's hard to put a value on. Proposed carbon footprint taxes are in the range of $15 to $40/ton of CO2 emitted, but assigning a physical footprint cost depends on the region, ecosystem sensitivities and importance. A hundred-acre wetlands to be flooded by a new dam is worth more to the planet than a barren hundred-acre strip under a solar array in the Mojave (P. Bickel and R. Friedrich, 2005).

Falling Coal Use in U.S. Fails to Stem Global Growth: BP

Falling Coal Use in U.S. Fails to Stem Global Growth: BP - Bloomberg
Falling coal consumption in the U.S. last year failed to stem the pace of growth in the fuel’s use globally, which was driven by China, Australia, Ukraine and South Korea, according to BP Plc. (BP/)
Coal represented 30 percent of global energy consumption, the highest since 1969, the oil producer said today in its annual Statistical Review of World Energy.  Global use rose 5.4 percent in 2011, similar to the downgraded 5.5 percent pace in 2010, BP said. U.S. consumption dropped more than any other nation, declining 24.2 million metric tons of oil equivalent, or 4.6 percent, to 501.9 million tons. China’s use surged 9.7 percent to 1.84 billion tons.  The 2.5 percent growth in global primary energy consumption was caused by increases in emerging economies, BP said. China accounted for 71 percent of growth last year. Use in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations declined 2.5 percent, led by a 5 percent drop in Japan. The data suggests that growth in global CO2 emissions from energy use continued in 2011, but at a slower pace than in 2010, BP said.

Coal's resurgence undermines fight against global warming

Coal's resurgence undermines fight against global warming | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Coal has carved itself a 30% share of the global energy market - its highest level in over 40 years - undermining attempts by governments to reduce their carbon emissions, new figures show.  China and India both increased their use of carbon-heavy coal by over 9% but Europe, where political consensus against global warming is strongest, also saw a 4% increase, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.  Christof Ruhl, BP's chief economist presenting the figures in London on Wednesday said industrialisation of developing countries and cheap prices were driving coal demand which had "profound implications" for CO2 output.

Greek crisis: social enterprise is one answer to economic strife

Greek crisis: social enterprise is one answer to economic strife | World news | guardian.co.uk

Good ideas? Greece, when you look, really isn't short of them, and people are starting to do something about them.  Ioannis Lagos is an avuncular fiftysomething accountant from the small mountain village of Stemnitsa in the Arcadia region. The village, like many of those in the region, is surrounded by forest. The forest, as forests do in Greece, catch fire, and have done a lot in recent summers.
The main reason the fires spread so fast is the quantity of fallen trees, branches and brushwood on the forest floor.  At the same time, Lagos and some of his friends, volunteer firefighters from Mainalo mountain, have worked out that it now costs roughly €3,500 a year to keep the average Arcadian household warm with heating oil, which is set to hit €1.40 a litre this winter.  Suppose you collected all that forest floor biomass from the 40,000 acres of forest belonging to the commune, turned it into wood pellets – less than half the price of heating oil for the same output – and sold them to local people at slightly less than the average market price? You would be easing the forest fire problem, helping citizens of Arcadia to heat their homes more cheaply (the wood-burning stove they would need would pay for itself within a year) – and you could even pay the salaries of the local unemployed people who did the work.

Bank of America's $50B green initiative: Mighty or misplaced?

Bank of America's $50B green initiative: Mighty or misplaced? | GreenBiz.com
Bank of America recently announced a 10-year goal to put $50 billion towards renewable energy projects, energy efficiency and alternative transportation – a move the bank says will help grow the economy and its own business as well. But critics say the bank could make a greater impact by cutting off the billions it invests in coal each year...

Time to radically reform our energy system, says IEA

Time to radically reform our energy system, says IEA - reneweconomy.com.au : Renew Economy
The International Energy Agency has made a dramatic call for governments to end their policy inertia and push towards a radical transformation of the global energy network, ending the dependence of centralised fossil fuel generation and pushing towards more flexible systems, where more than half of the world’s electricity comes from renewables by the middle of the century.  “When will governments wake up to the dangers of complacency and adopt the bold policies that radically transform our energy system?” IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven said. “Let me be straight. Our ongoing failure to realise the full potential of clean energy technology is alarming.”

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NBAA says emissions trading hits business aviation disproportionately

NBAA says emissions trading hits business aviation disproportionately

US National Business Aviation Association president Ed Bolen has presented a powerful case to a Senate committee that Europe's unilaterally adopted emissions trading scheme (EU-ETS) particularly discriminates against business aviation.  Meanwhile, the European Business Aviation Association's May figures for business aviation activity in the EU show it to be 6.3% down on the same month last year, and the association blames part of that slump on the aggressive European attitude to aviation taxes.  Bolen told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that the EU-ETS "singles out a great American industry for discriminatory treatment".  He said: "As badly as commercial airlines are treated, non-commercial aviation is treated even worse."  Meanwhile, EBAA president Brian Humphries points out that airlines are allocated a 10,000-tonne carbon dioxide emission threshold before they are liable for any EU-ETS payment, but non-commercial aviation has no threshold at all even though its aircraft are smaller and emit less.