“As far as the Copenhagen process is concerned, my personal assessment is unfortunately fairly pessimistic … things have moved forward in an extremely difficult way and the progress achieved is extremely limited,” Yu says.

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If you have an old forest on the ground, it’s probably better to leave it there than to cut it.  For the countries that did sign on to Kyoto, it is suggesting that perhaps they need to consider unmanaged primary forests in their carbon accounting.

It is estimated that estimated that 1.3 billion metric tons of carbon are absorbed by old growth forests annually.

Via: Truthout

Image:  americaslibrary.gov

Until now, it has been internationally believed that the United States ranks number one, worldwide, as the country with the highest greenhouse gas emissions. However, a new report, to be published by the Journal of Environment Economics and Management next month, claims that China has already overtaken the United States as the world’s “biggest polluter.” While it was thought that China would overtake the U.S. in this regard very soon, this new research indicates that previous reports of China’s greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and that in all probability, emissions passed those of the U.S. in 2006-2007.

The team from the University of California that will publish the report, gathered their provincial-level data from the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency. The team readily admits that it isn’t possible to be exactly sure of the date when Chinese emissions surpassed U.S. emissions, as they are basing their study from 2004 data. Regardless, the team believes that projected greenhouse gas emissions in a future China have been radically underestimated. If the report is widely accepted and agreed upon, then this new data must be factored into any global climate change plan in which the Chinese play a part.

The research team offers that unless China makes drastic moves to cut their emissions, the increases in greenhouses gases in the nation will be much more significant than the simultaneous cuts being made by wealthy nations under the Kyoto Protocol.

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Emerging out of thin air, it has already surpassed solar and wind as the largest cleantech industry. Carbon credits were worth a staggering $63 billion in 2007 and $59 billion in the first half of 2008 alone.

Europe has dominating the carbon market since its creation less than five years ago. EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was responsible for 70% of the trading in the first half of this year, totaling $47 billion. This dollar amount is likely to increase as the cost of carbon credits soars and with the inclusion of aviation emissions in 2012.

Obviously an industry of this amount of rapid growth opens many business opportunities. Companies are needed to provide verified emissions offsets, energy efficiency audits, greenhouse gas emission audits, and to design carbon software. This industry has gained considerable interest from venture capitalists.

Carbonetworks of Victoria, British Columbia provides software to evaluate carbon footprints and reduction options for businesses, governments, project developers, and consultants. They are located in one of the few areas in North America with a carbon tax. They recently announced the first close of a $5 million Series A round from NGEN Partners.

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Some Democrats would dislike the choice of Hagel though, as it would put a Republican in good position to win the White House the next time around should Obama win. Of course there is also the possibility that John McCain might select the Independent and primarily liberal Senator Joe Lieberman as his vice president pick. So a dual-party ticket is possible on both sides.

Hagel’s opposition to the Iraq War is the principle reason why many Democrats label him the “new John McCain.” (the 2000ish John McCain that is– not the soulless hack we see now). From Nebraska, Hagel is one of the few prominent Republican politicians that Democrats like because he speaks with conviction and does not always file in with his party’s line. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Governor Charlie Crist also to some extent fit into this category.

Hagel, along with Rhode Island Democratic Senator Jack Reed, is currently joining Barack Obama on his international world tour to places like Afghanistan and Iraq. By having Hagel accept Obama’s invitation to join him on the trip, it has only fueled additional speculation that his chances of being selected as vice president are real. Hagel has also said previously that he is open to the possibility of running with Obama: a bold gesture. Hagel’s status as a Vietnam War veteran and his foreign policy experience would add a lot to Obama’s candidacy, in addition to perhaps winning over some independent voters and moderate Republicans to Obama’s side.

So given this possibility, I thought it would be cool and exciting if Obama made Hagel his choice. Although I have read that Hagel’s positions on almost all issues other than the Iraq War seriously differ from those of Obama. Their differences of opinion on abortion is the one difference most commonly mentioned by reporters. So I asked myself earlier today, where is Hagel on environmental issues?

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As part of the Kyoto protocol, Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs) were created to help developing countries lower carbon emissions while continuing development. The program is administered by the United Nations and is supposed to work like this:

Company A must meet targets requiring lower carbon emissions, but it is expensive to do so in its own country, so it invests in Company B in, let’s say, China. Company B is supposed to use these investments (CDMs) to develop energy sources with lower carbon emissions, such as solar, wind, etc. The world wins when this mechanism creates fewer worldwide carbon emissions. Patrick McCully, Executive Director of International Rivers, is sharply criticizing this program because he has found evidence of polluters gaming the system. His article in Renewable Energy World is long and informative, but I’ll summarize here:

• Coal and oil companies and destructive dam builders, and even some wind and solar companies, are using the CDMs as an income generator for projects that they would have built anyway, even without the CDMs. (Only projects that would have NOT been built without the CDMs are considered eligible. This “additionality” has been impossible to monitor.)

• But it gets worse. (Now stay with me as I introduce another acronym.) CDMs qualify as CERs, or “Certified Emission Reduction” credits, and companies who pollute can use them to achieve their carbon emission reduction targets. McCully’s point is that CDMs + CERs = carbon disaster, because some companies may make more money creating pollution and then taking CERs to mitigate it than by simply not polluting. He uses an extreme example to illustrate:

Image credit: Atmospheric CO₂ concentrations measured at Mauna Loa Observatory.

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An interim summit held in Japan mid March convened representatives of the world’s top 20 greenhouse gas emitting countries responsible for 80% of the world’s pollution. It appeared that little progress was made. But all countries including the US agreed in Bali that they’d participate in the negotiations to the Kyoto’s successor and that promise was upheld two weeks ago. What was termed a “principle of common but differentiated responsibility” was accepted as a framework for negotiations. In other words, the new pact will bind all countries to various actions.

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The only way to stabilize Earth’s climate, according to new research, is to cut carbon emissions to zero … and to do it quick.

Climate scientists Ken Caldeira and Damon Matthews reached that conclusion after taking a new approach to future climate modeling. Rather than analyze what it would take to stabilize carbon dioxide levels, they crunched data to determine how much carbon we could continue pumping into the air without warming the Earth any further.

The answer they got was: none.

“Most scientific and policy discussions about avoiding climate change have centered on what emissions would be needed to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Caldeira said. “But stabilizing greenhouse gases does not equate to a stable climate.”

In Caldeira’s and Mathews’ model, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations slowly begin dropping only if emissions go to zero. And, even in that case, the Earth remains warm for another 500 years.

On the flip side, any emissions more than zero result in further warming of the planet.

“What if we were to discover tomorrow that a climate catastrophe was imminent if our planet warmed any further?” Caldeira asked.

That might be a question we’ll have to answer soon. Amazingly, though, Caldeira remains hopeful.

“It is just not that hard to solve the technological challenges,” he said. “We can develop and deploy wind turbines, electric cars, and so on, and live well without damaging the environment. The future can be better than the present, but we have to take steps to start kicking the CO2 habit now, so we won’t need to go cold turkey later.”

“Sweden was allowed to increase its emissions by more than four percent.

[But] emissions have decreased by nearly nine percent so [overall] that means Sweden has reduced its emissions by 12.7 percent, more than agreed under the Kyoto Protocol,” said the political advisor Hannes Borg.

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Like corporate social responsibility (CSR), you find yourself semi-exhausted before the next sentence.

You sense inherent good in each of these phrases – sure – but just want them to make sense in a realer world.

And so to the VCS.

Voluntary carbon offsetting is big business. In 2006, there was a huge surge in this market resulting in a 200% growth.

Big brands were, and are, getting into carbon offsetting in a big way. Google, Nike, Coca Cola, Yahoo! – all are now part of this market.

I don’t think it at all beneficial at this stage to analyse their reasons for announcing green credentials. Whether it really is genuine CSR or in each case a PR exercise is redundant. Don’t muddy the waters. They’re doing it.

So, yes, multinationals are offsetting their carbon within the voluntary sector. Good.

But what’s drawing them to the market? Two reasons.

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That’s how I felt, anyway, after getting off the phone following a conference call between Sen. John Kerry (D, MA) and environmental bloggers today. Kerry demonstrates a full and deep understanding of the challenges posed by global warming, but also makes it clear — without actually having to say it — how slowly and painstakingly the legislative process moves to address those challenges.

Kerry expressed confidence in the prospects of the current Lieberman-Warner proposal for a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions. He indicated cautious optimism that the next administration will enable law-makers to enact even stronger measures aimed at curbing climate change. He placed a lot of hope on the abilities of science, technology and business to develop solutions to challenges such as developing carbon capture and storage so we can burn coal cleanly.

Kerry also noted he and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D, CA) will be taking a delegation to Bali next month — for talks to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol — "to make sure the U.S. is properly represented. We’re not going to let the stonewalling of this administration dominate." And he urged us to put steady, ongoing pressure on other legislators, especially moderates and those in states likely to feel the greatest impact of climate change, to make the right decisions.

It’s encouraging we’re taking steps toward addressing climate change. It’s also good to see we’re taking more and more of those steps each day, and speeding up our stride little by little. But still I’m left with a lingering concern that, despite all the well-informed and properly motivated leaders like Kerry, the gears of government are grinding too slowly to make meaningful action possible in the immediate future.

Kerry is more optimistic, and I hope he proves my fears unfounded.

"I think basically we’re on the brink of a very exciting era," he said. "We’re going to get some of these projects (such as carbon capture and storage) rolling. There are some very exciting concepts out there."