Green Options

Part of the irrational fear of Cap and Trade is based on the idea that some Wall Street Fat Cats (or Al Gore) will make out like bandits selling derivatives in carbon certificates. So I bet you never imagined that the most popular pledge gift for public radio subscribers would turn out to be… retired carbon certificates!

WAMC in Albany New York was given 600 carbon certificates to give listeners who called in and pledged their support for the radio station with a $100 pledge. They imagined would make for a rather dull pledge gift. After all, everybody disapproves of Cap and Trade, and nobody understands it.

Norwegian scientists have created a new method of calculating carbon footprint that takes into account (for the first time), the carbon costs in the country of consumption, not just in the country in which they are produced, bringing up some interesting issues and possible solutions.

The first carbon tax to reduce the greenhouse gases from imports comes not between two nations, but between two states. Minnesota has passed a measure to stop carbon at its border with North Dakota.

Cap-and-trade calamity? Au contraire. While the US flounders on regulating carbon, France’s Nicholas Sarkozy is pushing forward with new carbon tax legislation that will only add to France’s edge in the emerging green economy.

Suddenly, “green business” is a little low on green and high on business. Companies that were built to take on Big Oil are now sharpening their elbows in the lobbying fight to make sure that the bottom line does not fall victim to grid enhancements that are built out by someone else.

Just when you thought no more ink could be spilled about the merits or political viability of a carbon tax versus a cap and trade, it has.

“Worldwide, less than 8% of folks are responsible for 50% of emissions”, according to Professor Stephen Pacala of Princeton, co-author of Stabilization Wedges.

This group has a higher annual income than even the average American. But the US has the highest per-capita energy consumption rate of any nation, out-consuming the five most populated nations combined. Quite recent studies have confirmed what many already knew: that more affluent people consume more energy, and generate more green house gas (ghg) emissions. Thus, making significant cuts in ghg (to slow warming trends and mitigate climate change) without big cuts in this group’s ghg emissions is a major challenge.

The impact of greenhouse gases on global warming in the short term, and the possibility of severe climate change in the medium to long term, promise to create significant and lasting hardships for everyone. But these hardships will fall hardest on the world’s poorest, who are the ones least responsible for ghg-induced climate change.

The United States must take the opportunity of this economic downturn to invest aggressively in renewable energy projects and reduce its dependence on foreign supplies of fuel.

What advice would Ray Anderson of Interface give to Barack Obama about creating a legacy in sustainability?

With no consensus on a global carbon tax, the world leaders must try to negotiate a global carbon labelling law as it would make countries around the world responsible for their share of emissions, hopefully making them take bold measures to control them.

With other countries failing to show any commitment to either contribute to the climate fund or reduce carbon emissions, the European Union has backed out from its plan to release billions for the climate fund.