Obama will give a speech at the conference on December 9th on his way to Norway to pick up his Nobel Peace Price on the 10th.

Obama had not committed to making an appearance at COP15, saying he would attend only if his presence would help lead to a successful outcome.

Read more of this story »

Overall, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels increased 29% between 2000 and 2008 and 41% from 1990-2008, and the current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now at its highest in at least 2 million years, according to a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The new report published this week by an international team of researchers who are part of the “Global Carbon Project” shows emissions trends through 2008 (including changes in emissions causes and in the amount of emissions remaining in the atmosphere) and brings up some major questions for the future as well.

Read more of this story »

Less than a month before leaders from about 190 countries meet at Copenhagen to finalize the new international climate treaty there is no clarity on even principles and foundations of the proposed treaty. In an effort to push for greater cooperation between developed and developing countries President Obama would strive to convince the leaders of the two most populous countries, China and India, to commit to mandatory emission reduction targets when he meets them, in separate meetings, this month.

Time is running out fast for the US Climate Change bill as it is struggles to make it through the Congress. Apart from the domestic political hurdles blocking its approval, lack of commitment from the developing countries is another issue for the delay in its approval. A pledge to reduce emissions from the developing countries in the form of increased use of renewable energy or improving energy intensity would put immense pressure on the Senate to approve the bill in time for the Copenhagen meet.

Read more of this story »

With hope of the US Climate Bill being cleared before the Copenhagen Summit in December there are substantial doubts over the successful negotiation of an international climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. However, the pressure on developing countries to do their bit has resulted in announcements of many national climate goals and regional cooperation deals. It would be interesting to see if these regional agreements infuse momentum into the negotiations for a global climate treaty.

The Indian and Chinese officials recently signed a memorandum of understanding which aims at increased cooperation in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. The two countries also agreed to jointly study the impacts of global warming and climate change in the Himalayan region. The deal is crucial since it is the first major deal between the two countries after China broke ranks from other developing countries and expressed intentions to take up voluntary sectoral emission cuts.

Pressure Tactics: In the recent months there has been virtually no significant activity on the part of the developed countries with regard to emission reduction goals being set up or announcement of financial aid to poor and developing countries. There is still no consensus on the technology transfer and intellectual property rights issue. These issues are central to the goal of reducing carbon emissions worldwide. The developing countries demand adequate funds and technology as they see mandatory emission cuts to be financially non-feasible for there growing economies.

With these regional deals the developing countries seek to increase pressure on the developed countries not only to agree to bold mitigation measures but also provide for adequate resources to the developing countries to reduce their own emissions.

Read more of this story »

About ten weeks from now leaders from nearly 200 countries will meet in Copenhagen to discuss the next climate treaty. During the last two to three years governments around the world moved to and fro over contentious issues like funding, technology transfer, intellectual property rights and emission reduction targets. As the world started to look for a replacement of the Kyoto Protocol, the start was slow with no sign of urgency even as the UNFCCC recommended a 25 to 40 percent reduction in global carbon emissions by 2020.

But the change at Washington brought a colossal change in the pace of global climate negotiations. The United States had played a vital role in formalization of the Kyoto Protocol but never ratified the same which created a gapping hole in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. With the failure of Kyoto Protocol acknowledged by almost all it is clear that the we cannot afford to repeat the mistake committed in the past. United States’ commitment to act boldly and swiftly has become the make or break issue for the next climate treaty.

Read more of this story »

The Indian government released a report recently which predicted a fourfold increase in carbon emissions output in the next two decades. According to the government report, India’s carbon emissions would increase to 4 to 7 billion tonnes from last year’s level of 1.4 billion tonnes by 2031.

India’s environment minister, however, preferred to point out another finding in the report. The report predicts almost 100 percent increase in per capita emissions but the minister noted that even with a 3.5 to 4 tonnes per capita output it would remain below the global average. The globally agreed limit of per capita emission for sustainable development is 2 tonnes.

That is the argument that the Indian government has put forward frequently in order to dodge international pressure to reduce its carbon emissions. India maintains that its per capita carbon emissions are way below those of the developed countries and thus it would be unfair to ask it to set mandatory emission reduction targets.

Read more of this story »

The U.S position on Climate Change is overshadowing all other discussions in the lead up to Copenhagen, even at a conference I recently attended in Melbourne Australia - the 5th Australia-New Zealand Climate Change & Business Conference, August 24-26th. The Australian position requires global consensus for a greenhouse gas emissions target by 25% with a successful Post 2012 Agreement in place, but only 5% if that is not concluded. It all depends on what the U.S does in Copenhagen according to their minister Penny Wong.

The European Union is the only group that will continue with strong commitments independent of the U.S position with a 20% reduction of greenhouse gases on 1990 levels by 2020 and 30% if a global agreement is concluded.

Read more of this story »

This column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

Reports of the demise of the U.S. dollar may be premature. But when some of the world’s most powerful investors are warning of the currency’s decline, investors take notice. More on this story here.

There are many cynics out there that critique and question the future of sustainable products and businesses. It’s easy to side with them, mostly because it’s difficult to understand what comprises a “sustainable” product which in turn creates a domino chain of skepticism about achievability. The industry is in self-defining mode and most of us lack the degrees in chemistry, biology, natural sciences or any other course of study that might support our inclination to trust what marketers tell us is “safe” and what is not. More on this story here.

Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, has grown quickly in recent decades - at the expense of its estuaries, environmentalist advocates say. More on this story here.

Read more of this story »

Wastewater treatment facilities end up dumping a lot of mud that is extracted from the in-flowing water. And, like everything else, that mud takes up space. Space that could be used for other things, even at the dumping yards. But researchers from the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) have suggested, and successfully shown, that the waste mud doesn’t need to be taken to a dumping ground; rather, it can be used as fuel.

This is great news for industries that are trying to comply with the Kyoto Protocol and cut CO2 emissions. It is also good news in a world that is trying to shake itself free of the addictions to traditional oils and coals.

Read more of this story »

They are everywhere. We can’t see them, but little by little they are destroying our way of life. But for the first time ever, they are being caught red-handed. They are greenhouse gases. And today Deutsche Bank unveiled the world’s first real-time carbon counter to measure these microscopic murderers.

Deutsche Bank’s 70-foot-tall digital billboard was unveiled today at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue in the heart of New York City. It stands right outside Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, displaying the running total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Kevin Parker, Global Head of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division (DeAM) and a member of Deutsche Bank’s Group Executive Committee, switched on the counter at a ceremony this morning.

The belief that information acts as a catalyst for action plays the muse for the Carbon Counter’s creation. The number displayed on the scientifically-valid Counter is based on measurements that come from scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The measurements track all long-lived greenhouse gases covered under the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols (24 gases excluding ozone and aerosols).

“It will be a huge task to bring global emissions under control and my hope is that putting this data in the public view will spur both governments and markets to move us more quickly to a low-carbon economy,” said Parker.

“The Carbon Counter is a bold new experiment in communicating climate science to the public,” said Ronald Prinn, Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. “With climate change in the news around the world, it is useful to have an up-to-date estimate of a single integrating number expressing the trends in the long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to that change. This number can help convey how fast these greenhouse gases are increasing, and the progress, or lack thereof, in slowing the rate of increase. The number on the Counter is based on global measurements. It shows the total estimated tonnage of these gases expressed as their equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide, with seasonal and other natural cyclical variations removed to more clearly reveal the underlying long term trends driven by human and other activity. It is indeed a number to watch.”

With carbon in the atmosphere reaching an 800,000 year high, it is indeed a number to watch. The number on the counter shows that the current quantity of long-lived greenhouse gases is 3.64 trillion metric tons. And that number is increasing by approximately 2 billion metric tons per month, a frightening amount.

“The science shows that unless this trend is addressed now there is a growing likelihood of increased warming and more severe disruptions for economies and societies,” said Parker. Scientists tend to agree with Parker. Scientists predict that if this trend continues there is an increasing probability of macro-climatic shifts that will create a self-sustaining cycle of rapid climate change.

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

The process of tracking current carbon levels relies on regular measurement of long-lived greenhouse gas concentration data from equipment operated in dozens of locations around the world by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA’s Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment. The total is re-calibrated every month as new data is brought in.

Because the goal of the Counter is to raise awareness and decrease carbon emissions, the Counter is carbon neutral. It uses low-risk carbon credits (CERs) to offset its energy use while the digital numbers are generated by 40,960 low-energy light emitting diodes (LEDs). It is possible track the number 24/7 at know-the-number.com and to receive Carbon Counter updates via twitter. A widget is also available for download.

In 2008 Deutsche Bank set a target to reduce its global carbon emissions by 20 percent annually and is committed to being carbon-neutral from 2013 onward.

Photo by Brandon Barrett, courtesy of Deutsche Bank

Developed nations have so far ignored the guidelines and warning issued by the UNFCCC regarding the amounts of carbon emissions that they need to reduce by the year 2020 in order to prevent a climatic catastrophe.

According to the scientific panel of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the world must cumulatively reduce its carbon emissions by at least 25 to 40 percent in order to mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. However, during the ongoing round of Climate Change Talks at Bonn, Germany, the developed nations have failed to come up with convincing targets for reducing their greenhouse gas outputs.

While the European Union has made it clear to notch up its 20 percent reduction target by 2020 to 30 percent if rest of the developed nations agree to a 20 percent reduction target, there has been poor response from countries like Australia, United States and Japan.

Read more of this story »

As we evolve towards a new global climate change policy regime at Copenhagen later this year via the negotiations currently going on in Bonn, a willingness to step in each other’s shoes gets more and more critical and primary.

On one hand are the developing countries like India, where emphasis has been on highlighting how its measures conform to the needs of the hour and of the globe. Its adaptation initiative on Himalayas and other, mitigation initiatives (solar, water, sustainability, energy efficiency, etc.) all aim at moving India and the world one step closer to a better environmental situation.  It is a more practical way of doing things to plan on both environment and development together – rather than on viewing them in traditional typecast of development versus environment. So, the rural employment scheme under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) that generates bulk of (70%) employment in environment-improving schemes is particularly heartening.  NREGA’s green jobs in afforestation, sustainable agriculture, water harvesting, etc. will not only provide employment to one person in a family but will also do so in areas that will alleviate emission-problems. 

Read more of this story »

Fifteen months ago, U.S. negotiators were booed at at Bali, Indonesia, that U.S. when they threatened to veto an accord laying down a two-year negotiating process to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Yesterday, the U.S.A was applauded at a 175-nation U.N. meeting in Bonn as Todd Stern pledged to “make up for lost time” in reaching a global agreement on climate change.

Read more of this story »

With fears of being pressurized to agree to mandatory emissions cuts under the new climate treaty, China has up the ante and is looking to hit back at the developed countries by holding them accountable for a size-able portion of its carbon emissions. According to a recent study, 15 to 25 percent of China’s carbon emissions originate from manufacturing of goods exported to developed countries.

The Director of China’s Climate Change department, Gao Li,  has said that since the western countries are these final users of the carbon intensive products they should share the responsibility for the same with the Chinese government. Mr. Li also said that sharing equal responsibility was essential to reach any fair agreement over reducing the carbon emissions.

These statements came almost a week after a carbon tax bill was introduced in the US Congress which called for levying an ‘carbon equivalency fee’ on imported products, in addition to the nationwide carbon tax in order to neutralize the losses incurred by domestic manufacturers. The bill, if passed, would also allow the US government to withhold revenue generated from the equivalence fee till the time the producer nation agrees to a domestic carbon tax of its own. 

Read more of this story »

Environment Protection Agency has announced that the US government would maintain a registry of all carbon emissions produced from some 13,000 high polluting industries. Companies emitting more than 25,000 metric tonnes of carbon emissions yearly will be required to report to this registry.

The plan to have a climate registry has been doing the rounds since 2007 and although a Climate Registry exists covering various American, Canadian and Mexican states, this would be much broader and mandatory in nature. Terming the decision as ‘critical step towards protection of health and environment’, the EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that emissions data is essential in order to tackle the problem of climate change. The registry would require the companies to report their methane emissions also, another major greenhouse gas. 

Read more of this story »

The European Union wants President Obama to act on his promise of introducing a new climate change policy and work out the modalities of a cap-and-trade policy before the Copenhagen Talks in December. Doing so, EU ministers say, would send a clear signal to the world and especially the developing countries about the change in America’s environment policy.

The European Union already has clear renewable energy and carbon emissions reduction policy in place but that has yet to make any difference in the stance of the developing countries like India and China. The Asian neighbors continue to resist any demands to reduce their carbon emissions claiming that their contribution to the overall global carbon emissions is very less as compared to that of the developed nations especially the United States which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

Read more of this story »

‘Saint Obama’. A painting by San Francisco based artist, Feroza Unvala

Environmentalists, politicians and eco-minded individuals everywhere have begun to view President Obama as a new Green Messiah. In just a few weeks the President has elevated the fight against global warming to higher levels of seriousness. And now the rest of the world is joining his cause.

Read more of this story »

]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/03/01/saint-obama-is-the-green-messiah-of-climate-change/feed/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/03/01/india-west-should-not-use-recession-as-an-excuse-to-stop-investments-in-renewable-energy/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/03/01/india-west-should-not-use-recession-as-an-excuse-to-stop-investments-in-renewable-energy/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:27:07 +0000 Mridul Chadha http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/03/01/india-west-should-not-use-recession-as-an-excuse-to-stop-investments-in-renewable-energy/

India’s special envoy on Climate Change has demanded that developed nations invest more in renewable energy projects and do more to reduce their carbon emissions.

The Indian government wants the developed nations to ‘re-double’ their efforts on funding clean energy projects and not let the current economic crisis be a roadblock in those efforts. The envoy also reiterated that his government was not yet in a position to pledge to any mandatory emission reduction goals. He reminded the developed nation of the ‘historical responsibility’ to bring down their carbon emission levels.

Continuing with his hawkish tone, the envoy added that the developed countries should carry on with their effort to reduce carbon emissions but should not expect the same from developing countries. He said that any efforts to pressurize developing countries to sign up for mandatory emission cuts under the next climate treaty could jeopardize any international treaty. 

Read more of this story »

]]> http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/03/01/india-west-should-not-use-recession-as-an-excuse-to-stop-investments-in-renewable-energy/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/02/10/trade-wars-can-they-disrupt-world-renewable-energy-cooperation/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/02/10/trade-wars-can-they-disrupt-world-renewable-energy-cooperation/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:23:41 +0000 Fred Etcheverry http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/02/10/trade-wars-can-they-disrupt-world-renewable-energy-cooperation/ The World Trade Organization will meet in Brussels Monday (Feb. 9, 2009) to head-off the rising wave of protectionism. A trade war could put the world into a deep depression and threaten cooperation on renewable energy. Ten EU commissioners are on their way to Moscow to meet with Putin and other Russian officials over trade bearers.

 Russia has raised tariffs and subsidies. The European Union claims that the “Buy American” proposal in the US stimulus plan violates WTO rules.

Under the Bush administration, the US imposed traffics on French cheese in retaliation for French health rules that restricted the sale of US chicken and beef. As Bush left office he was celebrated by the poultry industry for this retaliation. Such irrational lose-lose behavior is absurd, which is why it’s called “war.”

Until the recent slowdown, world trade was expanding and increasing world prosperity. According to Fareed Zakaria in his recent book, The Post-American World, “China’s growth alone has lifted more than 400 million people out of poverty. Poverty is falling in countries housing 80% of the worlds population.”

Read more of this story »

The company responsible for the project, Solar Spark Australia, is the first to be awarded Major Project Facillitation status under the Rudd government, and it plans to begin powering 9,000 homes by late next year.

This marks increased hope that Australia can meet goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 60% by 2050.

Read more of this story »