Earth Equity News

2009-11-07T04:24:00.002-08:00

As UN Barcelona Talks Wrap Up, Yvo de Boer Says Climate Deal May Take Another Year. By Alex Morales, Bloomberg, November 6, 2009. "The deadline for 192 countries to complete a new global-warming accord may slip by as much as one year, as negotiators hold back on pledges to slash emissions or pay financial aid to poor nations. Yvo de Boer, the United Nations supervisor for climate talks, said yesterday in an interview that too little progress has been made to conclude a treaty at a summit in Copenhagen next month, and it may take another year. He spoke in Barcelona, where the final talks before Copenhagen end today. The most powerful nations are holding back their biggest cards in what envoys liken to game-playing. The U.S., the second-largest greenhouse-gas producer after China, won't say how much aid it may offer. China has pledged no specific emissions goals. And Japanese and European delegates said they may not put concrete numbers for funding on the table until the two-week Danish summit is almost finished."

2009-11-07T04:24:00.001-08:00

EU Agrees on Financing Stance for Post Kyoto Treaty. Reuters, October 30, 2009. "European Union leaders agreed on an offer Friday to put on the table at global climate talks in Copenhagen in December after healing a rift over how to split the bill. Developing countries will need 100 billion euros ($148 billion) a year by 2020 to battle climate change, and 22-50 billion of this will have to come from the public purse in rich countries worldwide, rather than industry, leaders said. The two-day EU [Brussels] summit secured a complex negotiating mandate for the Copenhagen talks to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol... 'We managed to reach an agreement on climate finance,' Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said. 'The EU now has a strong position in view of Copenhagen.'"

2009-11-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

Why India Is Playing Hard to Get on Climate Change. By Bryan Walsh, Time, November 6, 2009."If U.S. diplomats consider India to be a major obstacle to global climate-change negotiations -- and they do -- it might be because of Sunita Narain. The director of the influential Centre for Science and Environment, Narain can be as caustic as she is intelligent, and never more so than when she is taking rich nations to task for what she sees as their hypocrisy on global warming. They pressure the developing world to control carbon emissions even as they refuse to move themselves, she says. 'The rich have to reduce their emissions so the rest of the world can grow,' says Narain, speaking in her office in New Delhi. 'This is about sharing growth between nations and people. If we can't, then India has to be a naysayer for a bad climate agreement.'As a leader of the bloc of developing nations, India has repeatedly argued that since rich nations like the U.S. are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they should take the lead on cutting emissions before asking the developing world to step in. The result is a global standoff. The U.S. has been reluctant to cut emissions unless major developing nations -- meaning India and China -- take steps of their own on a global level. The conflict has stifled international climate negotiations for years, and threatens to scuttle the vital U.N. climate-change summit in Copenhagen next month."

2009-11-07T04:22:00.002-08:00

Chairwoman of U.N. Conference Remains Upbeat. ClimateWire, November 3, 2009. "The job of Denmark's Connie Hedegaard, as chairwoman of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, is to lead negotiators from some 190 countries toward a deal that would replace the Kyoto Protocol. With only three weeks before the conference begins, there is a crescendo of voices around the world declaring that her job is impossible. Hedegaard disagrees. A former journalist who has a master's degree in literature and history, she is a skilled communicator who projects a determined confidence. She has been traveling all over the world telling anyone who would listen that a comprehensive deal in Copenhagen is not hopeless.

"Born in 1960, Hedegaard has had a meteoric rise in every career she has chosen. In 1984, she became the youngest member of the Danish Parliament, winning election on the Conservative Party list. In 1990, she left politics to work as a journalist, only to become head of radio news at the Danish Broadcasting Corp. four years later. In 2004, she was named environment minister, then, three years later, she became Denmark's first climate and energy minister, taking charge of the climate change negotiations. According to Danish media reports, she is in the running to become Europe's climate and energy commissioner, an appointment said to be favored by newly re-elected European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. She frequently bicycles from her home in a tony suburb to her office downtown.

"Among the biggest obstacles she sees to an agreement are the U.S. Senate's not passing a climate bill and disagreements within the European Union on financing climate aid to developing countries. Among the biggest losers if the Copenhagen summit fails to produce a binding agreement will be American businesses, Hedegaard said... 'The moment we postpone the deadline, we take off the pressure for delivering in Copenhagen... Now it's the time to deliver... I look forward to President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo a few hundred kilometers from here on Dec. 10 for his huge contributions to multilateralism and for giving hope to the world.'"

2009-11-07T04:22:00.001-08:00

African Countries End Boycott of UN Meeting in Barcelona. By Arthur Max, AP, November 3, 2009. "African countries ended a boycott of meetings at U.N. climate negotiations on Tuesday, after winning promises for more in-depth talks on how much rich nations need to cut greenhouse gas emissions... The Africans, supported by about 70 other developing countries, said industrial nations were making weak commitments to stave off dramatic temperature rises while Africa was being devastated by droughts and floods blamed on global warming... The walkout by some 50 African countries from committee work at the U.N. talks in Barcelona forced only some technical meetings to be canceled, but sent a clear signal that the developing countries would be tough negotiators at next month's final U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark."

2009-11-07T04:21:00.001-08:00

Obama and EU Leaders Pledge to Redouble Efforts. Reuters, November 3, 2009. "U.S. President Barack Obama and European Union leaders pledged on Tuesday to redouble efforts for a deal on climate change at a summit in Copenhagen, but gave no details of how to reach that ambitious goal. 'We discussed climate change extensively and all of us agreed that it was imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to ensure that we create a framework for progress,' Obama told reporters... Obama spoke after a White House meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU Foreign Affairs chief Javier Solana and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the EU's collective presidency... German Chancellor Angela Merkel told U.S. lawmakers after meeting with Obama earlier on Tuesday that a deal was urgent and there was 'no time to lose.' Merkel, making the first address by a German leader to a joint session of the U.S. Congress since Konrad Adenauer in 1957, was much more specific in what a deal would require. 'We need an agreement on one objective -- global warming must not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F),' she said. 'To achieve this, we need the readiness of all countries to accept internationally binding obligations,' she said."

2009-11-07T04:20:00.002-08:00

Copenhagen: A Work in Progress. By Fiona Harvey, FT, November 4, 2009. "What countries are hoping to agree at Copenhagen will not be a fully articulated international treaty in the mould of Kyoto. That must wait until next year, as there is not enough time for it to be fully worked out in December. Instead, they want to sign a binding agreement on four key points, the details of which will have to be worked out later. The four elements, as identified by the United Nations, are: developed countries to take on emissions-cutting targets for the medium term, generally defined as 2020; emerging economies will not have to pledge absolute cuts, but will have to commit to certain actions to curb the future growth of their emissions; financial assistance from rich nations to developing countries, to help them lower emissions and adapt to the effects of warming; and institutions to be set up that will govern the above. A political agreement on all of the key elements is 'doable,' insists Ed Miliband, the UK's secretary of state for energy and climate change. His optimism is echoed by other key players, including Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate change official, and Todd Stern, the US special envoy for climate change, who says: 'There is a deal there to be done.'"

2009-11-07T04:20:00.001-08:00

Senate Dems Move Climate Bill Without GOP. By Dina Cappiello, AP, November 5, 2009. "Senate Democrats sidestepped a Republican boycott Thursday, pushing a climate bill out of committee in an early step on a long and contentious road to passage. Other committees still must weigh-in on the measure, but the partisan antics early on threatened to cast a pall over the bill as it makes its way to the Senate floor... Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, had delayed the crucial vote for days because of a Republican protest over whether the cost of the legislation had been fully examined. But the California Democrat moved quickly to pass the bill Thursday, which for the first time would set mandatory limits on heat-trapping gases, without any of the seven GOP senators on the panel present. The measure cleared the panel on a 11-1 vote."

2009-11-07T04:19:00.001-08:00

Kerry, Graham, Lieberman Announce 'Dual Track' on Climate Bill. By David H. Fahrenthold, WashPost, November 4, 2009. "Even before a Senate committee could begin marking up the 'Kerry-Boxer' climate bill, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) himself announced a new 'track' of negotiations over climate policy that makes his original bill look somewhat irrelevant. Kerry, appearing at the U.S. Capitol with Sens. Lindsay O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), said the three legislators would work with business groups and the White House to forge a compromise climate measure that could get 60 votes in the Senate. These negotiations would be separate from the work that six different Senate committees are doing on climate legislation, including the markup that the Environment and Public Works committee was supposed to begin Tuesday, the senators said. Republican committee members, demanding more Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the bill's impacts, are boycotting that markup, so progress on the legislation has stalled. Kerry said that the senators were not circumventing that committee's process or ignoring the bill being marked up -- which bears his name, along with that of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). 'We're going to take the best [of the bill the committee produces], and we're going to build on it,' he said. Kerry gave few details about when he and the other senators would be done with their work."

2009-11-07T04:18:00.000-08:00

Sen Graham Calls for Pricing Carbon. By Brad Johnson, WonkRoom, November 4, 2009. "Saying that he has 'seen the effects of a warming planet,' Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called for the United States to 'lead the world rather than follow the world on carbon pollution'... Graham emphasized that his vision is to 'help this planet' that 'is in peril, create millions of new jobs for Americans that need them, and to become energy independent to make us safer,' because he believes that 'controlling carbon pollution is good business.' Although he hoped for participation from his fellow Republicans, he said, 'If you believe carbon pollution is not a problem, then you wouldn't want to work with me, because I do'... Our country doesn't have the infrastructure in place to build a green economy and never will until we price carbon."

2009-11-07T04:17:00.002-08:00

U.S. Chamber Back 'Principles' of Kerry-Graham Proposal. By Ian Talley, DowJones, November 3, 2009. "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tuesday said it supports most of the principles outlined in a bipartisan climate change proposal offered by Sens. John Kerry, (D., Mass.) and Lindsey Graham, (R., N.C.) and the organization is open to considering a federal cap on emissions as one possible legislative solution."

2009-11-07T04:17:00.001-08:00

Enviro Group Spending Soars in Senate Climate Push. By Anne C. Mulkern, Greenwire, October 30, 2009. "Green-group lobbying expenditures for July through September ballooned 33% to $6.1 million, compared with $4.6 million in the same period a year earlier. While that spending level is a fraction of what the oil and gas or electric utility sectors spent on lobbying in the third quarter, it signals increased confidence among environmental groups that climate legislation can be passed, analysts and observers said... For the quarter, the World Wildlife Fund spent the most within the environmental sector. Its $1 million lobbying tally is more than twice the $430,000 total of the Environmental Defense Fund, the next biggest spender. A nonprofit that works to preserve natural areas, plants and animals, the World Wildlife Fund had previously spent little on lobbying because it saw its efforts in a global context."

2009-11-07T04:15:00.000-08:00

Friends of the Earth (UK) Warns Carbon Markets Will Trigger Sub-Prime Crisis. By Andrew Donoghue, Business Green, November 5, 2009. "Carbon cap-and-trade schemes are a dangerous distraction and could trigger the next sub-prime financial crisis, according to environmental campaigners and academics. In a report [released] on November 5, Friends of The Earth says that carbon markets have been hijacked by financial organisations that are creating ever more complex products which echo the mismanagement and greed which initiated the banking and credit crisis. According to the report, A Dangerous Obsession [PDF, full report, 64 pp; summary. 6 pp]... the system has been subverted by speculators creating complex financial instruments, the report states. 'Far from proving to be an economically efficient instrument, carbon trading and offsetting have been beset by inefficiency and, in places, corruption and are set to become the next sub-prime crisis,' said professor Steve Rayner, director of the Institute for Science, Innovation & Society at the University of Oxford. The report says carbon trading is being used as a smoke screen by rich countries to avoid their commitment to help developing nations tackle climate change. Friends of the Earth wants the government to simplify the approach to regulating carbon by developing a clear carbon tax and investing in technologies to help the UK meet its target of reducing emissions by at least 40% by 2020, without offsetting."

2009-11-07T04:14:00.000-08:00

The Cap-and-Trade Mirage. Commentary by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, WashPost, October 31, 2009. "The House and Senate climate bills are not a first step in the right direction. They would give away valuable rights in cap-and-trade permits and create a trillion-dollar carbon-offsets market that will not lead to needed reductions. Together, the illusion of greenhouse-gas reductions and the creation of powerful lobbies seeking to protect newly created profits in permits and offsets would lock in climate degradation for a decade or more. The near-term opportunity to create an effective international framework would also be lost." Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel are lawyers with the Environmental Protection Agency. The views expressed here are their own and not those of the EPA. Their discussion paper [PDF, 17 pp], video [10 min] and website further explain support for carbon fees over cap-and-trade.

2009-11-07T04:13:00.000-08:00

Economists Concur on Threat of Warming and Need for Price Mechanism. By Todd Woody, NYTimes, November 4, 2009. "New York University School of Law survey [Economists and Climate Change, PDF, 49 pp] found near unanimity among 144 top economists that global warming threatens the United States economy and that a [carbon tax or] cap-and-trade system of carbon regulation will spur energy efficiency and innovation. 'Outside academia the level of consensus among economists is unfortunately not common knowledge,' Richard Revesz, dean of the law school, said during a press conference on Wednesday. 'The results are conclusive -- there is broad agreement that reducing emissions is likely to have significant economic benefits.' The law school's Institute for Policy Integrity sent surveys to 289 economists who had published at least one article on climate change in a top-rated economics journal in the past 15 years... The survey found that 84% of the economists agreed that climate change 'presents a clear danger' to the United States and global economies -- hitting agriculture the hardest -- even though the severity of global warming remains unknown... [91.6% preferred or strongly preferred 'market‐based mechanisms, such as a carbon tax or cap‐and‐trade system' over command‐and‐control regulation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.80.6% preferred auctioning carbon allowances rather than freely distributing allowances.

2009-11-07T04:12:00.000-08:00

EU Faces Vast Oversupply of Carbon Credits. By James Kantor, NYTimes, October 27, 2009. "A vast supply of pollution credits from abroad is threatening to overwhelm systems for capping and trading greenhouse gases, a senior European Union official warned. Critics have dubbed these pollution credits 'hot air' because many were generated by favorable accounting rules, rather than by measures and activities representing new emissions reductions... The main concern surrounds large numbers of carbon credits from Russia and Ukraine, which were earned under the Kyoto Protocol. Those countries' easily met Kyoto emissions reduction goals -- and therefore found themselves with a windfall of credits to sell -- when productivity collapsed with the disintegration of the Soviet Union 1990s. But some newer members of the E.U. -- principally Central and Eastern European countries -- also hold significant numbers of 'hot air' credits, complicating efforts by the Europeans to reach a common position that would restrict the use of the credits under a new climate accord to be discussed in Copenhagen in December. The availability of so many 'hot air' credits could dramatically depress the price that companies pay for emitting greenhouse gases, making it easy for them to meet their targets, and reducing their incentives to adopt more efficient practices and low carbon technology."

2009-11-07T04:11:00.000-08:00

Winners and Losers of Cap-and-Trade. By John Lorinc, NYTimes, November 2, 2009. "A new study [Carbon Exposure, DPF, 16 pp] from PointCarbon, a carbon market research firm, indicates that ExxonMobil would face an annual outlay of $5.9 billion to purchase carbon allowances under the terms of the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill, while electricity giants like Exelon and Pacific Gas and Electric would emerge as financial winners, because they rely heavily on diversified, low-emission fleets that include nuclear reactors and hydro dams. The analysis, released Monday, examines the impact of a $15-per-ton carbon dioxide trading market on the nation's largest oil and power companies, which together account for about 40% of the emissions in the American market."

2009-11-07T04:09:00.000-08:00

Al Gore's Climate Choice. By Andrew C. Revkin, NYTimes, November 3, 2009. "Former Vice President Al Gore's third book centering on global warming is out. Titled Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, it centers on the same mantra at the core of his message for years now - that the only missing link holding back action is political will. The book is mainly a heavily illustrated guide to the technologies and policies that could, in Mr. Gore's view, limit climate dangers. Nuclear is largely out, capturing and burying carbon dioxide is somewhat in. Gains in energy efficiency are a vital stepping stone, he says, along with vastly expanded deployment of renewable energy sources and improved storage and grid components to make sure the power is available where and when it's needed. On the policy side, Mr. Gore remains in the all-of-the-above camp, seeking both a tax on carbon dioxide emissions and endorsing, somewhat guardedly, the cap and trade architecture favored by congressional Democrats and many large environmental groups." Rachel Maddow Interviews Al Gore, MSNBC, November 4, 2009, 11 min. Al Gore on the Daily Show. Comedy Central, November 4, 2009, 9:24 min.

2009-11-07T04:08:00.000-08:00

World Faith Leaders Join Forces in UK to Battle Climate Change. ENN, November 4, 2009."The world's religions have a crucial role to play in the fight against global climate change, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday, characterizing the battle with global warming as a 'moral' issue. 'It is a pivotal moment for our world,' said Ban as he co-hosted with Prince Philip an inter-faith gathering of religious and secular leaders at Windsor Castle called Many Heavens, One Earth: Faith Commitments for a Living Planet. At the event organized by Prince Philip's Alliance of Religions and Conservation... leaders from Baha'ism, Buddhism, Christianity, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shintoism and Sikhism gathered to commit to long-term practical action to save the environment. During the three-day gathering, which concluded on Tuesday, the leaders announced 31 long-term commitments to protect the living planet. Practical initiatives include new faith-based ecolabeling standards for Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism; the planting of 8.5 million trees in Tanzania; sourcing sustainable fuel for India's Sikh gurdwaras, which feed 30 million people every day; the greening of religious buildings; and the introduction of ecotourism policies for pilgrimages -- still the world's biggest travel events."

2009-11-07T03:58:00.000-08:00

Young People Turning to Small Farms. By Mara Lee, WashPost, October 25, 2009. "A growing pool of young, educated, politically motivated workers [are]drawn to farming. Books such as bestseller growing pool of young, educated, politically motivated workers drawn to farming. Books such as bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma, in which Michael Pollan championed the local food movement, are sparking interest in sustainable agriculture, or small-scale farms that embrace humane and eco-friendly practices. Such operations are getting a boost from Community Supported Agriculture, a system that lets customers pay in advance for a weekly share of a nearby farm's crop; the number of members participating in CSAs grew 50% between 2007 and 2009. The number of farmers markets in the United States has jumped by almost 13% over the last year."

2009-11-07T03:57:00.000-08:00

Wind Industry Faces Prairie Rebellion in Kansas. By Scott Streater, Greenwire, November 5, 2009. "Local governments are beginning to flex their permitting authority to challenge commercial-scale wind farms, a trend some industry observers say could impede broader federal efforts to expand renewable energy production. The latest round in the emerging battle between local governments and wind-energy developers occurred last week in Kansas, where the state Supreme Court upheld a Wabaunsee County zoning ordinance banning industrial-scale wind development across 791-square miles of tallgrass prairie that county officials say should remain unsullied by wind turbines and transmission lines. Alma, the seat of the 7,000-population county, sits roughly 30 miles west of Topeka. Experts say the Wabaunsee ordinance, unanimously upheld by the Kansas court, is a key test of local governments' power to effectively ban large-scale wind farms, as opposed to blocking a specific project or proposal."

2009-11-07T03:56:00.000-08:00

Chinese-Made Wind Turbines Intended for Massive Texas Project. By Rebecca Smith, WSJ, October 30, 2009. "A Chinese wind-turbine company, with financing help from Beijing, has struck a deal to be the exclusive supplier to one of the largest wind-farm developments in the U.S., a sign of how Chinese firms are aggressively capitalizing on America's clean-energy push. The 36,000-acre development in West Texas would receive $1.5 billion in financing through Export-Import Bank of China. Shenyang Power Group , a five-month-old alliance, [connected with A Power Energy Generation Systems] would supply the project with 240 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbines, among the biggest made in the world. The Obama administration is hoping a shift to renewable energy will inject new life into the U.S. manufacturing base and provide high-paying jobs, making up for losses in other sectors. But while the U.S. has poured money into renewable energy through tax credits and other subsidies, China has positioned itself to reap many of the benefits by ramping up its export machine. Global manufacturing of wind turbines shifted primarily to Europe from the U.S. after the 1980s, as nations such as Spain created special pricing for renewable power. By 2005, less than a quarter of components going into turbines installed in the U.S. were made domestically. The extension of a production tax credit stimulated domestic output during the past few years. But Elizabeth Salerno, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association, said that in the first three quarters of 2009, there were 33% fewer announcements of U.S. turbine-factory expansions than in the comparable period of 2008."

2009-11-07T03:55:00.000-08:00

Salazar: Final Permits for Cape Wind to be Decided by Year's End. Reuters, November 2, 2009. "A decision will be made by the end of 2009 on whether the go ahead will be given to the massive Cape Wind electricity project off the shore of Massachusetts, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Monday. Salazar said his department is currently consulting with state agencies, including the state historic preservation office, and the final decision will be made 'hopefully by the end of this year'...Interior's Minerals Management Service gave Cape Wind a favorable environmental review at the start of this year, finding that there would be little negative impact from the project."

2009-11-07T03:54:00.000-08:00

Cape Wind. Editorial, NYTimes, November 2, 2009."After eight years of arduous state and federal environmental reviews, the promoters of Cape Wind, a wind energy project off the Massachusetts coast, had every reason to believe that they were home free. Then the Wampanoag tribes asked the Interior Department to declare all of Nantucket Sound, where the 130 wind turbines would be built, a 'traditional cultural property' and, they hoped, block construction. Tribal officials say their culture requires them to greet the sunrise each day and that this ritual requires unobstructed views. Their claim should be rejected by the responsible federal and state officials. Another round of bureaucratic reviews would drag out an approval process that has gone on much too long and give opponents time to find some other way to derail the effort... There is also evidence that the tribes have been working hand-in-glove with the project's main opposition group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. The Minerals Management Service, the agency overseeing the approval process, believes that the claims are bogus. But still to be heard from is Brona Simon, the state's historic preservation officer. If she agrees with the service -- and she should -- then the matter goes to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. If she does not, then it goes to the National Park Service for further review and then to Mr. Salazar... Rejecting, even delaying it, would send a dispiriting message to other developers who are further behind Cape Wind. In Europe, wind farms are a familiar sight. If this country is going to do its part to address climate change, they must become more common, and welcome, here."

2009-11-07T03:53:00.000-08:00

Wind Company Expects to Sell Controlling Stake Coal-Burning Utility. By Aaron Nathans, Wind Action, October 31, 2009. "Offshore wind company Bluewater Wind expects to sell controlling interest in the firm, and sources familiar with the plan say it is in serious negotiations with NRG Energy. The deal would give Bluewater immediate financing to keep its projects moving... Such a deal, if culminated, would pair Delaware's most prominent clean energy project with one of the state's most prominent polluters. NRG, based in Princeton, N.J., owns the coal-fired Indian River Power Plant, which long has ranked among the state's major air-pollution sources. A $500 million pollution reduction effort is under way there."