British Columbia will be the first in North America to institute a comprehensive carbon tax on nearly all fossil fuels. It’s a groundbreaking move that could prove the feasibility of taxing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Beginning July 1st, 2008, businesses and residents of British Columbia will be taxed $10 per metric ton of carbon emitted by fuels such as gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane, and home heating fuel. The tax will increase yearly by $5 per ton to $30 per ton in 2012, at which point the government will reevaluate the tax rate.

Nicholas Rivers, an economist at Simon Fraser University, commented that “The tax comes in slowly, ramps up over time, and uses the revenue in a neutral way to reduce other distortionary taxes in the economy, which is just what economists have been recommending for more than a decade.”

While pundits have argued that this would never happen in the US, the tax was received with little opposition by residents of British Columbia. Designed to be revenue-neutral, the tax will return all of the income generated ($1.85 billion over 4 years) in the form of tax cuts and environmental rebates, and it should have little impact on the economy or competitiveness.

Even with this new tax, BC’s finance minister Carole Taylor says that by 2010 British Columbia will have the lowest total combined corporate tax rate (25%) among the world’s economies.

Which just happens to be one of the criticisms of the tax—that it will hit residents harder than major industry (isn’t that usually what happens?).

While the increasing price of polluting won’t dramatically effect emissions immediately (only 5-10% decline), the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) forecast that if the price of CO2 rose to $200 per ton by 2050, Canada’s emissions would drop 60% below current levels over the next 40 years.

I’ve always thought this was a great idea because it’s a relatively quick way to generate a huge revenue stream for alternative energy while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Even if it bumped up the price of gas a few cents, I’m not sure anyone would notice at this point.

What do you think about carbon taxes? Vote in the poll I started on the GreenOptions Discussion forums: Are carbon taxes a good or a bad idea?

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Source: ES&T (Mar. 17 08): First comprehensive carbon tax in North America

Entitled LONDON AWARE 08, the exhibition gives people a chance to meet and talk with the exhibitors.

And as the website tells us:

LONDON AWARE 08 will be a meeting point for everyone - businesses, charities and experts, as well as people who are taking their first steps into a greener world.

The event looks interesting, refreshing and very much down-to-earth. As it should be with no barriers between those in the know and those who aren’t. An ideal opportunity to spread the word. As quoted above, the organisers are keen to get those new to greener living involved.

Clicking on the visitor link over at the website, we are promised that information, advice and inspiration will be provided to allow us all to achieve a more sustainable way of life.

Companies from across the board will be in attendance to promote their sustainable products.

There will also be a series of lectures on climate change.

The event has been organised by UK AWARE - a group of people eager to make a difference. As they so realistically put it:

We realise that to really fight climate change we need to make the right choices also the easiest ones.

Further events are also planned for Manchester and Edinburgh.

Links:

UK AWARE

LONDON AWARE 08

Source:

Image courtesy of Flickr

The Chinese coal industry is known for its lucrative returns: the China Shenhua Energy Co. gained 65% from July to September, and many investors claim they can't afford not to be in China. In fact, 20% of Shenhua's stock is held by U.S. investors — one of whom is the Teachers Retirement System of Texas.

But China's coal is also a huge polluter. According to the New York Times, China uses more coal than the US, the EU, and Japan combined, contributing an enormous amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. Coal-fired plants emit more than 60 different hazardous air pollutants. The large amounts of sulfur dioxide produced by Chinese coal cause acid rain, which pollutes water sources. But because of China's rapidly advancing economy, the country needs energy — fast and cheap. Coal-fired plants are much cheaper and quicker to build than natural gas, nuclear, or hydroelectric plants, and it's widely available.

Lead paint in toys, tainted dog food, factories pumping tons of carbon into the air to make Barbies, while we turn our SUV in for a Prius. Feel better now? Before you have a 60s flash back and begin to boycott Wal-Mart and begin weaving your own hemp cloths, ask yourself is this really the answer? Many of us still live in complete ignorance of how the rest of the world lives, but a growing number of us are starting to get it. We realize that just making changes that impact our household or perhaps neighborhood are just not

A Norwegian company called Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) will build the complex, which will be completed in different stages to incorporate wafer, cell, and module production. REC already operates the world's current largest solar plant in Norway, which produces about 650 megawatts of energy annually.

A solar manufacturing plant would be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, and REC looked at 200 locations before settling on Singapore. A combination of tax incentives, grants, and a skilled workforce were some of the reasons REC liked it. Likewise, Singapore officials are thrilled about playing center stage in the world's rush to clean technology. Ko Kheng Hwa of the Economic Development Board explained:

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak may be the first mayor in the nation to drive a plug-in hybrid vehicle as his official city car.

Since he was first elected in 2002, Mayor Rybak's official car has been a Toyota Prius. But the dramatically superior gas mileage of a plug-in hybrid vehicle prompted him to make the switch: he had his hybrid converted to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, from which he expects to get about 70 miles per gallon (mpg) compared to his average 40 mpg with the Prius.

A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is like a regular hybrid with a cord. That is, its battery can be recharged by plugging it into a regular 120-volt outlet.

Typical of many PHEVs, Mayor Rybak's car can travel about 30 miles solely on battery power if the speeds are 30 mph or less. If he drives further or needs to go faster, the car automatically switches over to using the gas engine. But for local city driving — when speeds are low and distances are shorter — he could go days without using any gasoline to power the engine.

In McKibben and the Step It Up Team's new book, Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community (Henry Holt, $13.00), the authors show how normal, everyday people, without any community organizing background, were able to create successful events to rally support for addressing climate change. Reflecting on the success of Step It Up allows the authors to repeat what worked--and discard what didn't. Their seven tips (make it credible, snappy, collaborative, meaningful, creative, wired and seductive) are a framework for understanding how community organizing works in the 21st century.

Findings from a new report examining insurance companies' responses to climate change were released at the International Association of Insurance Supervisors last week. The study found that an increasing number of companies are implementing initiatives to reduce the risk of climate change's impacts and reduce the emissions that cause the problem.

"From Risk to Opportunity 2007: Insurer Responses to Climate Change" was commissioned by Ceres, a U.S. group of investors and clean energy supporters that also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, which manages more than $4 trillion in assets. Mindy S. Lubber, President of Ceres, explained the report's findings:

Insurers are beginning to respond to global warming – and not just by withdrawing from coastal markets with high financial exposure. We’re seeing a rapid proliferation of products that will reduce climate-related financial losses, as well as the pollution causing global warming. Yet, insurer responses to date are not nearly sufficient given the scale of the challenge. We need more insurers, especially U.S. insurers, to step up.

Indeed, Europe's largest insurer, Allianz, said that climate change may increase insured losses from extreme events in an average year by 37 percent within a decade. Karolinska medical university in Sweden predicts cardiovascular health problems to rise along with global temperatures.

The article in question concerned a report that Greenpeace made about the latest gadget that everyone has to have: the iPhone. Apparently, in short, it was a danger to the environment as a result of its materials, and its lack of recyclability.

Their Rebuttal

The Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF) has swung back at Greenpeace, condemning their report as nothing more than a scandalous and hyped attack.

The international organization of the bromine chemical industry pointed out that none of the substances Greenpeace attacked Apple for using were banned under existing environmental laws. In fact, according to the BSEF, all the substances that were criticized by Greenpeace "…are approved for use, and provide critical performance and safety functions in a wide range of electronic products."

They went on to say that the brominated flame retardants that are used in the construction of the iPhone are all common ingredients in a wide variety of currently stocked products. The retardants provide a high level of fire safety, the Forum said, "essential in an age in which computer batteries randomly catch fire."

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) denied permits to two large, 700-megawatt plants proposed by Sunflower Electric Power. The plants would have cost about $3.6 billion and spewed 11 million tons of CO2 into the air each year. That’s almost the same amount of CO2 that the Northeastern states planned to have saved by 2020 with their cap-and-trade program. The attorneys general of those states had petitioned Kansas officials to deny the coal plants that would have effectively negated their efforts.

Interestingly, while the KDHE staff recommended that the plants be permitted, state law also allows the KDHE secretary to deny a permit if there is an unregulated emission that threatens public health or the environment. And that's what happened here: Secretary Roderick L. Bremby disagreed with his staff because of the unregulated CO2 emissions that pose a threat to global warming. He wrote in his news release: "I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing."

September of 2006 saw Greenpeace launch the Green My Apple website. Rather than asking for green iPods, they were asking for "green" iPods. The question they asked was this: why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have agreed to abandon?

May of this year saw Steve Jobs — the Apple god, if you will — announce to the world that "Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors" on environmental issues. But with the release of the iPhone in June in America, Greenpeace was left alone in the cold. Apple seemingly had just talked the talk, and sat at home on their couch.

So Greenpeace set out to see just what the iPhone was made of, literally. Purchasing an iPhone, and sending it to their UK labs, they found that the iPhone contained "toxic brominated compounds (indicating the prescence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs)) and hazardous PVC."

"Steve Jobs has missed the call on making the iPhone his first step towards greening Apple's products," said Zeina Alhajj, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "It seems that Apple is far from leading the way for a green electronics industry as competitors, like Nokia, already sell mobile phones free of PVC."

While General Electric announced structural changes to compensate for increased business in its energy-efficient lighting sector, BP is planning to restructure itself to emphasize…more petroleum.

Once self-dubbed "Beyond Petroleum" because of its increased focus on clean energy — and even considered to be one of the friendlier oil companies by clean energy supporters — BP is now folding its gas power and renewables division into its two exploration and refining segments. But despite the de-emphasis on renewables, it will continue to use the "Beyond Petroleum" moniker (still good for business I suppose) and build wind turbines and solar cells.

Why the change? Simple business: The company's new CEO, Tony Hayward, is frustrated with its performance compared to rivals like ExxonMobil. While Exxon and BP produce nearly the same about of oil each day (4.2 million barrels from Exxon compared to 3.8 million from BP), the stock market "values" BP's barrels at $59 and Exxon's at $122. So Hayward wants to realign BP with its core mission to boost profits: find oil and gas and make it into fuel. As James Harding of the The Times (London) put it, "Mr Hayward is setting out to make BP resemble Exxon, not The Body Shop."

Of course with the increased two-wheel traffic, the need for further safety measures has arisen. But all across the world, residents and leaders are endeavoring to make their cities the safest and friendliest for cyclists, which also results in a cleaner city. Bike racks are replacing car parking spaces, and cities are installing more and more bike paths and lanes to keep the cyclists and motorists separate.

The League of American Bicyclists has just awarded their national prizes for Bike Friendliness, and, surprisingly, New York City has been awarded a bronze medal. The platinum, gold, silver and bronze awards are presented twice a year.

New York's win can likely be attributed to current mayor Michael Bloomberg's efforts to promote cycling across the city by installing 400 to 500 bike racks a year. He's also set a goal of setting aside 400 miles of bike lanes by 2009. Currently, New York can boast 1 mile of bike lanes to every 15 for cars, but by 2009, they hope to bring that down to a 1 to 10 ratio. Already, other cities like San Francisco have breached a ratio of 1 to 7.

I hope this is of interest. Please contact me for more info...Jerry

Ecological Debt Day

But there is due cause as well, and not just a trend of over 15 years of such negativity driving this position. On Saturday, the 6th of October, we passed our Ecological Debt Day.

Now I didn’t know what Ecological Debt Day was either, until today, so let me share.

Each year, our planet needs to provide a certain amount of resources for us to consume. In theory, we should not go through all of that in a year, but we do. In fact, ever since we started living beyond our means back in the 1980s, the time at which we use up our natural resources has come ever earlier.

So, as you will have guessed, Ecological Debt Day is the day on which we use up the resources for one year, and start eating into the next year's… literally. It's the day we start living beyond our ecological means.

Jim Campbell, President and CEO of GE's consumer and industrial division, explained:

"We are increasing our focus on the development and production of new, innovative lighting products like LEDs, organic LEDs, our new high efficiency incandescent light bulbs and other products that our customers will increasingly demand and require."

LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, use a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. They are a super-efficient form of lighting. An organic LED means that the emitting layer material is an organic compound. They are lighter and more flexible than regular LED lights, and have been used in cell phone displays and digital cameras.

Tampa Electric of Florida has announced that it won't build a coal plant to meet future energy needs, as originally planned. The coal plant was going to be an integrated gasification combined-cycle plant, or IGCC, which means that the coal is broken down into different gases that make it easier to pull out and store the carbon dioxide (CO2) so it doesn't get released into the atmosphere. It's still a very expensive technology and has yet to be tested on a very large scale, but because the U.S. is so reliant on coal power, many believe sequestration is the only way to cut emissions fast enough to slow global warming.

Tampa Electric cited the uncertain future regulation of CO2, the challenge of carbon capture and sequestration, and the associated costs. Although the utility sees IGCC as playing a significant role in future energy needs, the economic risks were too high and too uncertain at this time to proceed. Instead, the utility will look at other technologies like renewables, natural gas, and efficiency. Florida has also had a slew of new clean energy laws, including limits on global warming emissions and requiring utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewables.