Sustainablog

Hopes for deal on climate boosted

2009-10-16T17:44:00.000-04:00

Hopes for deal on climate boosted
By Fiona Harvey in London
Published: October 16 2009 03:00 | Last updated: October 16 2009 03:00

Developing countries have dropped long-standing demands for access to rich countries' technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions, removing a big obstacle to an international deal on climate change, European officials said yesterday.
Countries such as China and India have pushed for rich countries to grant them free access to lowcarbon technologies ever since the lead-up to the 1997 Kyoto protocol. The demand has been a sticking point in negotiations before this December's climate change summit in Copenhagen with rich countries, arguing that any such move could force private sector companies to give away their intellectual property.
The softening of the developing countries' position comes close to resolving one of the five key elements the United Nations says are necessary for a deal on climate change at Copenhagen this December.
The other elements are: binding targets for mid-term emissions reductions from developed countries; a long-term global emissions target; actions by developing countries to curb their emissions; and financing for developing countries to adapt to the effects of global warming.
One European Union official said the "language of the discourse" on technology transfer had changed in recent weeks. Instead of demanding the transfer of intellectual property, developing countries are now willing to discuss collaborating on the development of low-carbon technologies. Such a scenario would see rich world companies encouraged to co-develop new technology with developing country partners.
Officials within the European Commission, the EU's executive body, confirmed there had been "a broadening" of the terms of the discussion, with "more mutuality" between rich and poor countries. Other non-European officials involved in the talks said there had been agreement on the need for an international plan on technology development, with incentives to encourage private sector investment in developing countries. This could take the form of carbon trading.
In part, the shift reflects the reality of the world economy. The rush of western companies to set up factories building wind turbines and other low-carbon technology has made China one of the biggest exporters of environmental goods.
Ed Miliband, the UK's climate and energy secretary, yesterday praised developing countries such as China and India for instituting domestic measures to curb emissions growth.
But on the biggest sticking point of the negotiations - financial assistance from the rich to the poor nations to help them cut emissions and cope with climate change - Mr Miliband said that agreement would not come until the very end of the negotiations

(Water Management) On-farm water management could increase global crop production by about one fifth; However, even intensive water management on present cropland will not be sufficient to accommodate the food demands of a growing population in a warming world

2009-10-14T17:14:00.000-04:00

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091012100825.htm
Harvest And Save Water To Increase Crop Yields, Say Researchers

ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2009) — On-farm water management could increase global crop production by about one fifth, a modelling study by German and Swedish researchers indicates. However, even intensive water management on present cropland will not be sufficient to accommodate the food demands of a growing population in a warming world, the scientists report in the current edition ofEnvironmental Research Letters.

See also:
Plants & Animals

Earth & Climate

Reference

"Use of water in agriculture is a key problem for the 21st century: without improvements neither the consequences of climate change will be manageable nor the demand of two or three billion additional people for food be met," says Wolfgang Lucht of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). "In this study we therefore investigated whether there are realistic opportunities to close the emerging gap in water supply for agriculture at least partially for many world regions. The results are quite encouraging," adds Lucht.
Today, about 15 million square kilometres, roughly ten percent of the total land surface, is covered by cropland. An earlier study by the researchers suggested that without substantial improvements in water productivity or other measures to increase yields on present cropland, an expansion by about ten million square kilometres would be required if the world population rose to ten billion in 2050 as suggested by the IPCC's SRES A2r scenario. The yearly consumption of freshwater for irrigated and rainfed agriculture would have to be increased by an additional 4500 cubic kilometres from currently 8800 cubic kilometres. "However, in many regions of the world that already face limits of water availability that is not an option," says Dieter Gerten, hydrologist at PIK. "Instead, we need to think of better ways to use the water that is there."
The research team headed by Gerten investigated how additional land and water requirements could be minimized through water management on existing cropland. The study, based on simulations with a vegetation-water model, quantifies the potentials of two water management strategies for increasing crop production: harvesting rainwater for use during dry spells and reducing soil evaporation.
In practice, a vapour shift from unproductive soil evaporation to productive plant transpiration that permits biomass growth can be attained through mulching or applying different tillage systems. Field studies show that soil evaporation can be halved this way. The researchers estimate the potential to increase global crop yield to amount to 2 to 25 percent, depending on management intensity. The highest potentials of more than 20 percent for a moderate management regime lie mainly in semiarid regions such as the Midwestern United States, the Sahel, Southern Africa, and Central Asia.
Rainwater can be harvested by concentrating and storing runoff in ponds, or with the help of dikes or subsurface dams. The water can be redirected to crops in periods of water stress so that the risk of crop failure is reduced. In the current study, water harvesting was simulated to increase global crop yield by 4 to 31 percent, again depending on management intensity. With moderate management intensity, parts of South America and parts of Africa show large potentials of more than 20 percent for increasing crop yield.
The combination of both management strategies would result in a production increase of 7 to 53 percent. Pronounced increases can be achieved mainly in regions where present yields reach less than one tenth of what could theoretically be reached if water supply was unlimited, as in large parts of Africa. Globally, a moderate and feasible management scenario suggests that crop production can be increased by 19 percent, which is comparable with the effect of current irrigation that amounts to 17 percent.
"However, the detrimental effects of climate change could reduce global crop production by almost ten percent by 2050," says Stefanie Rost of PIK. Even if the beneficial effects of the rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide on plant growth and the moderate water management scenario were realised, the water available on current cropland would not meet the requirements of a world population of nine or ten billion.
"This evidence poses crucial questions about tradeoffs between future land and water use for irrigated and rainfed agriculture, natural ecosystems and bioenergy," the authors state. They suggest exploring options of more efficient irrigation and expansion of irrigated agriculture, of plant breeding and genetic engineering, and of more effective trade with agricultural products from water-rich to water-poor regions.

Journal reference:
1. Stefanie Rost, Dieter Gerten, Holger Hoff, Wolfgang Lucht, Malin Falkenmark and Johan Rockström. Global potential to increase crop production through water management in rainfed agriculture. Environmental Research Letters, 2009; 4 (4): 044002 DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/044002

(Water Management) Marine plant life holds the secret to preventing global warming

2009-10-14T11:06:00.000-04:00

another link between water and climate change

===================================================

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6873403.ece
Marine plant life holds the secret to preventing global warming

Mangrove forests, salt marshes and seagrass beds, above, cover less than 1 per cent of the world's seabed, but lock away well over half of all carbon to be buried in the ocean floor

Frank Pope, Ocean Correspondent
Life in the ocean has the potential to help to prevent global warming, according to a report published today.
Marine plant life sucks 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, but most of the plankton responsible never reaches the seabed to become a permanent carbon store.
Mangrove forests, salt marshes and seagrass beds are a different matter. Although together they cover less than 1 per cent of the world's seabed, they lock away well over half of all carbon to be buried in the ocean floor. They are estimated to store 1,650 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year — nearly half of global transport emissions — making them one of the most intense carbon sinks on Earth.
Their capacity to absorb the emissions is under threat, however: the habitats are being lost at a rate of up to 7 per cent a year, up to 15 times faster than the tropical rainforests. A third have already been lost.
Halting their destruction could be one of the easiest ways of reducing future emissions, says report,Blue Carbon, a UN collaboration.
With 50 per cent of the world's population living within 65 miles of the sea, human pressures on nearshore waters are powerful. Since the 1940s, parts of Asia have lost up to 90 per cent of their mangrove forests, robbing both spawning fish and local people of sanctuary from storms.
The salt marshes near estuaries and deltas have suffered a similar fate as they are drained to make room for development. Rich in animal life, they harbour a huge biomass of carbon-fixing vegetation. Seagrass beds often raise the level of the seabed by up to three metres as they bury mats of dead grass but turbid water is threatening their access to sunlight.
"We already know that marine ecosystems are multi-trillion-dollar assets linked to sectors such as tourism, coastal defence, fisheries and water purification services. Now it is emerging that they are natural allies against climate change," said Achin Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General.
The potential contribution of blue carbon sinks has been ignored up to now, says the report, which was a collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and Unesco. Accurate figures for the extent of these habitats are hard to obtain, and may be more than twice the lower estimates used in the report.
"The carbon burial capacity of marine vegetated habitats is phenomenal, 180 times greater than the average burial rate in the open ocean," say the authors. As a result they lock away between 50 and 70 per cent of the organic carbon in the ocean.
To protect them the authors suggest that a Blue Carbon Fund be launched to help developing nations to protect the habitats. Oceanic carbon sinks should also be traded in the same fashion as terrestrial forests, they say. Together with the UN's scheme to reduce deforestation, they could deliver up to 25 per cent of emission reductions needed to keep global warming below 2C (36F).
Christian Nellemann, the editor of the report said:"On current trends they [ecosystems] may be all largely lost within a couple of decades."

Energy newsclips for 13 October 2009: Peak oil, Electric vehicles, Airplane and building fuel efficiency, Starbucks and Wind farms.... and more

2009-10-13T14:26:00.000-04:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/08/peak-oil-could-hit-soon/print

Peak oil could hit soon, report says
A new report says worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could peak in the next decade
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 October 2009 11.16 BST

Peak oil could lead to more investment in the most polluting forms of oil extraction, such as tar sands like these at the Albian Sands mine near Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. Photograph: Jeff McIntosh/AP
There is a "significant risk" that global oil production could begin to decline in the next decade, researchers said today.
A report by the UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could "peak" and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk.
Falls in production will lead to higher and more volatile prices, and could encourage investment in even more polluting fossil fuels, such as tar sands, which "need to stay in the ground" to avoid dangerous climate change as a result of carbon emissions, the researchers said.
The new report said there was too much geological, political and economic uncertainty to predict an exact date for peak oil, which would not lead to a sudden decline but a "bumpy plateau" with a downward trend in extraction.
But Steve Sorrell, chief author of the report, said while those who forecasted an imminent decline had underestimated oil reserves, more positive forecasts suggesting oil production will not peak before 2030 were "at best optimistic and at worst implausible".
The world has used less than half of the planet's conventionally extracted oil, but the remaining resources will be more difficult and expensive to get out of the ground, slowing production and increasing prices of crude.
With exploitation of the world's reserves running at more than 80m barrels a day, even major new discoveries such as the oil fields recently found in the Gulf of Mexico by BPwould only delay a peak by a few days or weeks, the report said.
Robert Gross of UKERC said: "The age of easy and cheap oil is coming to an end. It doesn't suddenly come to an end; obviously it's a gradual change. But we're moving away from easy and cheap oil to increasingly difficult and expensive oil."
The public should expect to see more higher and more volatile petrol costs in the future, with long-distance travel becoming pricier.
Britons should invest in the most energy-efficient vehicles and put pressure on the government to take the issue seriously, the researchers urged. With long time-scales and large investment needed to move away from a reliance on crude oil – particularly in the transport sector, which uses the lion's share of fossil fuel – the report said governments needed to take action now.
Sorrell said the UK government had no contingency plans for oil peaking before 2020, but officials needed to increase and speed up measures already being taken to cut climate emissions, such as improving vehicle fuel efficiency, shifting to electric cars and investing more in public transport.
Though high oil prices could encourage investment in renewables and technological changes, they could also do the same for more polluting and energy-intensive forms of oil. These include tar sands, where extraction of fuel becomes viable when the oil price hits around $70/barrel – its current level – and converting coal to a liquid, which requires a great deal of energy.
"Most of these unconventional resources need to stay in the ground, but [there are] such strong incentives to exploit them," he said.
The consequences in terms of carbon emissions of unconventional sources of oil could be "catastrophic", Gross said.
"The danger is, high oil prices push us into high carbon resources just as much as they might help push us towards renewables. The challenge for policymakers is to make sure, on a global scale, that that isn't the response to more difficult and expensive oil."
A spokesman for the Energy and Climate Change Department said: "Already, our climate change, energy efficiency and energy security policies outlined in the UK low carbon transition plan are not only reducing the UK's carbon emissions, but are consistent with the need to reduce our use of fossil fuels.
"This will help to ease demand for oil in the UK and internationally. In addition, the UK government is investing and supporting research on renewable and clean transport technologies – which is the UK sector that consumes most fossil fuels."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/08/green-energy-execs-implore-congress-for-sweeping-climate-change-bill/

Green Energy Execs Implore Congress for Sweeping Climate Change Bill
More than one-hundred green-energy company executives went to Washington, D.C., this week to urge members of Congress to pass a sweeping climate change bill, reports Mercury News. Clean-tech entrepreneurs and investors believe a bill that includes a cap on carbon emissions will help drive billions of dollars in clean-energy investments and ease the nation's dependence on foreign oil, according to the article.
The investor coalition Ceres and the Clean Economy Network organized this week's fly-in of executives from more than 100 companies, reports the New York Times. Executives met with the Senate's "Gang of 16″ including Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Director Carol Browner.
In June, the House passed legislation designed to combat global warming, and now the focus has shifted to the Senate, but legislation faces an uphill battle due to regional concerns among senators from oil- and coal-dependent states, reports Mercury News.
The Kerry-Boxer bill calls for a 20 percent reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020, while the House-passed bill (H.R. 2454) calls for a 17 percent reduction by 2020, reports the New York Times. Both bills include long-term emissions reductions of 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050.
John Doerr, one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capitalists, attended these meetings. Doerr and other supporters predict that a cap on carbon emission would trigger a significant shift away from oil and toward solar and wind and batteries, spurring billions in new investments and creating new jobs, reports Mercury News. Opponents call the cap-and-trade system a huge tax increase on energy.
Opponents may be out of luck on this point.
At the Clean Energy Economy Forum in Washington, Commerce Secretary Locke made it very clear that a carbon cap is here to stay, reports the Examiner. Locke said this will send a signal to business in America that "it's safe and profitable to make long-term investments in clean energy," according to the article.
Chu said at the Forum that if Congress fails to pass climate and energy legislation soon, the United States runs the risk of falling behind China as a global leader in producing wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and other clean-energy technologies, reports the New York Times.
Chu also announced that the Energy Department will provide up to $750 million from the stimulus package to accelerate the development of conventional renewable energy generation projects, according to the New York Times. The stimulus commitment includes the DOE's launch of its Financial Institution Partnership Program, which is designed to speed the agency's loan guarantee underwriting process and leverage private-sector expertise and capital, according to the article.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/09/energy-efficiency-remains-untapped-in-the-industrial-sector/

Energy Efficiency Remains Untapped in the Industrial Sector
The industrial sector's energy savings have remained untapped by many existing publicly-funded energy efficiency programs, according to a new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Energy efficiency in the industrial sector represents a low-cost resource compared with other sectors, but operating successful programs requires different approaches than are traditionally used in other sectors, according to the study.
Consuming nearly 32 percent of the nation's energy in 2007, the U.S. industrial sector offers significant opportunities for energy savings and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. Although industrial energy efficiency programs have existed for decades across the U.S. and Canada, these programs have not historically maximized savings opportunities, said ACEEE. In addition, the study finds that many publicly-funded programs have not invested time and resources to develop programs to effectively serve this sector.
The report, Industrial Energy Efficiency Programs: Identifying Today's Leaders and Tomorrow's Needs, identifies leading industrial programs and successful program strategies, and suggests recommendations for programs looking to start or expand offerings to achieve energy efficiency savings in this sector.
One trend cited in the report is the emergence of "self-direct" industrial programs, in which large industrial companies have the opportunity to use public benefits funds to make energy-efficiency investments in their facilities. In these cases, the facilities are responsible for meeting savings targets stipulated by program administrators.
The report also finds that some self-direct programs behave similarly to mature customized incentive programs. Both well-designed "self-direct" programs and mature customized incentive programs deliver significant and low-cost energy efficiency savings, according to the report.

http://planetark.org/wen/55007

Airlines Set New Fuel Efficiency Goals: IATA
Date: 12-Oct-09
Country: SWITZERLAND
Author: Laura MacInnis

A TACA airplane takes off at Comalapa's international airport, south of San Salvador October 7, 2009.
Photo: Luis Galdamez

GENEVA - The world's airlines have agreed to new fuel efficiency and carbon emission targets which go much further than the levels required through regulation, an industry group said on Saturday.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 230 airlines, said that carriers, airports and aerospace firms had pledged to improve fuel efficiency by 1.5 percent a year annually until 2020.
At a meeting in Montreal, they also set a goal of having carbon-neutral growth by 2020 and to record a 50 percent net reduction of carbon emissions in 2050 compared to 2005 levels.
"Airlines have set even more ambitious targets than governments for the longer-term," IATA Director-General Giovanni Bisignani told reporters on a teleconference.
"No other industry has been able to achieve what we have done," he said, describing the cooperation between all players in the sector on the environment question. "We are on the high ground and government must now catch up."
IATA has previously said that biofuels hold great potential to reduce the polluting emissions from planes, and has supported moves to offset fossil fuels burned in air transport.

http://planetark.org/wen/55004

Soros Aims To Invest $1 Bln In Green Tech
Date: 12-Oct-09
Country: DENMARK
Author: John Acher

Investor George Soros listens to remarks as he takes part in a Brookings Institution discussion in Washington, April 24, 2009.
Photo: Mike Theiler

COPENHAGEN - Billionaire George Soros said on Saturday that he would invest $1 billion in clean energy technology as part of an effort to combat climate change.
The Hungarian-born U.S. investor also announced he would form and fund a new climate policy initiative with $10 million a year for 10 years.
"Global warming is a political problem," Soros told a meeting of editors in the Danish capital where governments are scheduled to meet in December to try to hammer out a new global climate agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
"The science is clear, what is less clear is whether world leaders will demonstrate the political will necessary to solve the problem," he said, according to a brief email statement.
His remarks came a day after climate talks in Bangkok ended in deadlock over how much cash should be made available to poorer nations to help them cope with climate change and over the size of rich countries' greenhouse gas emissions cuts.
Soros said he would apply stringent criteria to his investments in clean energy technologies.
"I will look for profitable opportunities, but I will also insist that the investments make a real contribution to solving the problem of climate change," Soros said.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/11/electric-vehicles-–-getting-the-plug-ins-plugged-in/

Electric Vehicles – Getting The Plug-Ins Plugged In
Allan Schurr
Vice President of Energy and Utility Strategy and Development
IBM
It's an exciting vision, really – a whole new generation of clean, energy-efficient plug-in electric vehicles capable of running for long periods from a single charge at home overnight. Then when parked at the office, school, or curbside, they could instantly and easily plug in for a recharge or someday even provide excess power to the electrical grid.
Cost savings, environmental pressures on reducing emissions, and energy security issues related to petroleum consumption all favor electric transportation. Automobile makers are seeing some success with electric drive systems – they've matured and proven hybrid-electric technologies and experienced good market growth, and are now developing plug-in vehicles. Consumers like the notion of electric vehicles too, and more will likely buy them as they continue to become more available, efficient and affordable.
It's quite possible that plug-in electronic vehicles will become the preferred mode of personal transportation in the next decade.
But there is one major obstacle to the development, deployment and adoption of electrical vehicles on a large scale – the electrical utility grid as it exists today simply can't support large numbers of vehicles.
Modernizing the grid
There are a lot of things people take for granted with the electrical power system. When a homeowner turns on the light switch, he expects the power to be there. But adding plug-in cars to the equation introduces new dynamics to the electrical network's operations.
Is there enough capacity in the neighborhood electrical cable and transformer to charge several cars at the same time and meet all the other local needs? Are there fees and taxes that are different than what would be normally applied to electricity for a residence? What if the vehicle is connected to a public charging location away from home and the charges must be calculated and be charged to a home account? How will the system decide if a car can charge during peak periods, such as a hot summer afternoon?
That's asking an awful lot of an electrical grid system that today often doesn't even know when a consumer has lost power until he phones the utility to tell someone. There is infrastructure that most consumers don't think about that needs to be modified to support convenient and reliable electric car charging — things as basic as plugging a car in anywhere, anytime, with easy-to-use equipment and easy-to-understand costs and payment options.
Over the last six months, this has become a common topic of discussion with power companies around the world. The coming plug-in vehicle phenomenon is one that utilities take very seriously because it will require careful long-range planning and investments in new technologies and capabilities. Utilities need to take into account current power supply and delivery capacity and the emerging demands from a new class of electricity using "appliances" – plug-in cars. In addition, future requirements for power storage, energy efficiency, and renewable energy add complexity to the operating mix.
New Partnerships
Electrical grids that can manage all these considerations and deliver the service required to support electric cars will need to be more dynamic, responsive, adaptive, efficient and intelligent. And creating them will require partnerships that include energy companies, power suppliers, equipment makers, academia, governments, information technology companies, and carmakers.
While such lash-ups of diverse partners may seem unusual, they can and must develop and use industry standards. And, by working together through coalitions that are beginning to form now, complete solutions to this challenge can be accelerated.
Take the EDISON Project in Denmark. Local Copenhagen utility DONG Energy is working with regional energy company of Oestkraft, the Technical University of Denmark, Siemens, Eurisco and the Danish Energy Association, and my company to develop a system that will marry wind power and electric vehicle charging. To the extent allowed by consumer preferences, vehicles will be charged when wind is generating excess power. Conversely, the vehicle charging will be slowed or delayed when the wind stops and energy production is diminished.
Denmark is already a leader in wind power – it accounts for 20 percent of the country's energy mix, and their goal is to double it. This scenario will let eco-minded consumers charge their cars with renewable energy while allowing the utility to better absorb and manage wind-generated power.
There are other signs of early progress as well. Utilities and car companies are beginning to work together. Standards bodies are making some headway. The U.S. government has earmarked some economic stimulus money to support electric transportation roll-outs.
But there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work needed for utilities to really deliver what they are being asked for — electricity available wherever it is needed for recharging. That aim impacts the people who operate the distribution network day in and day out, how they switch the power system configuration for maintenance, how they plan for restoration of power when there is an outage, how they plan and construct new capacity that extends circuits out to physical locations.
That's going to require a lot of work and investment in things like sensor data collection, data management, application integration, analytics and optimization and security. It also will require lots of third party technologies such as "smart" metering that allows two-communication between the power provider and the user. And in the back office there are billing systems and customer management systems that must be adapted to these new conditions.
Which comes first?
It's a classic chicken-or-egg problem — people won't buy plug-in electric vehicles if there's nowhere to charge them, and utility companies won't invest in the infrastructure to support them unless they're sure it will get used.
So all interested parties – carmakers, governments, power producers and their suppliers, technology companies and consumers – need to engage so that market adoption and infrastructure maturity will develop in tandem.
Allan Schurr is Vice President of Energy and Utility Strategy and Developmentfor IBM.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/12/nyc-may-audit-large-buildings-for-energy-efficiency/

NYC May Audit Large Buildings for Energy Efficiency
A measure before the New York City council would require buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to undergo energy audits, reports the New York Times.
Buildings that underperform in the audits would be required to make energy efficiency improvements.
The measure would be an extension of the city's PlaNYC, which was launched in 2007 with the goal of reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the city's municipal buildings and operations by 30 percent by 2017.
James Gennaro, chairman of the council's environmental protection committee, said that two-thirds of the city's carbon emissions are related to buildings. He called the proposed measure a plan for the city's future.
"Eighty-five percent of the buildings that we have in 2009 are going to be here in 2030," he said in the article.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/12/starbucks-rule-factors-into-wind-farm-location/

'Starbucks Rule' Factors into Wind Farm Location
When it comes to choosing a potential site for a wind farm, there's an informal guide that calls for not placing a wind farm within 30 miles of a Starbucks location.
The so-called "Starbucks Rule" is intended to prevent protests from residential-types who would object to the sight of 250-300 foot tall wind towers in their backyards, reports BusinessWeek.
Andris Cukurs, CEO of U.S. operations for Suzion Energy, said that not only his company – but also competitors – follow this informal rule, according to the article. With operations in 21 nations, Suzion claims about 12 percent of the global wind turbine market.
A new wind farm in Texas certainly took the Starbucks rule to heart. Located more than 200 miles from Dallas, the new wind farm in west Texas is the world's largest wind farm. See a video here.
Wind turbine sales in the U.S. are projected to grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7 percent to reach an annual production volume of almost 8,000 turbines with an average capacity of greater than 1 megawatt by 2015, according to new research.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/13/california-passes-improved-feed-in-tariffs-while-germany-and-spain-debate-changes/

California Passes Improved Feed-in Tariffs, while Germany and Spain Debate Changes
California's Governor Schwarzenegger has signed into law SB 32, one of several feed-in tariff (FIT) bills, which amends the existing FIT introduced by the California Public Utility Commission (PUC) last year, reports Wind-Works.org. Meanwhile, Germany and Spain are debating changes to their FIT schemes.
The SB 32 bill was introduced by Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-District 32) on behalf of the California Solar Energy Industries Association (CalSIA) in December 2008. SB 32 raises the project size cap to 3 MW from 1.5 MW but does not change the way tariffs are determined except that it directs the PUC to include environmental and distributed generation attributes in the tariffs, reports Wind-Works.org. The bill is another effort in the state legislature to gradually improve existing feed-in tariff policy, according to the wind energy Web site.
SB 32 also allows greenfield projects, determines tariffs by avoided cost (MPR or value-based), raises the program cap from 500 MW to 750 MW, and allows contracts for 10, 15, and 20 years, according to Wind-Works.org.
SB 32 will primarily benefit commercial solar PV projects, and it's unlikely to provide any benefit to wind or other forms of renewable energy, according to the Web site.
While the U.S. is just starting to address feed-in tariff issues, the new German government is expected to reform its Renewable Energy Act (EEG), although cuts for solar power rates will be modest to prevent harming the fast-growing industry, according to Reuters.
The FDP and the CDU want reforms to the EEG and have talked of cutting state-mandated feed-in tariffs — which utilities pay for CO2-free energy — by about 30 percent, though it's more likely to be around 15 percent according to a coalition source, reports Reuters.
The FDP and their allies have demanded steeper cuts to the scheme that require power consumers to subsidize green energy through higher electricity bills, adding about 3 percent to monthly power bills, but CDU leaders in states with photovoltaic industries have blocked steeper cuts in past reforms, reports Reuters.
Utilities are now obligated to pay 43 cents per kilowatt for 20 years for photovoltaic systems installed in 2009, and that rate has been falling by roughly 8 percent per year and is scheduled to drop by 9 percent in 2010 to 39 cents per kilowatt.
The situation is different in Spain. With feed-in rates, the extra money required to make renewables profitable generally come from consumers in the form of higher retail electricity rates, but the particularities of the Spanish electricity market prevented these extra costs from being passed on, reports the Grist blog.
At the beginning of each year, the Spanish government sets retail power rates and if the price of natural gas skyrockets that year, for example, the Spanish government later reimburses power providers and grid operators to cover the difference, according to the Grist blog. In this way, electricity rates are kept artificially low, with part of the cost being covered by taxpayers, resulting in future generations subsidizing current electricity consumption, reports the blog.
The problem with the Spain FIT scheme is it attempted to combine feed-in rates with inflexible, government pricing of retail rates, reports the blog. Spain is now starting to phase out the entire system, and by 2013, it will be eliminated, according to the article.

Green Newsclips for 13 October 2009: 2 Globescan surveys, and TV advertising on climate change part 2: The UK view

2009-10-13T14:25:00.000-04:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6867046.ece?print=yes&randnum=1255450136483

Ministers target climate change doubters in prime-time TV advert

Ben Webster, Environment Editor
Climate change sceptics are to be targeted in a hard-hitting government advertising campaign that will be the first to state unequivocally that Man is causing global warming and endangering life on Earth.
The £6 million campaign, which begins tonight in the prime ITV1 slot during Coronation Street, is a direct response to government research showing that more than half the population think that climate change will have no effect on them.
Ministers sanctioned the campaign because of concern that scepticism about climate change was making it harder to introduce carbon-reducing policies such as higher energy bills.
The advertisement attempts to make adults feel guilty about their legacy to their children. It features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story of "a very very strange" world with "horrible consequences" for today's children.
The storybook shows a British town deep under water, with people and animals drowning.
Carbon dioxide is depicted as rising in clouds of black soot from cars and homes, including from a woman's hairdryer. The soot gathers into a jagged-toothed monster menacing the town.
The daughter asks her father if the story has a happy ending and a voiceover cuts in, saying: "It's up to us how the story ends" and directs viewers to the Government's Act on CO2 website.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change publishes research today showing that 52 per cent of people think climate change will not significantly affect them. Only 33 per cent think that it will and 15 per cent do not know.
Fourteen per cent of people think that climate change will have no effect on Britain, even in their grandchildren's lifetime. Twenty-six per cent said they could think of no action they could take that would help to reduce climate change.
When asked how they would react if they knew climate change were going to have a serious effect on their children's lives, 74 per cent said that they would be willing to change their lifestyle. Fifteen per cent said that they would not make any changes.
The Met Office has predicted that the 2003 heatwave, which resulted in 2,000 premature deaths in Britain, could happen every other year from the 2040s.
Joan Ruddock, the Energy and Climate Change Minister, said: "The survey results show that people don't realise that climate change is already under way and could have severe consequences. With over 40 per cent of the UK's C02 emissions a result of personal choices, there is huge potential for individual behaviour change to lower emissions."
But Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the University of London and a critic of the Government's plan to cut CO2, said the advert was an attempt to manipulate people with alarmist language and apocalyptic imagery. "It is straight out of Orwell's 1984: an attempt to control with images of a perpetual war against something, in this case climate change."

Globescan surveys:
(1) Obstacles to CEOs adopting sustainability:
(2) Pulse survey on climate change:

Water newsclips for 13 October 2009: Irrigation controllers not so smart, and choosing between clean air and clean water

2009-10-13T14:16:00.000-04:00

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/09/study-finds-smart-irrigation-controllers-not-so-smart/

Study Finds Smart Irrigation Controllers Not So Smart
Tests of "smart" irrigation controllers found that most of the devices currently on the market were not as smart as advertised, according to a new study, reports Water Efficiency. To help businesses reduce both water and energy consumption in their irrigation systems, ITT Flowtronex is offering a cash rebate for the replacement of old and inefficient irrigation pump systems, while SunPods delivers a modular solar-power platform for irrigation and water distribution systems.
Conducted by Texas AgriLife Extension Service, the study finds that all six devices tested, all currently on the market, produced excessive irrigation amounts. The bench-tested controllers exceeded recommended irrigation amounts 100 percent of the time, applying on average 6.73 inches more water, while the outdoor-tested controllers exceeded the recommended amount 75 percent of the time applying on average 1.88 inches more water, according to the study.
Smart controllers use weather data to automatically adjust the amount of irrigation water applied, reports Water Efficiency. Some smart controllers use sensors at the irrigation sites to measure temperature and rainfall, but they may also measure solar radiation, wind speed and relative humidity, according to the journal.
Other controllers, commonly called ET Controllers, use evapotranspiration data acquired either through the Internet, telephone or pager to estimate landscape water requirements, reports Water Efficiency.
Both ET and on-site sensor controllers use the data they receive to estimate evapotranspiration at the site and apply enough water to offset it, according to the article.
The study finds that manually controlled irrigation units on timers typically apply about twice as much water as needed. Possible causes for the over-irrigation, include improper ET values, high plant coefficients and insufficient accounting for rainfall, reports Water Efficiency.
The study concludes that smart controllers are potentially superior to manually controlled systems despite their excessive irrigation amounts.
To help businesses improve the efficiency of their irrigation pump systems, ITT Flowtronex announced (PDF) a 10-percent factory-direct cash rebate for the replacement of old and inefficient irrigation pump systems. For a limited time, the new "Cash for Pumpers" program will allow customers to replace pump equipment that has been in service for 15 years or more with a new Flowtronex Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) Silent Storm packaged pump system.
The company said its Flowtronex VFD technology has helped many golf courses reduce energy consumption 25 percent and water consumption by 46 percent. All systems are supported by 65 FlowNet service centers to help with installations.
To qualify for the rebate, customers need to send a photo of the existing/old equipment and fill out a rebate form after the purchase. The offer applies to all qualifying equipment in North America.
For additional energy savings from water systems, SunPods has introduced(PDF) a new transportable, modular solar-power platform for agricultural use, water distribution, irrigation, wells and remote sites. The system provides solar power for on-grid and off-grid applications.
Based on SunPods' advanced Solar Smart Technologies, the SP-500 is ready to interconnect and power up on delivery, requiring only an electrician to make the connections. The SP-500 can be used on farms, ranches and wineries to power product processing, center-pivot irrigation systems, as well as water irrigation, water distribution, water processing and well-water pumping systems.
Municipal water agencies can also use the SunPods SP-500 for pumping water at water towers, wastewater and water purification plants, which will reduce electrical cost and provide an emergency power back-up system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/us/13water.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways
By CHARLES DUHIGG

MASONTOWN, Pa. — For years, residents here complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste in their yards. Five states — including New York and New Jersey — sued the plant's owner, Allegheny Energy, claiming the air pollution was causing respiratory diseasesand acid rain.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant's air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant's chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

"It's like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead," said Philip Coleman, who lives about 15 miles from the plant and has asked a state judge to toughen the facility's pollution regulations. "We can't escape."

Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation's biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

Much power plant waste once went into the sky, but because of toughened air pollution laws, it now often goes into lakes and rivers, or into landfills that have leaked into nearby groundwater, say regulators and environmentalists.

Officials at the plant here in southwest Pennsylvania — named Hatfield's Ferry — say it does not pose any health or environmental risks because they have installed equipment to limit the toxins the facility releases into the Monongahela River and elsewhere.

But as the number of scrubbers around the nation increases, environmentalists — including those in Pennsylvania — have become worried. The Environmental Protection Agency projects that by next year, roughly 50 percent of coal-generated electricity in the United States will come from plants that use scrubbers or similar technologies, creating vast new sources of wastewater.

Yet no federal regulations specifically govern the disposal of power plant discharges into waterways or landfills. Some regulators have used laws like the Clean Water Act to combat such pollution. But those laws can prove inadequate, say regulators, because they do not mandate limits on the most dangerous chemicals in power plant waste, like arsenic and lead.

For instance, only one in 43 power plants and other electric utilities across the nation must limit how much barium they dump into nearby waterways, according to a Times analysis of E.P.A. records. Barium, which is commonly found in power plant waste and scrubber wastewater, has been linked to heart problems and diseases in other organs.

Even when power plant emissions are regulated by the Clean Water Act, plants have often violated that law without paying fines or facing other penalties. Ninety percent of 313 coal-fired power plants that have violated the Clean Water Act since 2004 were not fined or otherwise sanctioned by federal or state regulators, according to a Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency records. (An interactive database of power plant violations around the nation is available at www.nytimes.com/coalplants.)

Fines for Plants Modest

Other plants have paid only modest fines. For instance, Hatfield's Ferry has violated the Clean Water Act 33 times since 2006. For those violations, the company paid less than $26,000. During that same period, the plant's parent company earned $1.1 billion.

"We know that coal waste is so dangerous that we don't want it in the air, and that's why we've told power plants they have to install scrubbers," said Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "So why are they dumping the same waste into people's water?"

Though the Environmental Protection Agency promised earlier this decade to consider new regulations on power plant waste — and reiterated that pledge after a Tennessee dam break sent 1.1 billion gallons of coal waste into farms and homes last year — federal regulators have yet to issue any major new rules.

One reason is that some state governments have long fought new federal regulations, often at the behest of energy executives, say environmentalists and regulators.

The counties surrounding Hatfield's Ferry, which are home to multiple universities, are an example of what hangs in the balance as this debate plays out.

Last year, when Hatfield's Ferry asked the state for permission to dump scrubber wastewater into the Monongahela River, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection approved the request with proposed limits on some chemicals.

But state officials placed no limits on water discharges of arsenic, aluminum, boron, chromium, manganese, nickel or other chemicals that have been linked to health risks, all of which have been detected in the plant's wastewater samples, according to state documents.

Records show, and company officials concede, that Hatfield's Ferry is already dumping scrubber wastewater into the Monongahela that violates the state's few proposed pollution rules. Moreover, those rules have been suspended until a judge decides on the plant's appeal of the proposed limits.

"You can get used to the plant, and the noise and soot on your cars," said Father Rodney Torbic, the priest at the St. George Serbian Orthodox Church, across the road from Hatfield's Ferry. "But I see people suffering every day because of this pollution."

Officials at Hatfield's Ferry say there is no reason for residents to be concerned. They say that lawsuits against the plant are without merit, and that they have installed a $25 million water treatment plant that removes many of the toxic particles and solids from scrubber wastewater. The solids are put into a 106-acre landfill that contains a synthetic liner to prevent leaks.

Officials say that the plant's pollution does not pose any risk. Limits on arsenic, aluminum, barium, boron, cadmium, chromium, manganese and nickel are not appropriate, the company wrote in a statement, because the plant's wastewater is not likely to cause the Monongahela River to exceed safety levels for those contaminants.

"Allegheny has installed state-of-the-art scrubbers, state-of-the-art wastewater treatment, and state-of-the-art synthetic liners," the company wrote in a statement. "We operate to be in compliance with all environmental laws and will continue to do so."

The plant's water treatment facility, however, does not remove all dissolved metals and chemicals, many of which go into the river, executives concede. An analysis of records from other plants with scrubbers indicates that such wastewater often contains high concentrations of dissolved arsenic, barium, boron, iron, manganese, cadmium, magnesium and other heavy metals that have been shown to contribute to cancer, organ failures and other diseases. Company officials say the emissions by the plant will not pose health risks, because they will be diluted in the river.

Though synthetic liners are generally considered effective at preventing leaks, environmentalists note that the Hatfield's Ferry landfill is less than a mile uphill from the river, and that over time, other types of liners have proven less reliable than initially hoped.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in a statement last month, said it planned to revise standards for water discharges from coal-fired power plants like Hatfield's Ferry. Agency studies have concluded that "current regulations, which were issued in 1982, have not kept pace with changes that have occurred in the electric power industry," officials wrote.

But some environmentalists and lawmakers say that such rules will not be enough, and that new laws are needed that force plants to use more expensive technologies that essentially eliminate toxic discharges.

Cleaning Up Pollution

"It's really important to set a precedent that tells power plants that they need to genuinely clean up pollution, rather than just shift it from the air to the water," said Abigail Dillen, a lawyer with the law firm Earthjustice, which represents two advocacy organizations, the Environmental Integrity Project and the Citizens Coal Council, in asking a Pennsylvania court to toughen regulations on Hatfield's Ferry.

Ms. Dillen, like other environmentalists, has urged courts and lawmakers to force plants to adopt "zero discharge" treatment facilities, which are more expensive but can eliminate most pollution.

State officials say they have established appropriate water pollution limits for Hatfield's Ferry, and have strict standards for landfill disposal.

"We asked the plant for estimates on how much of various pollutants they are likely to emit, and based on those estimates, we set limits that are protective of the Monongahela," said Ron Schwartz, a state environmental official. "We have asked them to monitor some chemicals, including arsenic, and if levels grow too high, we may intervene."

However, environmental groups have argued in court documents and interviews that Hatfield's Ferry probably will emit dangerous chemicals, and that they fear the state is unlikely to intervene.

Similar problems have emerged elsewhere. Twenty-one power plants in 10 states, including Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina and Ohio, have dumped arsenic into rivers or other waters at concentrations as much as 18 times the federal drinking water standard, according to a Times analysis of E.P.A. data.

In Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and elsewhere, power plants have dumped other chemicals at dangerous concentrations. Few of those plants have ever been sanctioned for those emissions, nor were their discharge permits altered to prevent future pollution.

Records indicate that power plant landfills and other disposal practices have polluted groundwater in more than a dozen states, contaminating the water in some towns with toxic chemicals. A 2007 report published by the E.P.A. suggested that people living near some power plant landfills faced a cancer risk 2,000 times higher than federal health standards.

Lobbyists Block Controls

In 2000, Environmental Protection Agency officials tried to issue stricter controls on power plant waste. But a lobbying campaign by the coal and power industries, as well as public officials in 13 states, blocked the effort. In 2008 alone, according to campaign finance reports, power companies donated $20 million to the political campaigns of federal lawmakers, almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.

In interviews, E.P.A. officials said that toughening pollution rules for power plants was among their top priorities. Last month, the agency announced it was moving forward on new rules regulating greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and other large industrial facilities. Lisa P. Jackson, who was confirmed to head the agency in January, has said she would determine by the end of the year whether certain power plant byproducts should be treated as hazardous waste, which would subject them to tougher regulations.

But for now, there are no new rules on power plant waste. And many states are trying to dissuade Ms. Jackson from creating new regulations, according to state and federal regulators, because they worry that new rules will burden overworked regulators, and because power plants have pressured local politicians to fight greater regulation.

For instance, Pennsylvania has opposed designating the waste from Hatfield's Ferry and other power plants as hazardous. In a statement, the Department of Environmental Protection said the state had "sufficient state and federal laws and regulations at our disposal to control wastewater discharges at levels protective of the environment and public health."

But residents living near power plants disagree.

"Americans want cheap electricity, but those of us who live around power plants are the ones who have to pay for it," Mr. Coleman said. "It's like being in the third world."

Karl Russell contributed reporting.

Seeking shelter: Mapping the effects of climate change on migration and displacement

2009-10-06T12:26:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Vishal

Green Newsclips for 6 October 2009: Carrot-cams and eco-labels

2009-10-06T12:10:00.000-04:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/01/asda-supermarkets

Asda's carrotcam gives customers glimpse behind scenes
Chief Andy Bond says shoppers will be able to 'trace the journey of every Asda product from farm to fork, warehouse to wardrobe'
Julia Finch, city editor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 October 2009 18.52 BST
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How many people does it take to wash a carrot? Those who log on to Asda's new website will be able to see for themselves: Britain's second-biggest supermarket has installed a webcam in a processing plant so shoppers can see their Sunday veg rattling along a conveyor and into a sack.
The grocer has also trained a camera on the side of a milking machine in a dairy somewhere in Scotland. Shoppers might just catch a glimpse of a hoof poking out if they wait long enough. Or they could try relaxing in front of Escalatorcam – a camera focused on the foyer of Asda's Leeds HQ and a certain cure for insomnia.
This is what shoppers have been waiting for, or so reckons Andy Bond, chief executive of Asda, who was today outlining his new vision – "the dawn of a new age, where consumers dictate how we do business and the products we sell" – with a promise to lift the lid on the way Asda operates.
A team of bloggers has been recruited to tell shoppers about the business, rather than "a bunch of PR consultants", said Bond, even though he had the public relations industry's spinmeister-general, Matthew Freud, on hand to offer help during his speech.
He wants a "transparent" business; Asda would be run "by the consumer for the consumer", he declared, adding: "There is no 'behind the scenes'."
His new approach was supported by facts and figures produced by Tony Blair's favourite pollster, Philip Gould. Shoppers trust supermarkets more than teachers, said Gould, and 65% trust their local grocer more than any political party.
Carrotcam and Cowcam are just the start: "The ambition is to reach a point where customers can trace the journey of every Asda product: from farm to fork or warehouse to wardrobe," said Bond.
Bond has labelled his new way of doing business as "democratic consumerism" and compared it to President Obama's politics – "offering openness, transparency, collaboration and dialogue".
So if there is to be no "behind the scenes", might we soon be seeing inside battery chicken sheds or at board meetings – a cluckcam and fatcatcam?What about some live footage from an abattoir, a Bangladesh T-shirt factory or an angry price negotiation between an Asda buyer and a supplier? "If that is what customers want, we will really have to consider it seriously," he said, looking just a little concerned.
What about making his own salary or expenses transparent? "If a whole pile of requests come in to see my expenses, then bring it on", said the Asda man. But no, he wouldn't be baring all today.
He also unveiled plans for a "truly transparent" store, in South Wales "where glass walls will replace brick walls, giving a unique window into areas normally out of view". Like the staff canteen, presumably, maybe the cloakrooms.
He will also be offering cash incentives to shoppers who can come up with money-saving ideas for Asda – 5% of the saving. But only for the first year. Suggestions that cash could be saved by trimming Bond's rumoured £1m salary will not count.
The Asda boss outlined plans to consult thousands of shoppers, online and in person, for their views on new products before they go in the stores. They should have plenty of time for this – according to Gould, housewives spend 47% of their leisure time online.
The Asda man's big business plan attracted some withering assessments from rivals. Peter Marks, chief executive of the Co-op, said Asda appeared to be catching up at last: "It's good to see others adopting the kind of approach which has been the hallmark of Co-operation for many generations. Andy Bond and his team at Asda are welcome to come and see how it's done."
A senior executive at another rival said: "It's genius. Ask the customers what they think? I can't think why no one has ever thought of that before."

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/01/wal-mart-wri-may-decide-which-eco-labels-will-stick/

Wal-Mart, WRI May Decide Which Eco-labels Will Stick
The far-reaching Green Supply Chain Initiative, undertaken by the World Resources Institute thanks to a grant from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., aims to develop and deploy a new set of tools to account for GHG impacts on any given firm's supply chain.
The initiative also will develop a "Green Standards Guide" to assist supply chain companies in wading through the different "green" claims of varying environmental certifications and labels.
Essentially, the Green Standards Guide will rate the various eco-labels, helping companys decide which ones they will recognize. A recent study from BBMG found that consumers had poor awareness of all but a few of the more than 400 "green" certification programs and labels.
The WRI initiative also will attempt to ascribe the GHG emissions associated with products sold to consumers, according to a press release.
The grant also will help improve the environmental impact of goods imported from China, as a portion of the funding will go the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environment Affairs.
Wal-Mart's involvement in the initiative follows the announcement of the retailer's Sustainability Index, under which suppliers will be graded on various aspects of their supply chain.
Wal-Mart has attempted to be inclusive of other industry players in developing the index, which it hopes will be used in other stores as well. For instance, it hasheld talks with Kroger, among others.
This is not the first time Wal-Mart has reached out to a third-party to assign environmental and emissions protocol. With the sustainability index, it appears Wal-Mart is set to use the Carbon Disclosure Project as one means of tracking suppliers' emissions.

Carbon Newsclips for 6 October 2009: Countdown to Copenahgen -- 7 days left to get to a deal, but Obama can't get a bill passed but gets agencies to set their own targets; developing countries start to point the finger at the rich nations for sabotaging the talks. Meanwhile, in the corporate world, Apple and Pepsi make some progress.

2009-10-06T12:08:00.000-04:00

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Only 10 days left for climate deal, UN's Ban says

Reuters, 3 October 2009 - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday negotiators had just 10 days left to secure a global climate deal and governments must not be hindered by domestic troubles.

The United Nations hopes to bring 190 governments together in early December in Copenhagen to finalise a deal on greenhouse gas emissions to replace provisions of the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012.

"There are just 10 negotiating days left until we come to Copenhagen," Ban said, referring apparently to the remaining days of Sept. 28 to Oct. 9 climate talks under way in Bangkok and to a Nov. 2-6 meeting in Barcelona.

"In 10 days we need to decide what needs to be done for our future," he said in a speech at Copenhagen University.

"We are not there yet. There is still a lot to be done and not much time left," he said during a visit to Denmark's capital to meet Danish officials and speak to an Olympic Congress.

Ban said a proposal to hold extra talks in November on financing for a climate deal was still under consideration.

"I see a value and importance of having that kind of last pressure effort," he said. "But we have to first of all see how these negotiations in Bangkok come out."

Ban said responsibility for reaching a deal rests on governments all of which, he added, face domestic challenges.

"Now is not the time to look at domestic challenges, we must look at global challenges that will impact the whole world," the South Korean secretary-general said.

Ban said success depended on the United States, though he recognised that U.S. President Barack Obama could have difficulty pushing through the necessary legislation in time for the December Copenhagen meeting.

"It is true, a fact of life, that without U.S. participation, this deal cannot be done," Ban said when asked what the world should do if the United States did not join.

The United States stayed outside the Kyoto Protocol when it was adopted in 1997, but Ban said this time all countries, "without exception", should join.

"We must have a comprehensive deal," he said.

"Now it seems it may be difficult for President Obama to come with strong authority (to Copenhagen) because this bill is still in the Senate.

"They might not be able to do that by the end of this year, but that should not give the United States an excuse not to do it."

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Obama unlikely to sign climate bill before Copenhagen

Reuters, 2 October 2009 - U.S. President Barack Obama is unlikely to sign climate legislation ahead of a U.N. global warming meeting in Copenhagen that starts in early December, the White House's top climate and energy coordinator said on Friday.

"We'd like to be (finished with) the process. That's not going to happen," Carol Browner said at a conference called the First Draft of History. She said the administration is committed to passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation "on the most aggressive timeline possible."

Democratic Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer unveiled a climate bill this week but it remained unclear whether it would win the required 60 Senate votes for passage.

Even if the bill does pass, the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives would have to reconcile their versions of the bill in committee.

That would leave little time for Obama, who has made climate one of his top issues, to sign the bill before 190 nations are due to meet in Copenhagen from early December in hopes of hammering out a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

The U.S. Congress has been focused on health care legislation, delaying work on the Kerry-Boxer bill.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters later on Friday that Obama would consider attending the climate talks in the Danish capital if heads of state were invited.

Browner said she did not know if a global agreement on binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions could be made in Copenhagen. But she had hope for progress saying the world's top leaders recognize global warming is a problem.

"Copenhagen isn't the end of a process, it is the beginning of a process," she said.

The administration has been pleased with recent talks with China, the world's top greenhouse gas polluter, on tackling climate change, she added.

STATES

Browner expressed optimism Congress would pass the bill in due time but said the administration has options if that did not happen.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could work with states that already have formed carbon markets to extend those programs, said Browner, former head of that agency.

"That may be a way in which you could form a regime using these models that are already out there," she said.

Ten eastern U.S. states have formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In addition, California and several other states in the West plan to regulate six greenhouse gases from smokestacks and tailpipes beginning in 2012.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/04/us-climate-change-bill-browner/print

US climate bill not likely this year, says Obama adviser
Carol Browner's bleak view deepens concerns negotiations will fail to produce meaningful agreement in Copenhagen
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 October 2009 18.45 BST
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Carol Browner speaking in Washington. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The White House has said for the first time that it does not expect to see a climate change bill this year, removing one of the key elements for reaching an international agreement to avoid catastrophic global warming.
In a seminar in Washington, Barack Obama's main energy adviser, Carol Browner, gave the clearest indication to date that the administration did not expect the Senate to vote on a climate change bill before an international meeting in Copenhagen in December.
Browner spoke barely 48 hours after Senate Democrats staged a campaign-style rally in support of a climate change bill that seeks to cut US emissions by 20% on 2005 levels by 2020.
"Obviously, we'd like to be through the process, but that's not going to happen," Browner told a conference hosted by the Atlantic magazine on Friday. "I think we would all agree the likelihood that you'd have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we go in December is not likely."
Browner's bleak assessment deepens concerns that negotiations, already deadlocked, will fail to produce a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen. It also threatens to further dampen the prospects for a bill that was struggling for support among conservative and rustbelt Democrats.
The UN has cast the Copenhagen meeting as a last chance for countries to reach an agreement to avoid the most disastrous effects of warming. Negotiators – including the state department's climate change envoy – admit it will be far harder to reach such a deal unless America, historically the world's biggest polluter, shows it is willing to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions.
Browner's comments undercut a campaign by Democratic leaders in the Senate, corporations and environmental organisations to try to build momentum behind the bill. The day before Browner's comments, John Kerry, the former presidential candidate who is one of the sponsors of the cap-and-trade bill, told a conference he remained confident the bill would squeak through the Senate.
Her remarks also raise further doubts about how forcefully the Obama administration is willing to press the Senate for a climate bill in the midst of its struggles over healthcare.
In the last two weeks, diplomats have grown increasingly frustrated with the administration. Negotiators say they understand Obama would have to struggle to get this agenda through the Senate, but say the president has shied away from opportunities to make the case for climate change.
Obama came in for harsh criticism from environmental organisations for failing to urge the Senate to act during a speech to the United Nations summit on climate change late last month. Environmental groups called it a "missed opportunity".
"If there is no serious US legislation in place then we will have delegations arriving and getting increasingly frustrated with nothing happening," said John Bruton, the European Union's ambassador.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/06/obama-orders-federal-agencies-to-set-2020-emissions-goals/

Obama Orders Federal Agencies to Set 2020 Emissions Goals
Federal agencies were given 90 days to set goals for reducing emissions by 2020. President Obama is letting each agency set its own target, and the military is immune from the mandate, reports the Associated Press.
Agencies have until June of 2010 to set targets for reducing emissions from employee travel and commutes.
Obama said this is an opportunity for government agencies to set the pace as Congress lags on adopting national emissions targets.
"As the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, the federal government can and should lead by example when it comes to creating innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Obama said in a statement.
The federal government owns more than 500,000 buildings and operates more than 600,000 vehicles. It also purchases more than $500 billion a year in goods and services.
The Oct. 5 executive order expands upon a Bush-era mandate to cut petroleum and water use, and reduce waste.
Specifically, the executive order calls for the following:

30 percent reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020;
26 percent improvement in water efficiency by 2020;
50 percent recycling and waste diversion by 2015;
95 percent of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability requirements;
Implementation of a 2030 net-zero-energy building requirement;
Implementation of the stormwater provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, section 438; and
Development of guidance for sustainable Federal building locations in alignment with the Livability Principles put forward by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

To read the full executive order, click here.
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Climate talks: The wrangle over emissions yardsticks

AFP, 22 September 2009 - Competing ways of calculating a country's carbon burden are looming as a sticking point ahead of a UN conference in Copenhagen in December tasked with crafting a landmark deal on climate change.

Rich countries and developing giants favour different yardsticks for judging efforts to curb the "greenhouse" gases that are blamed for disrupting the climate system and driving up sea levels.

These different methodologies may seem arcane. But reconciling them could hold the key to the December 7-18 parlay under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

There are essentially three ways of presenting a country's carbon output.

-- VOLUME OF EMISSIONS:

This is the simplest measure, relating to the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping gases emitted by an economy.

Rich countries generally favour setting targets on this basis. Tackling the overall volume of emissions meets scientific criteria for dealing with greenhouse gases and also makes it simpler to reach a deal, they say.

China and the United States are the world's top two carbon polluters, each accounting for about 20 percent of global emissions. The European Union's 27 nations contribute another 14 percent, according to the US Department of Energy Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC).

Poorer countries counter that this measure fails to take into account the historical responsibility of rich nations whose carbon-driven growth began more than a century ago.

It also, they say, ignores the distribution of emissions across an entire population.

-- PER CAPITA EMISSIONS:

This means taking the volume of emissions and dividing it by the country's population.

On a per capita basis, the emitters' list is headed by United States, with around 20 tonnes of CO2 per head per year, closely followed by Australia and Canada, says CDIAC.

EU residents only produce half as much per head. China and India emit less than five tonnes and about one-and-a-half tonnes respectively.

The large developing countries, led by India, argue that such figures exemplify the need for "climate justice."

Poorer nations should have the chance to use cheap, versatile and plentiful fossil fuels to haul themselves out of poverty, which means their per-capita levels should not be constrained for now, they argue.

Critics see the moral point behind per-capita measurement, but also worry it could be exploited to wreck a climate treaty.

Even if China, India and other giants peg their per-capita emissions at just half of rich countries' current levels, dangerous amounts of CO2 will be spewed into the atmosphere, simply because their populations are so big.

Climate experts have said that by 2050, when the world's population is expected to reach nine billion, the average global output of CO2 must not exceed two tonnes per capita to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

-- CARBON INTENSITY

This is the most complex measure, entailing the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per unit of gross domestic product (GDP).

By vowing to reduce carbon intensity -- as Chinese President Hu Jintao did at the UN in New York on Tuesday -- a country is essentially promising to make smarter use of fossil fuels or switch to cleaner energies.

Some countries already have relatively low carbon intensities. They are led especially by Japan, followed by France, Britain, Germany and the United States. The United States does well on this score, although it is still a huge volume emitter because of the size of its economy.

Russia is the most profligate, emitting 10 times more carbon fuel for the same production output than its most efficient European neighbors.

Critics of the carbon intensity measure say that energy efficiency is useful but does not necessarily entail a cut in emissions.

Even if it uses fossils more effectively, a rapidly-growing economy -- such as China's, growing by double digits -- can still emit more greenhouse gases in absolute terms, they say.

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU3MjE

Is 350 the new 450?

ClimateWire, 28 September 2009 - When it comes to fighting climate change, pick a number -- any number.

Nearly 200 countries have signed a U.N. treaty pledging to avoid "dangerous" climate change. But lately, it seems, "dangerous" is lost in translation. Fifteen years since that agreement took effect, scientists and governments are still grappling with what carrying out its promise means.

For the European Union, it means limiting Earth's warming to just 2 degrees Celsius hotter by the end of this century than it was before the Industrial Revolution. That's a goal many experts believe is roughly equivalent to capping atmospheric carbon dioxide at 450 parts per million. But a growing number of countries -- mostly vulnerable ones and small island nations like the Maldives -- say that won't prevent rising sea levels from swamping their coasts.

They're calling for an even stricter standard: 350 parts per million, a number endorsed by NASA climatologist James Hansen.

Some scientists mapping out Earth's potential futures say both targets are arbitrary. What's essential, they insist, is that countries start cutting their greenhouse gas emissions soon and stay flexible in case the planet behaves in unexpected ways.

"The best guesses are not carved in stone," says Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "There well may be surprises, pleasant or unpleasant."

Many experts said ecosystems may react in ways that could exacerbate warming. Some studies have suggested that the world's oceans, which absorb a significant chunk of CO2 emissions, will lose some of that ability as temperatures rise. Other analyses predict that warming will thaw large swaths of permafrost, releasing huge amounts of methane that would accelerate climate change.

Acknowledging the difficulty in pinpointing how sensitive Earth may turn out to be, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that the planet would warm anywhere from 1 to 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, said Stephen Schneider, a climate scientist at Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment.

Scientists say just 'dial it back'

"That's the difference between a little more than twice where we are now and 'Oh my god,'" Schneider said of the IPCC's temperature range.

To put those numbers in context, Earth has warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In that same period, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere rose from about 280 ppm to its current 387 ppm.

Even reaching the 450 ppm target isn't a guarantee -- a sentiment stated bluntly in a letter that 20 prominent climate scientists recently sent to members of Congress, urging an even more stringent emissions goal "to hold the risk of ruinous climatic change to an acceptably low level."

"When you put in all those uncertainties, the idea that you can hopefully say 450 [ppm] will be 2 degrees [Celsius], it'll be the same thing -- that's rather optimistic," NASA's Schmidt said.

"If we're very lucky, 450 might be another 1 degree. If we're very unlucky, it might be another 3 degrees." With that in mind, the scientist said he thinks 350 ppm is a good long-term goal.

"We can see changes in ice sheets happening now at roughly 390," he said, "and the planet hasn't even caught up with 390 yet. ... The prudent thing is to say, 'If we can dial it back again, let's do it.'"

Along those lines, Jason Lowe, head of mitigation advice at the U.K.-based Met Office's Hadley Centre, said the best approach to managing climate may simply be to start cutting emissions as soon as possible. His recent research suggests that governments need to start slashing emissions during the next decade, peaking by 2016 and cutting their output 4 percent every year after that.

"The headline result is that as long as you carry that on, you do have a chance of meeting the 2 degree target," he said.

'No such thing as a safe level'

At the most basic level, Lowe said, it means countries that cut earlier will have less onerous cuts to make in later years. "In some ways, you're lowering the risk," Lowe explained. "Every year of delay will make it harder to cut emissions down the road."

Flexibility is also important, said Schmidt, pointing to lessons gleaned from another U.N. environmental treaty, the 1990 Montreal Protocol. Countries that signed the treaty eventually agreed to phase out the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. But it took years of experience and several rounds of revisions to reach that point.

"It took 4 or 5 goes for [treaty parties] to get to those decisions that had a big impact," Schmidt said. With climate change, he said, governments should have short-term targets "commensurate with the size of the problem" that they can revisit regularly.

"2050 is long enough away that we are going to get a few bites at this cherry," he said.

Despite the wrestling over treaty targets, scientists said one point is clear: The world needs to cut its greenhouse gas output.

Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, said that if current CO2 emissions trends continue, the world could warm an average of 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, with devastating effects.

Some parts of the globe would bear the brunt of that heating, said Betts, quoting new results he is set to present today at a conference organized by Oxford University. The Arctic -- where scientists already predict summer sea ice could disappear by 2040 -- could warm up to 10 degrees Celsius, or roughly 18 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures could rise up to 7 degrees in southern and western Africa, decreasing rainfall by 20 percent or more and raising the risk of severe drought.

"Everyone's focused on the 2 degree target, but if we don't reduce emissions in the next decade, there's a fair chance we'll go above 2 degrees," Betts said. "Four degrees is quite possible later this century."

Schneider, the Stanford scientist, put it bluntly.

"We're betting the planet," he said of haggling over emissions targets. "There's no such thing as a safe level. There's a level of very risky, versus mildly risky."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/05/climate-change-kyoto/print

China leads accusation that rich nations are trying to sabotage climate treaty
Angry statement from 131 countries at climate talks in Bangkok claims rich nations are rejecting historical responsibilities

John Vidal's Bangkok diary: Secrecy prevails
John Vidal, environment editor in Bangkok
guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 October 2009 12.02 BST
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Rush hour freeway traffic heading north and south on the San Diego 405 Freeway in West Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Evan Hurd/Getty Images
The US and other developed countries are attempting to "fundamentally sabotage" theKyoto protocol and all-important international negotiations over its next phase, according to coordinated statements by China and 130 developing countries at UN climate talks in Bangkok today .
As 180 countries started a second week of talks, the developing countries showed their deep frustration at the slow pace of the negotiations on a global climate deal, which are planned to be concluded in two months' time in Copenhagen.
"The reason why we are not making progress is the lack of political will by Annex 1 [industrialised] countries. There is a concerted effort to fundamentally sabotage the Kyoto protocol," said ambassador Yu Qingtai China's special representative on climate talks. "We now hear statements that would lead to the termination of the protocol. They are introducing new rules, new formats. That's not the way to conduct negotiations," said Yu.
Yu's was echoed by Lumumba Di-Aping, Sudanese chair of the G77, the UN's largest intergovernmental organisation of developing states which represents 130 countries at the talks. "Feelings are running high in the G77. It is clear now that the rich countries want a deal outside the Kyoto agreement. It would be based on a total rejection of their historical responsibilities. This is an alarming development. The intention of developed countries is clearly to kill the protocol," he said.
The angry statements follow a revelation by Barack Obama's energy adviser, Carol Browner, that she did not expect the US Senate to vote on its crucial global warming bill before the Copenhagen talks. That will severely limit Obama's room for manoeuvre at the summit and is the first time the White House has made such an admission.
The G77 plus China group is incensed that rich countries appear to be seeking to establish a new agreement that would force developing countries to cut emissions, but allow rich countries to do little.
In the talks, the US has said it wants a new approach which would move away from a legally binding world agreement to one where individual countries pledged cuts in their national emissions without binding timetables and targets. It is a change from the top down approach of Kyoto, in which total emissions targets are determined by the science, to one in which individual countries pledge their own emissions cuts.
This is seen as undermining the Kyoto framework, which took many years to build, and has until now been the foundation for committing all countries to cut their emissions. The US team in Bangkok declined to respond to today's criticism.
Developed countries have so far refused to show their hand on what their emission cuts should be. The UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that to keep below a 2C rise in temperatures they need to cut their emissions by 25-40% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. But developing countries are calling for an aggregate cut of at least 40%.
But with fewer than 10 days of formal negotiations left before the Copenhagen talks begin, poor countries are complaining that they are being expected to cut emissions but the US and others are being allowed to get away with minimal cuts.
The UN estimates that the combined cut from national pledges made by rich countries, without the US, comes to 16-23%. However, a new analysis by the Alliance of Small Island States, estimates that this drops to just 11-18% with the US's present offer. If rich countries are allowed to offset large amounts of emissions, as expected, this would mean that the world's rich countries might not to have to make any emissions cuts at home.
Several of the world's largest developing countries including China and India, Indonensia and Mexico have indicated that they are ready to make significant emissions cuts.
"The United States wants only to have a national target without binding it to a global treaty. It appears to have won over many other developed countries," said Martin Khor, the director of the South Centre, a think tank of poor countries based in Geneva.
"They are stressing that developing countries have 'common' responsibilities, a code for pulling in the developing countries into emission-reduction obligations, while down-playing the 'differentiated' responsibilities that recognise that the developing countries have had little role in the historic emissions and need space for economic development."
Ed Miliband, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, said he remained optimistic that a deal could be struck at Copenhagen, despite the increase in tension in Bangkok. He said he was confident heads of state would be able to succeed in December where their official negotiators had apparently so far failed.
"This is really too important to be left to formal negotiators. If we are to get an agreement we need leaders, who can knock heads together," Miliband said, speaking in Moscow, where he is on a two-day official visit. He told the Guardian: 'If we treat this like a conventional negotiation we are going to fail... I think leaders can crack this problem.'
• Additional reporting: Luke Harding, Moscow

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/05/pepsico-reveals-method-for-calculating-carbon-footprint-of-products/

PepsiCo Reveals Method for Calculating Carbon Footprint of Products
PepsiCo, which has been calculating the carbon footprint of its Walkers Crisps potato chips in the UK since 2007, revealed some of the secrets behind its methodology in a recent article at MarketingMagazine.
Martyn Seal, Sustainability Director of PepsiCo Europe, said that the carbon footprint must include all steps of the supply chain to be effective.
PepsiCo Europe worked with the Carbon Trust to develop the carbon footprint of Walkers Crisps, which carry the Carbon Reduction Label. Since then, it also has put the label on 1 kilogram packages of Quaker Oats, as well as Oatso Simple Original and Oatso Simple Golden Syrup.
The first step is to develop a map showing the stages of the supply chain, from growing raw materials to making the product to getting it on the shelf and finally disposing of the packaging.
Second, evaluate the energy consumed at each stage and convert it into the amount of emissions associated with each stage, finally adding up all these elements to determine the carbon footprint of each unit sold.
In the case of Walkers Crisps, PepsiCo revealed that raw materials accounted for 53 percent of the emissions, followed by manufacturing (34 percent), distribution (10 percent) and disposal of used packaging (3 percent).
Seal said the most notable finding was that the majority of the emissions happen outside the scope of Pepsi's operations, meaning that it must work with suppliers or raw materials and distribution partners to most effectively reduce the product's carbon footprint.
In doing so, PepsiCo was able to reduce the carbon footprint of Walkers Crisps 7 percent from 2007 to 2009, saving about 4,800 tons of emissions. The company had originally hoped to cut the footprint by 3 percent.
A standard bag of Walkers Crisps has 80 grams of associated emissions, Seal said.
Seal "absolutely" encourages other firms to conduct carbon footprint analyses.
"By footprinting our products and better understanding where the 'hot spots' in our supply chain are, we've been able to develop a targeted carbon reduction strategy," Seal said. "Our experience has proven that introducing the Carbon Reduction Label, and making a public commitment to reduce carbon emissions, is a powerful means of galvanising action throughout the business."
In the UK, about 52 percent of those polled said they were more likely to buy a product carrying the Carbon Reduction Label, Seal added.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/10/05/apple-drops-bombshell-immediately-withdraws-from-u-s-chamber/

Apple Drops Bombshell, Immediately Withdraws from U.S. Chamber
Becoming the first major consumer brand to make a big statement against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's position on climate change, Apple has decided to leave the organization.
In contrast to PG&E, PMN and Exelon, the utilities that in recent weeks announced their intention not to renew their chamber memberships, Apple is making its exit from the chamber effective immediately, reports the Washington Post.
In a letter to the chamber, Apple Vice President Catherine Novelli wrote, "Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort," the Post reported.
Apple's move comes as companies increasingly are leaning on the chamber to quit fighting the general concept of climate change, as well as efforts to make emissions a more central part of the political dialogue.
Additionally, the companies are responding to the chamber's call to put the science behind climate change on trial.
Last week, Nike signaled its displeasure with the chamber by giving up its seat on the chamber's board of directors. At the time, Nike said it wanted the chamber to play a positive role in the climate change discussion.
"It is important that US companies be represented by a strong and effective Chamber that reflects the interests of all its members on multiple issues. We believe that on the issue of climate change the Chamber has not represented the diversity of perspective held by the board of directors," Nike said.
In response to the fallout from companies leaving the business lobby, the Chamber of Commerce issued a statement, aimed at defending and clarifying its position.
Thomas Donahue, President and CEO of the chamber, said the chamber wants the U.S. and other nations to negotiate an international agreement that sets binding CO2 reduction commitments for each nation, "while allowing each to devise its own best path to meeting its target."
Apple's move comes as it seeks to clarify its efforts to cut emissions.
Responding to criticism over its past failure to disclose its emissions, the tech company last week revealed its total 10.2 million metric tons of emissions in its most recent sustainability report.
In April of 2007, Apple ranked dead last on Greenpeace's ranking of green electronics manufacturers. Among other things, Greenpeace cited Apple's refusal to disclose its overall emissions.

PwC listing of "green" government incentives in Canada

2009-10-01T11:27:00.000-04:00

This list is useful because this area is an excellent example of what happens when governments have unclear strategies and little to no collabaration going... -JFB

http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/sustainability/green-incentives.jhtml

===============

Incentives to Go Green
View this page in: Français
PricewaterhouseCoopers identifies a concise list of federal and provincial sustainability-related incentives

Leading companies recognize that social, environmental, economic and ethical factors directly affect their business strategy and success. As sustainability becomes an integral part of the executive agenda, organizations need to find the right balance between generating profits and reducing the impact of operations on people and the environment.

Now for the first time in Canada, PwC has brought to the marketplace a clear, concise list of incentives that exist federally and provincially across Canada.

Going green is not an impossible task and many companies don't realize that there are many federal and provincial incentives that could help them make the switch, and even make money - critical in today's economy. While going green is not yet compulsory in Canada, it's only a matter of time before it is and those who make the right moves now will benefit in the future.

For more information about Canada's environmentally related incentives, listen to Episode 4 of ourTax Tracks podcast series — Going Green Incentives.

Click on the below list to find out the list of incentives that exist federally and provincially across Canada:

Select Federal Incentives — Part 1 (266 KB)
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Select Ontario Incentives — Part 1 (256 KB)
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Select Manitoba and Saskatchewan Incentives — Part 1 (240 KB)
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Alternative Energy newsclips for 30 September 2009: Smart meters aren't free even though they pay back, alternative energy pays a bundle, and how Canada, Hawaii and the US look at the future of cars

2009-09-30T20:07:00.000-04:00

Utilities Bumping Rates to Cover Rising Costs, Smart Meters

While the cities of Fort Collins, Colo., and Milwaukee, Wis., are still debating proposed price hikes by local utilities, in some cases to pay for the installation of new technologies such as advanced metering, Xcel Energy in Minneapolis has received approval to raise prices in order to pay for rising costs of power distribution.

Despite opposition to utility price hikes across many U.S. cities, a new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy indicates that increasing total energy capacity by adding energy-efficiency measures continues to be cheaper than adding new sources of electricity, such as conventional coal-fired plants.

The city of Fort Collins says in order to keep pace with costs and technology, it has proposed increases in water, wastewater and electric service rates in its 2010 budget that combined would add about $10 to monthly bills, reports The Coloradoan. About half of the increase would come from electricity through a 9.5 percent increase.

Officials say the increase is needed to cover higher expenses passed along by the city's wholesale supplier, Platte River Power Authority, or PRPA, as well as to invest in an updated system for measuring and monitoring electrical use, according to The Coloradoan. Installation of an advanced metering infrastructure, or AMI, which includes about 90,000 smart electric and water meters installed at every household and business, would cost about $21 million over two years, according to the newspaper.

We Energies in Milwaukee is proposing a $189 million increase for electricity as well as increases proposed for local natural gas charges and steam bought by Milwaukee and Wauwatosa businesses, according to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.

Customers' concerns center on increases due to the utility's lost revenue and pension plans as a result of the recession, along with compensation paid to top officials, although several utility suppliers, business group leaders and utility employees testified in favor of the hikes, reports the local newspaper.

Under the Public Service Commission's proposal, We Energies' rates would rise by 4.9 percent, or $125.2 million from where they are today, down from an increase of 7.4 percent or $189 million, submitted by the utility, reports the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.

Xcel Energy, which filed a request with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission last November to boost electric rates by 6.05 percent due to increasing costs of making and distributing power, received approval for a price hike at about 70 percent of what the company had first proposed, reports WCCO.com.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/30/hawaii-ontario-enact-feed-in-tariffs-for-renewables/

Hawaii, Ontario Enact Feed-in Tariffs for Renewables
Businesses in Hawaii and Ontario can adopt renewable energy technologies with greater assurance that the investments will pay off now that the state and province have enacted feed-in tariff programs.
Under feed-in tariffs, a set rate for electricity generated – usually above the cost of production – helps promote the adoption of renewable energy.
In Hawaii, the Public Utilities Commission will set a rate for 20-year contracts for solar, wind and hydroelectric sources. Hawaii is one of the sunniest states, and is attracting solar investment.
The PUC is expected to set the rates within the next few months. Rates will be tabulated based on project cost and reasonable profit for each operation, reportsBizJournals.
So far, other U.S. states to enact feed-in tariffs are: California, Florida and Vermont. Other states have introduced feed-in tariff legislation, only to see it shot down.
Meanwhile, in Canada, the important industrial province of Ontario has approved a feed-in tariff.
The move is part of Ontario's Green Energy Act, and it applies to projects that have a certain percentage of costs derived from Ontario labor and goods, reportsRisk.net.
Rates in Ontario would range from 10.3 cents per kilowatt hour to 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on the type of installation.
Ontario has pledged to spend $2.3 billion (Canadian) to boost renewable power, reports the Calgary Herald.
Already, Samsung is in talks with Ontario to establish a renewable energy business there, reports the Canadian Press, via CTV.

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU3OTY

Roadmap for Electric Vehicles

GLOBE-Net, 29 September 2009 - A roadmap containing a series of recommendations and strategic initiatives to help in the evolution of electric vehicles in Canada was formally presented to Natural Resources Canada Minister Lisa Raitt yesterday.

The Electric Vehicle Technology Roadmap for Canada , which culminates 15 months of cross-Canada consultations involving private sector companies in the electric vehicle industry, academics and government agencies, was presented by Electric Mobility Canada Chair Mike Elwood during the minister's visit to the annual Plug-in Hybrid and Electric Vehicles Conference (PHEV'09) in Montreal.

Asserting that Canada is well positioned to capitalize on the clean transportation option, because of the country's significant amounts of renewable energy and growing electric vehicle industry, the roadmap calls on the combined efforts of governments and industry "to achieve the timely and effective commercialization of electric vehicles."

The roadmap estimates there will be at least 500,000 personal and commercial vehicles that rely exclusively or primarily on electric traction on Canadian roads by 2018. But to secure this vision, the roadmap recommends governments, industry, and other stakeholders make timely and substantial investments in Canadian development and manufacture of EVs and energy storage devices, to build on the country's strong presence in these industries.

The report adds that consideration should be given to the supplementing of federal and provincial mechanisms to promote the development, public acceptance, and procurement of personal and commercial EVs, and also the installation of charging infrastructure.

The roadmap also outlines 21 strategic initiatives, which if implemented, and combined with the adoption of the key recommendations, will contribute to the likelihood Canada will "retain its vibrant and growing EV industry and play a role in the transition towards a more sustainable energy mix."

The strategic initiatives touch on the areas of technology, standards and regulations, studies and assessments, education and outreach. One of the proposed technology initiatives calls on governments and the private sector to demonstrate vehicle use in real-world operation to assess the reliability and durability of energy storage and other components in Canadian settings. Educationally, the report proposes assessing the resource requirements for training, education and certification in skills related to the emerging EV industry.

Mr. Elwood, the co-chair of PHEV'09, which was organized by Electric Mobility Canada, cited support for commercial and private purchasers of plug-in hybrids or battery vehicles, as a priority initiative.

"As with all new technologies, the cost at the beginning is higher and because of the environmental and economic benefits of these vehicles, it makes sense for governments to offer financial incentives in the early stages," he noted. "Once sale volumes reach larger numbers, the unit costs will go down. There are no such incentives at the federal government level in Canada at this time as compared to other developed industrialized nations. Several provinces now offer incentives."

Mr. Elwood said it is equally important to provide support to the battery industry to further research, develop more rapid manufacturing techniques and to generally advance the state of the art of batteries. "The new battery chemistries - lithium ion, for example - are evolving and have not yet been demonstrated over long periods of time," he added. "More development is needed - and possible - to improve range and reduce costs. Several other nations are supporting their battery companies to make these needed improvements and Canada has to step up to the plate, otherwise, these companies may well move to other countries where more favourable support is now available."

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU3MDI

White House unveils new vehicle rules

The International Herald Tribune, September 17, 2009 Thursday - The rules would impose the first nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and require a nearly 40 percent increase in fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. by 2016.

The administration of President Barack Obama is proposing rules that would impose the first nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and require an increase of nearly 40 percent in fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks sold in the United States by 2016.

Officials said Tuesday that the rules offered concrete proof of the administration's commitment to addressing global warming, just days before a series of international meetings on climate change is scheduled to open in Washington and at the United Nations. Broader legislation to deal with climate change is haltingly moving through Congress.

The government projects that the vehicle regulations would raise new car and truck prices by an average of $1,100 but that a driver would save $3,000 in fuel bills over the life of a vehicle. Officials also said the new program, which would take effect in 2012, would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly a billion tons and cut oil consumption by 1.8 billion barrels from 2012 to 2016.

The regulations, 1,227 pages long, must go through a 60-day public comment period before they can become final early next year.

The emissions program was first announced in May by Mr. Obama as a way of resolving legal and regulatory conflicts involving several national agencies and a group of states, led by California, that wanted to impose stricter mileage and emissions standards than those set by Congress and a succession of presidents.

Automakers had complained that they faced a thicket of varying rules that were almost impossible to meet. The Obama compromise was endorsed by all the major auto companies, state officials and most environmental advocates.

Addressing auto workers at a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said the rules would benefit manufacturers, workers and consumers.

In addition to providing domestic and foreign auto manufacturers with a single national efficiency standard, the proposed rules would allow them to continue to build and import all classes of vehicles, from the smallest gas-electric hybrids to monster sport utility vehicles. The mileage standard would vary by vehicle size, but companies would have to achieve a fleet average of 35.5 miles a gallon, or 6.6 liters per 100 kilometers, in combined city and highway driving.

Automakers that sell fewer than 400,000 vehicles in the United States would be allowed to meet a weaker standard to keep per-unit costs down. This group includes Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Subaru.

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU2MzA

German agency to accelerate electric car research

ClimateWire, 11 September 2009 - Germany is establishing an agency to coordinate and help fund innovation in electric cars, the country's research minister, Annette Schavan, announced Wednesday.

Some 30 different research institutes in Germany are working on electric cars, and the agency, with €44 million in funding, will coordinate this work, as well as set up a charging station infrastructure. Last month, the government set aside €500 million to fund such stations and battery research.

"The new agency will bring together representatives from politics, economics and industry so they can agree on joint strategies for electro-mobility," Schavan said.

Germany hopes to have 1 million electric cars on the road by 2020.

While German automakers were among the first to develop hybrid gasoline-electric cars, this research was neglected in favor of efficient diesel engines. Investment in the electric car now is essential for the country's dominant industry to stay ahead, according to Thomas Weber, director of research at Daimler AG.

"The electric car has enormous potential," he said. "We cannot stand still and watch as other countries get ahead of us" (Caroline Copley, Reuters, Sept. 9).

Alternative Energy Projects Stumble on a Need for Water

2009-09-30T19:18:00.000-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/energy-environment/30water.html?_r=5&pagewanted=print

Alternative Energy Projects Stumble on a Need for Water
By TODD WOODY

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. — In a rural corner of Nevada reeling from the recession, a bit of salvation seemed to arrive last year. A German developer, Solar Millennium, announced plans to build two large solar farms here that would harness the sun to generate electricity, creating hundreds of jobs.

But then things got messy. The company revealed that its preferred method of cooling the power plants would consume 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, about 20 percent of this desert valley's available water.

Now Solar Millennium finds itself in the midst of a new-age version of a Western water war. The public is divided, pitting some people who hope to make money selling water rights to the company against others concerned about the project's impact on the community and the environment.

"I'm worried about my well and the wells of my neighbors," George Tucker, a retired chemical engineer, said on a blazing afternoon.

Here is an inconvenient truth about renewable energy: It can sometimes demand a huge amount of water. Many of the proposed solutions to the nation's energy problems, from certain types of solar farms to biofuel refineries to cleaner coal plants, could consume billions of gallons of water every year.

"When push comes to shove, water could become the real throttle on renewable energy," said Michael E. Webber, an assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin who studies the relationship between energy and water.

Conflicts over water could shape the future of many energy technologies. The most water-efficient renewable technologies are not necessarily the most economical, but water shortages could give them a competitive edge.

In California, solar developers have already been forced to switch to less water-intensive technologies when local officials have refused to turn on the tap. Other big solar projects are mired in disputes with state regulators over water consumption.

To date, the flashpoint for such conflicts has been the Southwest, where dozens of multibillion-dollar solar power plants are planned for thousands of acres of desert. While most forms of energy production consume water, its availability is especially limited in the sunny areas that are otherwise well suited for solar farms.

At public hearings from Albuquerque to San Luis Obispo, Calif., local residents have sounded alarms over the impact that this industrialization will have on wildlife, their desert solitude and, most of all, their water.

Joni Eastley, chairwoman of the county commission in Nye County, Nev., which includes Amargosa Valley, said at one hearing that her area had been "inundated" with requests from renewable energy developers that "far exceed the amount of available water."

Many projects involve building solar thermal plants, which use cheaper technology than the solar panels often seen on roofs. In such plants, mirrors heat a liquid to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine. As in a fossil fuel power plant, that steam must be condensed back to water and cooled for reuse.

The conventional method is called wet cooling. Hot water flows through a cooling tower where the excess heat evaporates along with some of the water, which must be replenished constantly. An alternative, dry cooling, uses fans and heat exchangers, much like a car's radiator. Far less water is consumed, but dry cooling adds costs and reduces efficiency — and profits.

The efficiency problem is especially acute with the most tried-and-proven technique, using mirrors arrayed in long troughs. "Trough technology has been more financeable, but now trough presents a separate risk — water," said Nathaniel Bullard, a solar analyst with New Energy Finance, a London research firm.

That could provide opportunities for developers of photovoltaic power plants, which take the type of solar panels found on residential rooftops and mount them on the ground in huge arrays. They are typically more expensive and less efficient than solar thermal farms but require a relatively small amount of water, mainly to wash the panels.

In California alone, plans are under way for 35 large-scale solar projects that, in bright sunshine, would generate 12,000 megawatts of electricity, equal to the output of about 10 nuclear power plants.

Their water use would vary widely. BrightSource Energy's dry-cooled Ivanpah project in Southern California would consume an estimated 25 million gallons a year, mainly to wash mirrors. But a wet-cooled solar trough power plant barely half Ivanpah's size proposed by the Spanish developer Abengoa Solar would draw 705 million gallons of water in an area of the Mojave Desert that receives scant rainfall.

One of the most contentious disputes is over a proposed wet-cooled trough plant that NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of the utility giant FPL Group, plans to build in a dry area east of Bakersfield, Calif.

NextEra wants to tap freshwater wells to supply the 521 million gallons of cooling water the plant, the Beacon Solar Energy Project, would consume in a year, despite a state policy against the use of drinking-quality water for power plant cooling.

Mike Edminston, a city council member from nearby California City, warned at a hearing that groundwater recharge was already "not keeping up with the utilization we have."

The fight over water has moved into the California Legislature, where a bill has been introduced to allow renewable energy power plants to use drinking water for cooling if certain conditions are met.

"By allowing projects to use fresh water, the bill would remove any incentives that developers have to use technologies that minimize water use," said Terry O'Brien, a California Energy Commission deputy director.

NextEra has resisted using dry cooling but is considering the feasibility of piping in reclaimed water. "At some point if costs are just layered on, a project becomes uncompetitive," said Michael O'Sullivan, a senior vice president at NextEra.

Water disputes forced Solar Millennium to abandon wet cooling for a proposed solar trough power plant in Ridgecrest, Calif., after the water district refused to supply the 815 million gallons of water a year the project would need. The company subsequently proposed to dry cool two other massive Southern California solar trough farms it wants to build in the Mojave Desert.

"We will not do any wet cooling in California," said Rainer Aringhoff, president of Solar Millennium's American operations. "There are simply no plants being permitted here with wet cooling."

One solar developer, BrightSource Energy, hopes to capitalize on the water problem with a technology that focuses mirrors on a tower, producing higher-temperature steam than trough systems. The system can use dry cooling without suffering a prohibitive decline in power output, said Tom Doyle, an executive vice president at BrightSource.

The greater water efficiency was one factor that led VantagePoint Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, to invest in BrightSource. "Our approach is high sensitivity to water use," said Alan E. Salzman, VantagePoint's chief executive. "We thought that was going to be huge differentiator."

Even solar projects with low water consumption face hurdles, however. Tessera Solar is planning a large project in the California desert that would use only 12 million gallons annually, mostly to wash mirrors. But because it would draw upon a severely depleted aquifer, Tessera may have to buy rights to 10 times that amount of water and then retire the pumping rights to the water it does not use. For a second big solar farm, Tessera has agreed to fund improvements to a local irrigation district in exchange for access to reclaimed water.

"We have a challenge in finding water even though we're low water use," said Sean Gallagher, a Tessera executive. "It forces you to do some creative deals."

In the Amargosa Valley, Solar Millennium may have to negotiate access to water with scores of individuals and companies who own the right to stick a straw in the aquifer, so to speak, and withdraw a prescribed amount of water each year.

"There are a lot of people out here for whom their water rights are their life savings, their retirement," said Ed Goedhart, a local farmer and state legislator, as he drove past pockets of sun-beaten mobile homes and luminescent patches of irrigated alfalfa. Farmers will be growing less of the crop, he said, if they decide to sell their water rights to Solar Millennium.

"We'll be growing megawatts instead of alfalfa," Mr. Goedhart said.

While water is particularly scarce in the West, it is becoming a problem all over the country as the population grows. Daniel M. Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, predicted that as intensive renewable energy development spreads, water issues will follow.

"When we start getting 20 percent, 30 percent or 40 percent of our power from renewables," Mr. Kammen said, "water will be a key issue."

Carbon newsclips for 29 September 2009: Improbable commercials are aimed at climate illiterates, while a complex and contradictory 200 page document is all that stands between us and catastrophic global warming.

2009-09-29T22:17:00.000-04:00

Improbable commercials are aimed at climate illiterates, while a complex and contradictory 200 page document is all that stands between us and catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, businesses are asking for that extra regulation, which will provide many more jobs (and a planet to practice them on).

I am sure I'm not the only one that make sense of that. The question is, why isn't that clear to everyone? - JFB

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/sep/28/co2-is-green-tv-advert

CO2 is green: the TV advert making viewers choke
A TV advert paid for by an oil industry lobbyist telling Americans "more CO2 results in a greener earth" would be almost funny if it weren't so depressing

"Is this a joke?" splutters one of the comments underneath the YouTube video of a new 30-second TV advert that has started being aired in a handful of US states over the past few days telling viewers that "CO2 is green". Sadly not, it seems.
In a slick attempt to undermine the US Environmental Protection Agency's recent ruling that CO2 should now be classified as a pollutant because rising levels of the gas in the atmosphere will "endanger public health or welfare", a former oil industry executive has stumped up some of his cash to pay for these adverts to be shown in Montana and New Mexico. The ultimate aim of the advert, though, is to derail the forthcoming vote in the Senate on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, which now appears as if it might even impact on vital UN climate talks in Copenhagen this December.
So who's behind "CO2 is green" and this advert? One of its founders is H Leighton Steward who, until his retirement in 2000, was the vice chairman of Burlington Resources, a Houston-based oil and gas company bought by ConocoPhillips in 2006. Steward received the American Petroleum Institute's Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement in 2001 and remains an honorary director of the oil industry lobby group. In other words, we can conclude that this man boasts a particular pedigree within the oil industry.
The Washington Post (which admits it has taken a half-page advert from the "CO2 is green" group) is reporting that Steward, along with some associates, is now trying to establish the group as a charity:
Steward has joined forces with Corbin J Robertson Jr, chief executive of and leading shareholder in Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based owner of coal resources that lets other companies mine in return for royalties. Its revenues were $291m [£184m] in 2008. They have formed two groups – CO2 Is Green designated for advocacy and Plants Need CO2 for education – with about $1m. Plants Need CO2 has applied for 501(c)(3) tax status, so that contributions would qualify as charitable donations, said Natural Resource Partners general counsel Wyatt L Hogan, who also serves on the group's board.
The advert (which varies slightly depending on the state) is really something to behold. Here's a transcript:
Congress is considering a law that would classify carbon dioxide as pollution. This will cost us jobs. There is no scientific evidence that CO2 is a pollutant. In fact, higher CO2 levels than we have today would help the earth's ecosystems and would support more plant and animal life. Please take action. Contact your senator and congressman today and remind them CO2 is not pollution and more CO2 results in a greener earth. Go to CO2isgreen.com, because we all need CO2.
The advert is ripe for spoofing. It's certainly tempting to laugh it off. (For extra merriment, visit the "CO2 is green" website and read the "Why do people believe these myths?" section: "They have been misinformed by people that benefit financially from propagating the myth." Oh, the irony.)
But the advert is also a juddering reminder there are still powerful, influential forces straining every last sinew and dollar they possess to deny that rising CO2 levels are a problem. That such efforts should so easily be traced back to oil industry operatives is not wholly surprising, but sobering nonetheless.
Far more depressing, though, is the fact that they have produced this"Plants need CO2" website to better inform the public about the "positive effects of additional atmospheric CO2 and help prevent the inadvertent negative impact to human, plant and animal life if we reduce CO2".
A word of caution before you click on the link: prepare yourself to be "educated".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/us-climate-change-copenhagen-schnellnhuber/print

US inertia could scupper world climate deal in Copenhagen, says expert
Leading climate scientist criticises Bush administration and points to general ignorance of global warming in US public polls
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 18.06 BST

Pedestrians walk by the world's first real-time carbon counter in New York. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
US ignorance about the risks and reality of global warming could sink hopes of a new global deal to control greenhouse gas emissions at December's climate talks in Copenhagen, an advisor to the German government has said.
Professor John Schellnhuber, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said the US was "climate illiterate" and that the rest of the world may be forced to agree a new deal without it.
"Nobody should dream of the possibility that numbers and targets for countries will be sealed in Copenhagen," said Schellnhuber, one of the world's foremost climate scientists. "If the US doesn't move then nothing will happen."
He added: "The US in a sense is climate illiterate. It is a deeper problem in the US, if you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate change. Even in Brazil and China, you have more people who know the problem, who think that deep cuts in emissions are needed."
He predicted that it could be several years before the US would be willing to take on carbon cuts that were ambitious enough to persuade countries such as China to set targets of their own. At UN talks last week, China and India made small steps forwardon this issue, but Obama was unable to do the same.
"The political chances seem very slim that something will happen in Copenhagen and even in the years after," he said. "Maybe in the conferences following Copenhagen some countries – including China and the EU – whatever the US does, will say: we go ahead now. Why can't we save the world without the US? Why should that not happen?"
The US has some of the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world, and any deal without it would be significantly less effective at curbing global temperature rise.
Speaking on the fringes of a climate science conference at Oxford University today, Schellnhuber said the former US president, George Bush, was to blame for a decade of inaction on climate change, and that many in the Republican party and the wider US population still did not understand the need to act. European nations and others have been waiting for President Obama to engage with the issue in a way that Bush refused to.
Schellnhuber said: "Obama is aware of the problem and he personally wants to do something. The problem is: can he provide the leadership to overcome the system? Every top politician gets to do two or three unpopular things, and the right politicians choose the right things."
To convert a global deal on climate change into US law would require a two-thirds majority vote in the US Senate, something that many in Europe believe is unrealistic given Obama's ongoing troubles with healthcare reform. "It just may not be possible to overcome the American inertia," Scellnhuber said.
Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said: "It's vital for the climate that we get the Americans on board, but if we can't, then we can't just do nothing – we still need to make the biggest emission cuts that we can. If that means China and Europe and others going on without the Americans, then that may be the price we need to pay."
Schellnhuber's comments come as UN talks on a possible Copenhagen deal continue in Bangkok. Negotiators from 190 countries are wrestling with a draft treaty text, which runs to 200 pages and is riddled with alternate options and provisional text in square brackets.
His words reflect growing suspicion in Europe that the talks are crawling towards a unsatisfactory outcome, and that little progress is being made in the US. Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed a growing rift between Europe and the US over the latter's approach to how carbon targets could be set and met.
The Oxford conference is centred around the implications of a 4C rise in global average temperature, which scientists believe could be a possibility if serious carbon cuts are not agreed in Copenhagen.
Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, presented a study demonstrating that the world could see a 4C rise as soon as 2060-2070 – within the lifetime of many people alive today.
Nigel Arnell, a climate expert at the University of Reading, said a temperature rise on this scale would bring about colossal changes in weather conditions, affecting billions of people. Some 15% of land worldwide that is currently suitable for agriculture would become useless, he said. Available land would shift north, to regions such as Siberia, which is currently covered in forest.
• This article was amended on Tuesday 29 September 2009. In the article above we said that the US has by some distance the largest carbon emissions per capita in the world, what we should have said is the US has some of the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world. This has been changed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/met-office-study-global-warming

Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes
• Study says 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060
• Increase could threaten water supply of half world population
David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 28 September 2009
Article history

Droughts and heatwaves are predicted to spread if average temperatures rise by 2C. The Met Office's study warns global warming could result in a rise of 4C by 2060. Photograph: Vinay Dithajohn/EPA
Unchecked global warming could bring a severe temperature rise of 4C within many people's lifetimes, according to a new report for the British government that significantly raises the stakes over climate change.
The study, prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the Met Office, challenges the assumption that severe warming will be a threat only for future generations, and warns that a catastrophic 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 without strong action on emissions.
Officials from 190 countries gather today in Bangkok to continue negotiations on a new deal to tackle global warming, which they aim to secure at United Nations talks in December in Copenhagen.
"We've always talked about these very severe impacts only affecting future generations, but people alive today could live to see a 4C rise," said Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, who will announce the findings today at a conference at Oxford University. "People will say it's an extreme scenario, and it is an extreme scenario, but it's also a plausible scenario."
According to scientists, a 4C rise over pre-industrial levels could threaten the water supply of half the world's population, wipe out up to half of animal and plant species, and swamp low coasts.
A 4C average would mask more severe local impacts: the Arctic and western and southern Africa could experience warming up to 10C, the Met Office report warns.
The study updates the findings of the 2007 report of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said the world would probably warm by 4C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. The IPCC also listed a more severe scenario, with emissions and temperatures rising further because of more intensive fossil fuel burning, but this was not considered realistic. "That scenario was downplayed because we were more conservative a few years ago. But the way we are going, the most severe scenario is looking more plausible," Betts said.
A report last week from the UN Environment Programme said emissions since 2000 have risen faster than even this IPCC worst-case scenario. "In the 1990s, these scenarios all assumed political will or other phenomena would have brought about the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by this point. In fact, CO₂ emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating."
The Met Office scientists used new versions of the computer models used to set the IPCC predictions, updated to include so-called carbon feedbacks or tipping points, which occur when warmer temperatures release more carbon, such as from soils.
When they ran the models for the most extreme IPCC scenario, they found that a 4C rise could come by 2060 or 2070, depending on the feedbacks. Betts said: "It's important to stress it's not a doomsday scenario, we do have time to stop it happening if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon." Soaring emissions must peak and start to fall sharply within the next decade to head off a 2C rise, he said. To avoid the 4C scenario, that peak must come by the 2030s.
A poll of 200 climate experts for the Guardian earlier this year found that most of them expected a temperature rise of 3C-4C by the end of the century.
The implications of a 4C rise on agriculture, water supplies and wildlife will be discussed at the Oxford conference, which organisers have billed as the first to properly consider such a dramatic scenario.
Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford who has organised the conference, said: "If we get a weak agreement at Copenhagen then there is not just a slight chance of a 4C rise, there is a really big chance. It's only in the last five years that scientists have started to realise that 4C is becoming increasingly likely and something we need to look at seriously." Limiting global warming to 2C could only be achieved with new technology to suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. "I think the policy makers know that. I think there is an implicit understanding that they are negotiating not about 2C but 3C or 5C."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/copenhagen-climate-text/print

Copenhagen negotiating text: 200 pages to save the world?
Draft agreement being discussed ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit is long, confusing and contradictory

Interactive: Beginner's guide to the negotiating text
Help us interpret the document

David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 16.37 BST

The draft document includes sections on the traditional sticking points that have delayed progress on climate change to date. Photograph: John Giles/PA
It is a blueprint to save the world. And yet it is long, confusing and contradictory. Negotiators have released a draft version of a new global agreement on climate change, which is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming.
Running to some 200 pages, the draft agreement is being discussed for the first time this week as officials from 190 countries gather in Bangkok for the latest round of UN talks. There is only one short meeting after this before they meet in Copenhagen aiming to hammer out a final version.
The draft text consolidates and reorders hundreds of changes demanded by countries to the previous version, which saw it balloon to an unmanageable 300 pages. It has no official status yet, and must be formally approved before negotiators can start to whittle it down. Here, we present key, edited sections from the text and attempt to decipher what the words mean.
The text includes sections on the traditional sticking points that have delayed progress on climate change for a decade or longer.
• How much are rich countries willing to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and by when?
• Will large developing nations such as China make an effort to put at least a dent in their soaring levels of pollution?
• How much money must flow from the developed world to developing countries to grease the wheels and secure their approval? How much to compensate for the impact of past emissions, and how much to help prevent future emissions?
According to the UN rules, for a new treaty to be agreed, every country must sign up – a challenging requirement. The new treaty is designed to follow the Kyoto protocol, the world's existing treaty to regulate greenhouse gases, the first phase of which expires in 2012. Because the US did not ratify Kyoto, the climate talks have been forced on to awkward parallel tracks, with one set of negotiations, from which the US is excluded, debating how the treaty could be extended past 2012. This new text comes from the second track, which lays out a plan to include all countries in long-term co-operative action.
Behind the scenes, pessimism about the Copenhagen talks is rising. Despite references in the text to a global goal and collective emission cuts of 25-40% by 2020 for rich countries, many observers believe there is little chance such an approach will succeed.
Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated Kyoto for the US, said: "Copenhagen is more likely to be a way station to a final agreement, where each country posts the best that it can do... The key thing is let's not go into Copenhagen with all the same kind of guns blazing like we did in Kyoto."
A top European official told the Guardian: "We've moved on from the idea that we can negotiate on targets. That's naive and just not the way the deal will be done. The best we can get is that countries will put in what they want to commit to."
Once all the carbon offsets – buying pollution credits instead of cutting emissions – and "fudges" are taken into account, the outcome is likely to be that emissions in 2020 from rich countries will be broadly similar to those in 1990, he said. "That's really scary stuff."

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/obvious-confirmed-switch-green-economy-produces-jobs

Green Economy Produces Jobs - But How Many?
BY ARIEL SCHWARTZFri Sep 25, 2009 at 5:55 PM

It makes perfect sense that overhauling our economy to fight climate change will inevitably produce jobs. After all, someone has to manufacture, produce, sell, and maintain all those turbines, solar panels, electric cars, and fuel cells. Now three new studies from theClimate Group, Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), and the Global Climate Network have confirmed that a green economy produces jobs.
The Global Climate Network study, released today, reiterates the conclusions of the first two studies--that millions of jobs could be generated from the war on global warming. But while Greenpeace estimates that climate change could produce 2.7 million jobs in the EU and the Climate Group predicts an influx of 10 million jobs worldwide by 2020, the Global Climate Network makes the ambitious claim that 30 million new jobs could be created by 2020, mostly in Germany, Japan, China, Brazil, and the U.S. (Forty million cleantech-related jobs are expected to be created, but 10 million jobs related to inefficient technologies will be lost in the same time period.)
There are a bunch of big "ifs" involved in the Climate Group's equation, however. The burgeoning green economy will only grow as fast as the Climate Group expects if renewable energy generation markets and a focus on low-carbon technology ramp up in China. And the study points out that "The dynamism of technology is inherently unpredictable and numbers of jobs created by prioritizing technology could be many times greater than current predictions suggest." Time to spruce up that resume and apply to the local solar company.

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU1NTk

Business Calls on Governments to Reach Climate Change Agreement

Geneva, 4 September 2009 - The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Energy Council (WEC) today called on government leaders to reach a climate change agreement in Copenhagen during final negotiations there in December on a post 2012 framework.

The three organizations issued the call during theWorld Climate Conference (WCC-3) in Geneva , which brought together high-level policy-makers, scientists, climate service providers, global business leaders and decision-makers from more than 150 countries. The week-long meeting, organized by the World Meteorological Organization, sought to help nations cope with climate change by improving the way climate information is collected and shared among governments. The private sector was represented by ICC, WBCSD and WEC.

"This is a crucial year," said Laurent Corbier, Chair, ICC Commission on Environment and Energy. " The private sector urges government leaders to reach an agreement in Copenhagen on a post 2012 framework to provide business with a clear, predictable framework to stimulate investment in technologies that will enable a transition to a low carbon economy." Mr Corbier added that the WCC-3 was a stepping stone in this process, helping to raise awareness and provide momentum to develop climate related services which can assist governments and businesses in making better decisions.

On Wednesday, business experts and leaders from intergovernmental organizations met during the Business and Industry Forum to discuss how companies can develop durable solutions to the climate challenge.

Jacqueline Coté, ICC Special Representative in Geneva , opened the Forum saying that business is part of the solution and very much engaged in the fight against climate change. " Many companies have already made major changes in how they operate by introducing energy efficient processes or new products and services that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions," she said .

Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio, Managing Director, Climate Change Innovation Group, Cisco, highlighted that complexity and uncertainty are hallmarks of the early 21 st century, as recent developments in the global financial markets demonstrate all too vividly.

"Responses to the financial crisis have featured demands for global coordination. Our economic woes, however, are dwarfed by the increasing threats of climate change, environmental degradation and a resource crunch," said Mr Castilla-Rubio. "Unprecedented global coordination and collaboration of the private sector with the pub lic and people sectors are the only way to address these challenges."

Jean-Yves Caneill, Sustainable Development Project Manager, Electricité de France (EDF) provided tangible examples of how EDF took a very early lead role by utilizing climate services to determine their exposure to climate variability. "We have learned how best to use weather and climate data information in our business," Mr. Caneill said. "Surviving extreme events like storms, droughts and heat waves over the past years has taught us that resilience is a fundamental skill we must have if we want to prosper and/or survive as a company."

Juan Gonzalez-Valero, Head of Corporate Responsibility, Syngenta, stated: "Better climate information helps business to focus our research and make the right long-term investments." He added: "If you think growing enough crops to feed the world won't be impacted by climate, you're dreaming. And developing crops which are adapted to a changing climate is a long term process." Furthermore, Mr Gonzalez said that "climate change impacts in agriculture are mainly felt though water availability. They have huge economic consequences as well. In 2006-2007, about USD 30 billion worth of crops was lost due to drought."

Mr Gonzalez also represented the private sector Wednesday in a separate working panel on Climate Change and Food Security. "Syngenta is working on understanding the response mechanism in plants that can enable them to better resist drought and other hardships," he said "We need to account for the embedded value of water within our crops."

During the Forum, Christophe Nuttall, Director, Hub for Innovative Partnerships, United Nations Development Programme, demonstrated how important partnerships are in the fight against climate change. Mr Nuttall highlighted the Territorial Approach to Climate Change (TACC), an innovative partnership model that brings together key stakeholders, including sub-national actors, to find innovative solutions to climate change. "100 % of adaptation policies will happen at the subnational level; indeed regional and local authorities are the real movers and shakers," said Mr Nuttall. "Through the TACC, the UN is partnering with regional and local actors, and is now seeking to enhance its engagement with the private sector through organizations such as WBCSD and ICC."

ICC, WBCSD and WEC will continue to work together on the road towards Copenhagen , bringing a wide range of business voices and expertise to help solve the climate challenge.

Green newsclips for 28 Sept 2009: Disappearing glaciers and multiplying green seals... Track them all with Google

2009-09-28T21:59:00.001-04:00

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/28/proliferation-of-400-green-seals-detracts-from-message/

Proliferation of 400+ Green Seals Detracts From Message
There are so many seals and certifications related to "green" and environmental attributes of products and services that many such marks risk losing their effectiveness, according to 2009 Conscious Consumer Report from BBMG.
In fact, there are more than 400 such seals and certifications, BBMG found.
In general, consumers tend to trust government-approved and generic seals more than others.

---See the article for some interesting tables... JFB

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/ancient-glaciers-are-disappearing-faster-than-ever-1792274.html

Ancient glaciers are disappearing faster than ever
By Michael McCarthy environment editor
Satellite laser measurements show change in environment for the first time

Melting ice is pouring off Greenland and Antarctica into the sea far faster than was previously realised because of global warming, new scientific research reveals today.

The accelerating loss from the world's two great land-based ice sheets means a rise in sea levels is likely to happen even more quickly than UN scientists suggested only two years ago, the findings by British scientists suggest.

Although floating ice, such as that in the Arctic Ocean, does not add to sea-level rise when it melts as it is already displacing its own mass in the water, melting ice from the land raises the global sea level directly. At present it is thought that land-based ice melt accounts for about 1.8mm of the current annual sea level rise of 3.2mm - the rest is coming from the fact that water expands in volume as it warms. But the new findings, published online today in the journal Nature, imply that this rate is likely to increase.

High-resolution satellite laser measurements have shown that along both the Greenland and Antarctic coastlines, the glaciers and ice streams which for thousands of years have slowly carried ice into the sea are now rapidly thinning, meaning they are speeding up in their flow. In both cases, the increased flow rate is extending back far into the ice sheets' interior.

This is happening all the way around Greenland, even at the high northern latitudes, and around much of Antarctica, especially in West Antarctica and around the Antarctic Peninsula.

Areas around the Greenland coast are hotspots of glacier thinning - in some cases the glacier surface level is dropping at a rate of half a metre per year, while in others it is a remarkable rate of a metre and a half.

It is the first time that a comprehensive view of the rate of thinning - and thus ice loss - all the way around the coast has been made possible. It has been put together by Hamish Pritchard and his colleagues from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol, by analysing millions of measurements from Nasa's high-resolution ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite).

Launched in January 2003, ICESat examines changes in the world's ice and land masses. The satellite's lasers have measured the surface elevation of the Earth's ice sheets with unprecedented accuracy - and thus picked up how they are changing.

"The fact that the changes are so large is alarming, and you wonder how far they will go," Dr Pritchard said. "The thinning effect must be relatively recent, as it is so strong that it could not have been sustained previously without the glaciers melting away."

The scientists compared the rates of change in elevation of both fast-flowing and slow-flowing ice. In Greenland, they studied 111 fast-moving glaciers and found 81 thinning at rates twice that of slow-flowing ice at the same altitude. They found that ice loss from many glaciers in both Antarctica and Greenland is greater than the rate of snowfall further inland.

In Antarctica, some of the fastest thinning glaciers are in the west, where the Pine Island, Smith and Thwaites Glaciers are thinning by up to nine metres per year.

"We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline - it's widespread and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometres inland," Dr Pritchard said. "This kind of ice loss is so poorly understood that it remains the most unpredictable part of future sea level rise."

* Humanity must stay within the defined boundaries of several of the Earth's natural processes or face catastrophe, a group of leading environmental scientists warns today. The scientists, who include James Hansen of Nasa, the world's leading climatologist, suggest in the journal Nature that nine Earth-system processes are among the planetary boundaries: climate change, ocean acidification, interference with the global cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus, freshwater use, changes in land use, atmospheric aerosol loading, chemical pollution and rate of biodiversity loss.

For three of these - the nitrogen cycle, the rate at which species are being lost and anthropogenic climate change - they argue that the acceptable boundary level has already been passed. In addition, they say that humanity is fast approaching the boundaries for freshwater use, for converting forests and other natural ecosystems to cropland, for acidification of the oceans and for the phosphorous cycle.

http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_change/climate_solutions/adaptation_wwf_vaughan.html

WWF-Interview: The Limits of Adaptation
WWF climate change adaptation expert Kit Vaughan talks about the limits of adaptation, and how climate change will shake the very foundations of our society.

Kit Vaughan, WWF Climate Change Adaptation Expert
"People fear living up to the truth that they will have to adapt." (Photo: Vaughan)

A certain amount of climate change is inevitable. How can we adapt to this?
That's difficult to answer. We are not sure what the full extent of the effects will really look like and by when. What we are seeing now are the first easily observable effects, like glacial melt. But there is a certain scientific bandwidth regarding the projected changes. For example, there could be many meters of sea level rise or just 40 centimeters, although recently scientists said that current IPCC projections have underestimated sea level rise and we could be looking at as much as 1.5 meters by the end of the century and associated temperature increases. What we do know is that there is a scary future out there.

Mankind has met adaptation challenges before. What makes climate change different?
Adapting to climate change is not something new; we have been doing it as society for thousands of years. People and species have always adapted to changing climates. What is different is the speed and the scale of the changes we are facing.

In the last 300 or 400 years, we have built our society and economies on an assumed stable environment. If you look at houses built near a river, you see that they are all built in what people considered to be a fairly safe place, a few meters above the water, the highest tide, etc. But that is now changing, and so the baseline for our society changes.

So apart from thinking twice before buying waterfront property, what else will we have to consider?
We have been building houses to withstand a certain maximum of temperature change in the summer. What we are going to see in a world that is three, four, five degrees warmer is that our houses, hospitals, and schools will be too exposed to sun and heat. The same is true for biodiversity, ecosystems, and species. They have adapted to fit certain niches, and these niches are now changing and so will they. They are either forced to adapt, migrate, or go extinct.

The difficulty is how to support adaptation in a world with nine billion people, increased demands for food security and natural resources, and increasing climate stress, while you get more storms, more drought, and smaller crop yields and so on. The dynamics of our ecosystems and our societies are changing and we will have to learn how to adapt where possible. That is what adaptation is about: learning to live with these impacts, and learning to respond to these risks and building in resilience where possible.

What are the best ways to adapt?
For a society, good adaptation means good development. You would have to reduce other sources of stress on the system. Take a smallholder farmer society in Mali. They may have increased rainfall in the wetter season and less rain in the drier season. So they get more floods and then no rain and more droughts and temperature increases.

One of the ways to adapt could be to provide new seed varieties, and rainwater harvesting, but also develop new market and diversification opportunities to live with the new environment.

Picture Gallery (click on the image to start)
See examples of how we can adapt to a changing climate

And how can cities adapt?
If you look at adaptation in London, that would mean ensuring buildings are more resilient to heat extremes, changes in rainfall, and flooding. And you would have to build bigger infrastructure that helps control storm surges up the River Thames; better flood warning, more people with the capability to manage disasters at a local community level; and supporting people to respond more quickly and independently to disasters.

What can humans do to protect other species and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change?
The main thing would be to reduce the pressure that is already on these species and ecosystems. If we take a coral reef, for example, you would try to take the pressure off that reef. You would stop fishermen from dragging their nets, stop tourists from going there, remove the agricultural runoff - soil, toxics, and pesticides coming in there. But it would still suffer from climatic impacts.

But for many species, it will be very difficult to adapt, because if they move out of their original environment, they won't find the other plants and flora that they depend on. If you think of a piece of woodland and you take 50 percent of all species out, many others will perish too, because they are interdependent on each other. Mostly the species that are not dependent will be able to adapt. Many varieties of plants, birds, insects and all wildlife will not be able to adapt in their current situation.

Is there a limit to adaptation? How much global warming can we tolerate?
Take the worst scenarios, that is six degrees Celsius of warming or more. What remains of society could be living towards the poles as there will be very little else that's habitable. With six degrees of temperature increase, many environments will be difficult places to live in anymore.

In general adaptation, it depends on who can tolerate what changes. There are already many people in this world who cannot tolerate the level of climate change we are already seeing. That might be the very poor people in the Mississippi Delta when its flooded, the people in the Sahel region of Africa when there is a drought, the people on small tropical islands like Tuvalu when the sea levels are rising. They can't afford the pumps and dikes to protect their environments or the new crop seeds, so they may have to migrate.

It critically depends on adaptive capacity. How much capacity an individual, economy, and society would have to adapt to these impacts and to reduce risk and build in resilience. And that very much depends on the resources available.

Why is adaptation not as talked about as mitigation?
In the past, climate change mitigation and adaptation have been separated, but increasingly this is changing. People are now starting to say that adaptation is not something that we might have to do; it is something we will have to do now and it is fundamentally linked to mitigation.

Adaptation also has a negative undertone – it means you acknowledge that we have failed to mitigate sufficiently. And people fear living up to the truth that they will have to adapt and that the earlier you reduce your emissions, the less you will have to pay to adapt, where possible. So we need to start now!

How much money would it cost to adapt to climate change, and who should pay?
There are very rough estimates for the costs of adaptation from anywhere between 50 to 130 billion dollars. The amount we have available at the moment is just paltry, just a few hundred million dollars. So the question is who is going to pay for this, and also how do we pay out this money. Which is the most vulnerable country? What mechanisms will generate this money?

Under the UNFCCC, people have signed up to something called the Principles of Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Polluter Pays. If I as your neighbor mess up your garden, I have to pay for it.
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So, in a sense, the big hot political potato is pointing the finger and saying, "Hey, you guys caused this problem, and what you are doing is actually damaging large parts of the world and infrastructure, and as such you are liable for the damage, whilst at the same time incentivizing global society to rapidly reduce emissions.

editor: Thilo Kunzemann
publishing date: August 26, 2008

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/24/google-earth-tool-tracks-climate-change/

Google Earth Tool Tracks Climate Change
Multinational companies can track various climate change models through a new Google Earth tool.
The tool, which is a series of layers and tours showing the effects of different climate change models, would allow companies to see how climate change might affect their far-flung operations.
Google recently unveiled the tool at itsblog. The tool was developed in collaboration with the Danish government, with an eye toward using it at the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks in December.
The Google Earth plug-in is required to use the tool.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/24/twenty-trends-for-sustainability-in-2009-10/

Twenty Trends for Sustainability in 2009-10
Becky Willan
Head of Strategy
Clownfish
Here is a list of 20 sustainability trends that are changing the business landscape. We're keeping our eyes on these…
1. From economic collapse to a green economic recovery.
Interest in all things "green" continues to grow as the economy sinks. About 34 percent of people are now more likely to buy environmentally responsible products and 44 percent of consumers indicate their environmental shopping habits have not changed as a result of the economy (Cone Consumer environmental survey 2009).
Sustainability is coming into its own as a force to drive competitiveness. This development is substantiated by the stabilization of green jobs while others have collapsed (Environmental Leader 2009). Businesses are increasingly realizing the ability to minimize costs through environmentally conscious operations – boosting profits, developing brand value and building a strong position to beat less adaptive competitors when the recession ends.
2. From carbon footprint confusion to footprint awareness.
More than half of the global population is aware of the term "carbon footprint," up from 38 percent in 2007. U.S. consumers fall behind the UK in awareness – 96 percent of UK adults say they are aware of the term and many of us have used a carbon footprint online calculator. As this awareness grows, it is likely that consumers will drive the sustainability market by demanding low carbon products.
3. From carbon offset doubt to market development.
More companies will continue to offset carbon emissions. Point Carbon's Market Outlook expects the global carbon offset market to grow 20 percent in terms of volume in 2009. They forecast that 5.9 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) will trade this year, compared to 4.9 Gt in 2008. Despite this prediction, Clownfish hope that there will be a stronger trend for direct reductions rather than offsetting, as the old saying goes, "prevention is better than cure."
4. From carbon-centric to water-centric.
The UK has become obsessed with carbon footprints, but now the term water footprint has entered the corporate vocabulary. About 2.6 billion people have no access to clean water (FairHome 2008), a problem not isolated to developing countries. This has pushed water issues up the environmental agenda, and will become a new focus for 2009-10. European legislation is changing to achieve the Water Framework Directive's aim to have good or high quality water in the whole European Union by 2015. Businesses will no longer be able to ignore their water use and efficiency.
5. From direct water use to embedded water use.
There is an increasing focus on embedded water use, which will only continue in 2009.
According to Waterwise, the average person in the UK directly uses about 150 liters of water per day. But behind this direct use there is an indirect use, which is about 23 times higher at 3400 liters per day. Of those 3,400 liters, 31 percent is embedded in industrial goods and 65 percent embedded in food, with the other 4 percent relating to drinking water and water used for domestic purposes. To reduce this indirect usage, consumers will be calling on businesses to make changes to their products.
6. From high-energy use light-bulbs to light-sensors.
A recent survey of over 2000 lighting and electrical experts has found that occupancy sensors are the most recommended energy saving office tool. Among new building projects surveyed in the past two years, occupancy sensors were recommended in 55 percent of applications, which can save an average of 30 percent in lighting costs. Expect more companies to be adopting energy saving techniques this year, particularly as companies tighten their purse strings in the recession and energy bills continue to fluctuate.
7. From cheap to costly carbon car taxes.
European taxes on carbon emissions for new cars are becoming stricter; they are increasing to 130g/km by 2012, this target is likely to increase after 2012. Over the next year, suppliers will need to be engaged and made aware of the realities that they will face when this legislation is passed.
8. From fast fashion to slow fashion.
Fashion experts are predicting the days of fast fashion will soon dwindle. Consumers are beginning to steer away from cheap, disposable items and appreciate the value of investing in ethically-sourced, organic and fairtrade fabrics. In 2009, consumer awareness will continue to grow and shoppers will no longer consider products that cause environmental destruction or promote unethical practices to be the best on the high street. Luxury fashion will begin to associate environmentally and socially responsible products with status – lets hope the celebs won't just be wearing Gucci because of its price tag, but wearing Noir because it is ethically responsible – a price tag worth paying.
9. From landfill waste to lack of space.
Landfill sites for London's non-hazardous rubbish are likely to be full by the end of 2010, and other landfill sites will run out of capacity by 2013. As a result, UK Landfill taxes are increasing from £8/ton/year in 2009 to £48/ton/year in 2010. This is in line with European waste targets that hope to achieve a 75 percent reduction in landfill waste between 2005 and 2010, a further 50 percent by 2013 and 35 percent by 2020. So companies will have to seek reductions in waste or be forced to pay up.
10. From energy excess to energy efficiency.
Energy efficiency is set to become even bigger business this year; The July 2008 edition of The McKinsey Quarterly estimated that US$170 billion a year will be invested in energy efficiency between now and 2020, which could halve forecasted growth in global energy demand. That effort could also deliver up to half of the carbon dioxide emissions abatement needed to cap atmospheric greenhouse gases at 450ppm.
The EU's prEN 16001 energy efficiency standard, out in 2009, will extend the scope of the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 environmental standards into energy management to help companies set up continuous improvement processes for efficient energy use. The ISO is planning to do likewise with a new ISO 50001 standard by 2011. So stay up to speed with the energy efficiency trends – it is all changing!
11. From energy efficiency standards to legal requirements.
New energy laws are likely to be just around the corner. Alongside prEN 16001, a draft EU standard for energy efficiency services was published in March 2009 for public comment. It outlines standards for calculating energy consumption, energy audit methodologies, and energy certificates, which the EU hopes may be tradable in the future. These standards will have significant effects on management systems throughout Europe – even more so when the governments decide to implement some of the recommendations into law.
12. From fossil fuels to renewables.
Renewable energy is a focus of 2009 as the European Investment Bank increases lending to develop renewable energy schemes. According to Morgan Stanley's Green Market Penetration forecast (2007), the renewables trend is going to continue developing; revenue from alternative energies could top $500 billion in 2020 and world-wide sales from alternative energy sources could reach $1 trillion by 2030.
13. From printed papers to digital development.
Digital marketing has provided new tools for brands to reach their audiences; the development of online videos, social networks, podcasts and games, highlights that the digital marketing space will continue to expand. A consumer's online experience can significantly affect future behaviour; 81 percent of consumers are more likely to return to the website if they had a good experience (Cosmetics Design 2008).
Brands will increasingly use online spaces in 2009 to communicate with consumers. Digital means that today the brands that will win, will be those whose consumers and other stakeholders tell the best stories. It's no longer a one-way narrative, it's about a two-way conversation.
14. From greenwashing to green authentification.
Complaints about the misuse of green terminology in advertisements to the Advertising Standards Authority have increased dramatically in recent years. In 2006, the ASA received 117 complaints about environmental claims in 83 advertisements, but in 2007, there were 561 complaints about 410 advertisements ? almost a 500 percent increase. The most common claims being challenged are those referring to carbon reduction, cradle?to?grave and green energy sources. This year will see the development of advertising standards and an increasing requirement for brands to have claims that are underpinned by fact.
15. From creative carbon labels to consistent carbon labelling.
Carbon labelling schemes are up and running on lots of packaging, but there is a lack of transparency in the calculations and no international standardisation – Watch for this to be developed in 2009.
16. From offline to online.
Brands can no longer hide behind their TV ads or billboard posters because of the power of online search. Consumers can find information about anything, anytime, and they are actively seeking information about the brands with which they interact. In 2009, it is going to be increasingly important for brand image to match company behaviour. After all, 81 percent of UK consumers place more importance on what companies do than what they say (The Drum 2008). So it is about clear, genuine, authentic messages that promote transparency, as this research shows there is a positive correlation between transparency and trust – It's about being tangible.
17. From environmental sustainability to embedded sustainability.
In 2009 we will see stronger links between sustainability and well-being. The UN Development and Happiness Index, and the NEF Happy Planet Index integrate human well-being and environmental impact. The credibility of these indices will continue to increase, with the $200 billion Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) market expected to double by 2010 and quadruple by 2015, according to the Natural Marketing Institute. As awareness increases about the intertwined relationship between the environment and well-being, the public will rapidly demand environmental action.
18. From company claims to external verification.
Consumers no longer passively accept news and product information thrown at them by marketers, ads, or their peers. About 64 percent of consumers want third-party verification of green claims according to the GfK-Roper's 2007 report. Some unusual partnerships are already developing between NGO's and large organisations, for example McDonald's and Greenpeace, Coca-Cola and WWF and Vodafone Greece and Greenpeace. As this trend continues in 2009, there needs to be a balance between credibility and values for both the company and the NGO. This will help to retain the trust of consumers
19. From one renewable success to another.
Patents in wind, fuel cells, hydroelectric, tidal and geothermal were up in 2008 over 2007 with hydroelectric and tidal patents being at all time highs. In contrast, solar, hybrid/electric vehicle and biomass/biofuel energy patents fell slightly in 2008. In 2009, it will be interesting to see which renewable energy sources will continue to develop new technology.
20. From bins to bucks.
Gone are the days when consumers simply put something in the bin after using it. People are now opting to reuse, resell, donate or recycle old goods. Millions of us sell used goods on Ebay, which has recently launched "green team" and "world of good" websites to help users buy, sell and think green.
With tightening waste restrictions and legislations, we are beginning to see end use considered in the design stage of the products we buy. Manufacturers are reusing parts of returned products, essentially accomplishing two things: repurposing the materials and holistically extending the life of the product. This is an environmentalists' dream that will hopefully spread across the business world in 2009-10.
Becky Willan is Head of Strategy for Clownfish, a London-based marketing/communications agency that specializes in sustainability.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/23/office-depot-helps-large-customers-understand-greenness-of-purchases/

Office Depot Helps Large Customers Understand 'Greenness' of Purchaseso
Office Depot is stepping up its transparency in products it sells that have environmental attributes, including a special program for larger customers that helps explain the "greenness" of the customers' overall purchases. The program relies on Office Depot's Shades of Green labeling program.
Additionally, Office Depot reduced its facilities and transportation carbon footprint by 6 percent in 2008. The biggest chunk of the reduction came from reducing fuel use and GHG emissions from deliveries, with that combined figure dropping 14 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to Office Depot's 2009 Corporate Citizenship Report (PDF).
Office Depot, which has nearly 1,600 locations and $14.5 billion in annual revenue, sells more than 6,100 items in North America that have what it calls "green attributes." That's up from 5,200 in 2007 and about 4,000 in 2006.
To differentiate the environmental attributes of products, the company's Shades of Green labeling system was implemented. Here's a look at the Shades of Green scale.
All 6,100 items that have green attributes are tagged either "light green," "bright green" or "dark green," said Melissa Perlman, Manager of Public Relations for Office Depot.
For the most part, the products are tagged as to their shade of green in database form, not on the product packaging, she said. However, some in-store Office Depot Green brand items, including copy paper, hanging folders, envelopes, packing peanuts, paper products and CFL lights, utilize the labeling program in-store.
Also, Office Depot is rolling out to large customers a program to explain the environmental attributes of items the customers are buying. Dubbed the "Green Business Review," the program uses the Shades of Green Rankings.
The program was piloted in June and in October it will be rolled to more than 2 million large customers, Perlman said.
Here's a sample report.

The company in the past year built its first LEED Gold certified store, in Austin, Texas.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/23/csr-investments-up-despite-economy/

CSR Investments Up Despite Economy
The economic recession has not put an end to corporate citizenship. Based on current economic conditions, 15 percent of companies are increasing their research and development for new sustainable products; 11 percent are increasing corporate citizenship marketing and communications; and 10 percent are increasing local and/or domestic sourcing or manufacturing, according to a new study from the Hitachi Foundation and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship.
The study finds that about 54 percent of U.S. senior executives believe corporate citizenship is even more important in a recession with 54 percent now communicating with employees about it and 39 percent talking with stakeholders.
Another finding reveals a majority of U.S. companies are not making major changes in their corporate citizenship practices. Of those who made changes, 38 percent reduced philanthropy/giving, 27 percent increased layoffs, and 19 percent reduced R&D for sustainable products.
The study, Weathering the Storm: The State of Corporate Citizenship, also finds that large companies are responding to the recession much differently than small companies. For example, large companies significantly increased their investments and involvement in citizenship activities, but they were also more likely to lay people off. Small firms had minimal layoffs but they significantly decreased attention to other aspects of citizenship, such as volunteering or philanthropy.
The study also indicates that environmental sustainability efforts continue to grow during the recession. Twenty-nine percent of business leaders say their companies support environmental issues through their community investment strategy, which is a 10 percent increase since 2007.
Sustainability is now seen as a major business driver with 52 percent of companies (65 percent of large companies) designing and offering sustainable products or services, about 72 percent of American companies (85 percent of large) reducing costs through improved materials efficiency, and 58 percent (60 percent of large) manufacturing or sourcing domestically/locally.
In addition, 59 percent of large companies offer energy-efficient products and another 59 percent provide customers with more information about social and environmental impacts of their products and services.

Among large companies, 63 percent have goals and objectives around environmental responsibility, 58 percent measure the business impact of their environmental initiatives, and 47 percent report having environmental performance goals for individual managers.
This latest study supports the 2009 Greening of Corporate America Report, which found that twice as many companies see sustainability as centrally oriented to their business operations, including the sale of "green" products or services, as compared to 2006.

Carbon newsclips for Sept 28, 2009: The road is getting crowded en route to COP15

2009-09-28T21:59:00.000-04:00

http://www.thisisafricaonline.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/80/Calling_Copenhagen.html

Calling Copenhagen
The early effects of climate change may already be impacting on Africa's development gains. As the international community gears up for climate negotiations, is the development community able to take on the challenge of adaptation?
In the courtyard of the Koulouck Farmers Union building in western Senegal there is a five metre tall flamingo tree that has not grown in a decade. "It should be 15m by now," says Saliou Guey. With a pair of bug-eye sunglasses permanently clamped to his face and a packet of Marlboros poking out of his top pocket, Mr Guey has spent years working with farmers here as an agricultural programme advisor for the development NGO, Oxfam. As such, he is acutely aware of the environmental degradation that the region has suffered in the past decade.
Moving in ever increasing orbits around the headquarters, he points out the shifting features of Koulouck. Clustered around a concrete well, a few neat rows of trees, each a few feet high. "Those are senna," he explains. "They use them for telegraph poles." The well is only one of 11 in the area that is still useable. The water table has dropped to the extent that in some parts of the region, holes have to be sunk 40m deep to reach water, where 10m used to suffice.
It is blisteringly hot and the wind picks up the sand and shoots it at speed between the sparse cover of baobab and cashew trees. Rising white dust from an open-cast basalt mine a few kilometres away adds weight to the flying debris. Seen today, Koulouck could almost be a caricature of development – were it not for the fact that a decade ago, this valley would have been impossible to reach along the dirt tracks now used by Oxfam. The wet season would have swollen the river, and the few sandblasted trees, their lower branches picked at by cattle and goats, would have been part of a tightly-packed fruit forest. "All of this was trees," Mr Guey says, pointing from horizon to horizon, "from there to there." Oxfam has encouraged reforestation, and some 10,000 trees have been planted, although in an area this vast, the effects are hardly visible.

What is happening in Koulouck also illustrates the problem of disaggregating the effects of systematic global climate change from local man-made environmental degradation. Deforestation is both a symptom and a cause of soil erosion, and it is exacerbated by the reduced incomes from the collapse of rain-fed agriculture and shifting patterns of grazing that result from constraints on pasture. At a macro level, the complexity of the interactions between ocean temperatures, coastal forest systems and the global climate are poorly understood. To claim that what is happening in Senegal is symptomatic of global climate change is objectively very difficult.
However, the anecdotal evidence is starting to look compelling, and while there is – as with any weather system – a huge amount of fluctuation in conditions year-on-year, there appears to be a clear trajectory emerging. Rainfall has consistently decreased, with a drop of between 20-40 percent in the latter half of the 20th century, according to a recent report from the UN's Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change. Local agencies report an acceleration of the trend in the past 10-15 years. This has hastened the encroachment of the desert into already fragile semi-arid areas of the Sahel region.
By moving farmers from their traditional rain-fed agriculture to grow hardier vegetables that can be monetised easily in the markets of Dakar or Thies, Senegal's second city, and by promoting techniques, such as drip irrigation, which conserve water, and assisting communities in consolidating family land into fenced-off allotments – somewhat dramatically titled "family survival farms" – Oxfam hopes that it will be able to begin the process of adapting to climate change.
Adaptation is a word that has not been too prominent in Western climate change discourse, but within the development industry there is a growing recognition that while negotiators and newspapers can focus on the abstractions of mitigation to prevent a future calamity, the early stages of global climate change represent a present threat to decades of development work.
Frank Pinto is a former coordinator of the Global Environment Facility, the financial institution set up in 1992 as a mechanism for coordinating and funding climate change projects within the international system. Since retired, he has returned to work for the United Nations Development Programme as an adviser to national governments.
Today, sitting in a café in Lusaka, Zambia, he has a disconcerting habit of smiling as he reels off headline statistics from the influential IPCC synthesis report from 2006, which compiled responses from 3000 scientists around the world: 75-250m people across Africa are going to face serious water shortages by the year 2020; agriculture fed by rainfall is likely to drop by 50 percent in some African countries in the same period; increased flooding in East and Southeast Asia; 30 percent decreases in crop yield in South Asia. "That means 500m could be at risk of hunger [in Asia] due to this. There go the Millennium Development Goals. There go all of the gains that have been made. There go all the efforts of the UN system to improve the livelihoods of the poor."

Zambia is the final leg of a five-stage tour that has taken Mr Pinto to Kazakhstan, India, Thailand and Yemen. In each, he has been consulting with ministers and giving out practical – if alarming – advice. In Yemen, for example, he says: "Their rainfall was minimal, and it's reduced by half. They've drained 90 percent of the water from their aquifers. They don't know what to do. They're thinking that in 20 years time even the capital may have to move, because they can't find the water. Yet, every two or three years they have one massive flood." Mr Pinto's solution?
"I said: 'You'd better start digging huge reservoirs, because the next flood in two years may be the only water you're ever going to get.' If someone had told me that I'd give that advice five years ago, I'd have called them insane."
Zambia presents a less immediate, but perhaps no less extreme example of climate change vulnerability. Stung by its dependence on copper revenues when the economic crisis hit, the country is investing heavily in developing its agriculture sector. Mr Pinto warns that this plan could be unsustainable if climate change continues along its current path. "Wheat could disappear in Southern Africa," he says. "The amount of maize is going to reduce significantly. They're going to have to grow sorghum and other crops." The country could, like Yemen, be forced to consider promoting legumes, which can grow in arid conditions.
Taking this advice to Zambia seems incongruous with its status as one of the continent's most obviously water-rich nations. Crossed by major rivers and a large generator of hydropower, Zambia is still recovering from a succession of major flood events in recent years. However, the flooding is a symptom of new and unpredictable fluctuations in the water levels being reported in these rivers. In the emerging science of climate change adaptation, there is an established consensus that it is the change, as much as it is the climate, that has the most acute effects. In hydropower as in agriculture, too much or too early can be as damaging as too little or too late.
Mr Pinto says that years ago, when he was working day-to-day with governments on climate change, it was the ministries of energy, environment and industry that he engaged with, those who directly held an "environmental" portfolio. "But the key players here will be those ministries dealing directly with the normal, everyday lives of Zambians who use water, transport and so on. Because it is now a development issue. It is no longer an environment issue," he explains. It is also not simply an economic development issue or a rural issue, but one that impacts across a very broad range of human security indicators.
Perennial drought

The effects of perennial drought in northern Kenya are obvious from the air. The only greenery runs in thin, dark dendrites along the banks of empty river beds. The rest of the land is bone dry. Turkana is Kenya's northernmost district, bounded by Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia. A predominantly pastoral area, Turkana is once again a stereotype of development, an area where NGOs seem to have a stronger presence on the ground than the central government and the majority of the district's almost 500,000 people live below the international poverty line. It is home to many Sudanese refugees in UN-run camps, and there are suggestions that it will soon take the overspill of Somalis from the districts to the east. The early summer rainy season lasted a day this year, and that only hit isolated areas of the region.
This fragile area has also seen degradation over the past decade. The land is no longer capable of supporting the volumes of livestock that it used to. Pasture, already a rare commodity, is becoming increasingly degraded, and unlike in Koulouck, where there is still some arable farming to fall back on, there is no sedentary tradition in Turkana. There is a huge challenge in introducing the notion of monetising livestock during periods of sustained drought in a culture where cattle are the principal indicator of status. And unlike in Koulouck, where the government is a visible presence, in Turkana there is little to stop the long-running conflict between Turkana herders and their neighbours, the Pokot, from escalating. The ready availability of Kalashnikovs from Uganda and Sudan has elevated the level of violence over the past few years, while the shrinking pasture has tightened its theatre.
Development NGOs, such as Practical Action, which is active across a range of projects in the region, are finding themselves having to make difficult decisions. Where once there was a certain clarity as to their role – poverty reduction through community-based projects – now they risk becoming caught up in the conflict in the areas where they attempt to intermediate between warring factions. Jan Coffey, the organisation's new regional director, visiting PA's local office, expressed considerable unease at being interposed between the two sides of what is increasingly a trans-national security issue.
The conflict is not constrained to the land. On Lake Turkana, the region's Unesco World Heritage site and the closest thing it has to a tourist attraction, Ethiopian and Kenyan fishermen have clashed over dwindling stocks of tilapia. Therecord haul was 17,000 tonnes, during the mid-1970s. Today, 1,500 tonnes would represent a good year. By the lakeside, an official from the local fisheries board shows the visible extent of the lake's shrinkage and the drying up of the shallows and rivers in which the fish spawned. Like many of the region's officials, he has a large vocabulary of development terms. He offers a solution. "We can bring carbon trading here to Kenya." That, he thinks, will start to replenish the lake and revive fish stocks. Education at the grassroots level still presents a barrier to, in development-ese, "mainstream" climate change adaptation into development.
The organisation's projects are increasingly having to take into account the effects of climate change. The influx of people and animals from other areas has brought new diseases, such as PPR, an affliction of livestock. Practical Action has set up veterinary drug distribution centres to try to assuage the problem.
Health issues
Livestock diseases are only part of the evolving problem. There are serious human health challenges posed by the shift in climatic conditions. As Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a senior scientist in the department of public health and environment at the World Health Organisation, explains, there are a number of major worries, not least those associated with malnutrition. "Under-nutrition is the single largest contributor to the global burden of disease," he says. "It causes more ill-health than any other risk factor, and so anything that affects under-nutrition has a large impact on health."

Almost as concerning is the change in the distribution of disease vectors. Malaria, which is already responsible for around 900,000 deaths annually, could become more prevalent as warmer temperatures allow mosquitoes to breed at higher altitudes. Cities such as Nairobi, whose elevation has kept it well protected from malaria, could come under threat, if current models are correct. Some areas, such as the Sahel, could see reduced transmission as droughts remove the standing water needed for the mosquito population to survive, but, Mr Campbell-Lendrum says, "The studies suggest that on balance, taking into account both the positive and the negative… the net effect is probably already negative, and likely to get significantly more negative out of the next decade.
"So in fighting malaria, we're likely to be fighting an uphill battle, partly because of climate change," he concludes. "The other issue is that we are likely to be exposing populations that have no previous exposure to malaria. So they have no immunity to the disease, and there is evidence that you get much more severe disease when you have a lack of population immunity. The big epidemics of malaria that occur tend to do so at the edge of the distribution."
Mosquitoes, of course, are not the only vector whose distribution is likely to be altered by climate change. Human settlements are already under increasing pressure, their health and sanitation services straining to cope with the rural to urban migration that is exacerbated by – though not caused exclusively by – climate change. Overpopulation quickens the spread of waterborne and sexually-transmitted diseases, particularly in the poorly-organised informal settlements that are often the first port of call for migrants.
Migration will not be simply a national issue for countries affected by climate change. All projections are that migration to Europe, which informs so much of international development efforts, particularly in the Mediterranean, will increase. In March this year, more than 200 people drowned off the Libyan coast in a boat en route to Italy. Shortly afterwards, Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, issued a statement saying that the root cause of the disaster was the degradation of traditional farmlands caused by the worsening climate.
In late May 2009, a report released by the Global Humanitarian Forum attempted to quantify the human cost of climate change. The annual death toll due to climate change, it claims, currently stands at 300,000 people. 325m people are seriously affected, and economic losses amount to $125bn. The GHF claims that these estimates are conservative, though as ever, the complexity of climate systems and the intersection with other global trends mean that there will be questions about the methods used in calculating these figures.
What this does not address is the cost of adaptation. The cost of mitigation is hotly debated. Since the UNFCCC meeting in Kyoto in 1997 there has been considerable horse trading over emissions targets and the cost associated with reducing the rate of environmental damage, negotiations which will be revived in December at the multilateral meetings in Copenhagen.
"Although adaptation has been talked about from the very start of the negotiations, it's been sort of pushed off the table," says Anju Sharma, formerly the associate director at the Centre for Science and Environment in India and now Oxfam UK's climate change policy advisor. "There are probably several factors that have contributed to that. I think in the early days the discussion was dominated very much by the environmental sector and environmental NGOs, etc, and their focus was very much on mitigation, they weren't terribly interested in the adaptation aspect of it."
A number of adaptation funds were set up in the 1990s, partly, Ms Sharma says, as a means to quieten the demands of developing countries whose need for them was more acute, but who were being pushed into agreements on mitigation that they felt they could ill-afford. A proportion of the funding was conditional on the formulation of National Adaptation Programmes of Action – Napas – which countries had to submit in order to receive funding. Many, Ms Sharma says, found their applications initially turned down because their plans were felt to be too similar to existing development programmes.
The confluence of development and climate change adaptation work, far from facilitating efficiencies and synergies in the execution of programmes, is in fact posing significant organisational problems within the multilateral organisation. There is, as one senior official explains, "a fight for who owns climate change." The UN system is a case in point. Some see the wide-range of agencies – including a "secretary general's taskforce," comprising the heads of the UN Development Programme, Environment Programme, Climate Change Secretariat and Department for Economic and Social Affairs – as being representative of a broad and consistent approach. Others see the 24 agencies and associated bodies listed as actors as indicative of incoherence and a lack of clear leadership.

Speaking after the launch of the GHF report in May, Kofi Annan, the forum's chair and a former United Nations secretary general, said that the role of the UN was secondary to that of individual governments. In terms of financial commitments and mitigation policies, this may well be true. But this incoherence spreads well beyond the UN, and if adaptation funding is to be made available after Copenhagen – whether through direct commitments, through carbon markets or other such mechanisms – clear guidance will be needed to ensure its effective deployment.
"The issue is too big to retreat to turf fighting," says Veerle Vandeweerd, director of the climate and energy group at the UNDP. "Even if we bring all of the best of the UN to bear, we will not address one tenth of what we need to address.
"Due to climate change we will not just have ODA. Governments are asking for new and additional financing. That could be of the same order – around $100bn per year – or it could be quite a bit bigger. That will give us a new development paradigm… I think also the UN has to change, and the UN has to become more businesslike. The UN cannot spend two years discussing amongst ourselves how we are going to do a national plan."
Without a climate change equivalent to the Paris Declaration, which ostensibly aligned the development programmes of international donors, there is little coordination of efforts. Monique Barbut, CEO of the GEF, notes that she has counted 13 new adaptation funds in the past couple of years. "All those 13 funds each have their own guidelines, their own reporting and their own project cycle."
Just as there is a necessity for more funding, there is a need to at least begin to ascribe a framework under which that funding is used, one which goes beyond the GEF – although Ms Barbut suggests that the GEF could become the centralised reporting mechanism for global adaptation finance. Despite the calls of the development industry, it should also be segmented from existing development financing, says Oxfam's Ms Sharma – not least because it cannot be allowed to eat into the already faltering Gleneagles commitments of the developed economies.
"It's a very dangerous thing if adaptation finance is treated in the same way as development finance, because development finance comes with its own set of baggage," Ms Sharma says. "Irrespective of the finer trappings of it, development finance still functions along the paradigm of the donors, more or less, deciding what gets funded and how the money gets used. I think, particularly in the case of adaptation finance I think we need to break away from that governance."
Much of this discussion could prove moot if in Copenhagen no consensus can be agreed. In Kyoto, the previous iteration of December's meeting, the protocol was not ratified by the most important global players. This time around, the mitigation debate and the competitive economics of emission reduction could once again steal the headlines. Climate change remains an abstract notion in many parts of the world – and will seem even more so in the middle of a Danish winter.

If that blinds negotiators to the immediate necessity for adaptation funding, then the price, in lost development assistance, emergency relief, energy and fuel price fluctuations and conflict, could be far greater than that of lost industrial revenues or carbon taxes.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/22/epa-sets-jan-1-deadline-for-ghg-emissions-reporting/

EPA to Large Emitters: Start Collecting GHG Data Jan. 1
Large emitters of greenhouse gases will have to begin collecting their emissions data Jan. 1 under the new reporting system from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The program will apply to about 10,000 facilities that emit about 85 percent of the nation's greenhouse gases, said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, in her Sept. 22 announcement about the deadline.
The reporting system may play a role in any eventual cap-and-trade system adopted by the U.S.
The largest emitters will have to submit annual reports of their emissions, starting in 2011, with information from the 2010 calendar year.
Vehicle and engine manufacturers are getting a one-year reprieve. They don't have to start reporting until model year 2011.
For a list of reporting requirements, click here.
The Environmental Defense Fund was quick in its praise for EPA's move.
"The public has both a need and a right to know about the country's biggest emitters," said Mark MacLeod, director of special projects at Environmental Defense Fund. "The transparency provided today will inform smart policy that targets the biggest sources of heat-trapping emissions."
Increasingly, the EPA has threatened to declare carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant as a stick to help push climate-change legislation.
However, if the EPA draft ruling declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant goes through as written, it would regulate emissions only from large industrial sources.
EPA's new take on the "endangerment finding" would be 100 times less strict than the current rule under the Clean Air Act, which calls for facilities emitting more than 250 tons annually of a regulated pollutant to install the "best available" control technologies.
Instead, EPA is proposing to regulate only facilities emitting more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6846674.ece

European carbon trading market takes hit
Carl Mortished, World Business Editor
RECOMMEND? (3)
The Europe-wide carbon trading market suffered a severe blow yesterday when a European court issued a ruling that will weaken carbon prices and undermine efforts by the European Commission to curb carbon emissions further.
In a landmark decision, the European Court of First Instance ruled in favour of an appeal by Poland and Estonia for the right to be more generous in granting carbon emission allowances. In its surprise annulment of a Commission decision to cut the carbon quotas of the two countries, the court said: "The Commission exceeded its powers."
The decision is expected to weaken prices in Europe's troubled carbon market and undermine efforts by the Commission to impose a stricter regime on carbon polluters.
The court said that the Commission had no right to impose a lower cap on the emissions of Estonia and Poland when it rejected the national allocation plans (NAPs) submitted by the two countries.

Under Europe's Emissions Trading System (ETS), each state submits a plan setting out how many carbon allowances (EUAs) it will issue to industry each year.
The court's ruling astounded carbon traders in Europe yesterday and the price of EUAs traded on the ETS fell 60 cents a tonne before recovering to €13.40 a tonne.
Carbon traders said that there was a risk of a further 50 million tonnes in EUAs coming on to the market as the two countries exploited the court's ruling against the Commission's authority.
"It means two things — possibly more allowances in the market and more uncertainty," Emmanuel Fages, a carbon analyst with Société Générale, the investment bank, said. "It's another blow because people will say the market doesn't work."
The ETS was set up to create a market incentive for businesses to reduce CO2 emissions by enabling companies to sell surplus carbon allowances for cash in the market. In its first phase, governments gave away too many allowances, depressing the price of EUAs and reducing incentives. In an effort to boost the ETS in its second phase, the Commission sought to rein in the volume of EUAs distributed by governments.
The ruling is a victory for Central and Eastern European states that fought against the Commission's attempts to cut carbon emission quotas. Poland argued that its dependence on a Soviet-era coal and power industry deserved special treatment when it submitted its NAP to the Commission for approval. The Commission rejected the NAPs of several states, including Poland and Estonia, and ordered those two countries to reduce the number of EUAs by 27 per cent and 48 per cent, respectively.
However, the European Union's court said that the Commission's power of review was "very restricted". The Commission could reject an NAP only if it failed to conform with criteria set out in the EU directive concerning greenhouse gas emissions. By imposing a different quota ceiling, the Commission was "encroaching on the exclusive competence which the directive confers on the member states", the court said.
The Commission said that it was "extremely disappointed" and hinted that it would appeal against the ruling.
Other EU states that suffered cuts in their NAPs in the second phase may now challenge the Commission. The Polish and Estonian cases were supported by Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia. The ruling will raise further questions about the effectiveness of market-based carbon trading systems in bringing about reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/we-will-back-a-global-deal-to-cut-emissions-says-obama-1791691.html

We will back a global deal to cut emissions, says Obama
By David Usborne and Andrew Grice in New York
President signals intention to abandon intransigence of his predecessor - but admits it will be tough to get treaty through the Senate

Barack Obama insisted at a climate change summit yesterday that the US was committed to a new global treaty on greenhouse gases - explicitly distancing himself from George Bush - even while acknowledging that he faced an uphill task getting the necessary legislation passed in Washington. Listing actions taken in the US to curb carbon output since he took office, the President called his pledge "an historic recognition on behalf of the American people and their government. We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations".

Even with bursts of encouraging rhetoric from leaders at the UN gathering in New York and some new commitments to act, notably from China, the mood among delegations was sombre. There was no hiding the acute awareness that talks towards sealing a new global pact on cutting emissions at another summit in Copenhagen this December are in deep trouble.

The Chinese President, Hu Jintao, addressed criticism, partly from the US, that the largest developing countries were not doing enough to contribute to the pact. For the first time, he pledged "mandatory national targets for reducing energy intensity and the discharge of major pollutants". He was referring to new targets that will reduce carbon output per unit of production in China.

While Mr Hu offered fewer numerical specifics than some would have liked, his promise to "integrate actions on climate change in its economic and social development plan" is a major shift by the Chinese leadership. The speech was meant partly to serve notice at home that combating climate change will now be one of China's priorities along with economic growth.

The Chinese offer goes to the heart of the struggle that is playing out between developed and developing nations. The latter argue they are being asked to sacrifice their ambitions for economic stability. In the US, conservatives argue they will not commit to emissions cuts unless developing countries such as China and India shoulder their part of the bargain.

A rift has opened among developed nations, with the EU increasingly frustrated that the US, so preoccupied by healthcare reform, has yet to adopt legislation enshrining the emission cuts it will need to have in place to make a new treaty work.

Mr Obama did not attempt to hide the difficulties ahead of Copenhagen. His proposals for a cap-and-trade system to effect cuts in the US have been adopted by the House of Representatives but face long delays in the Senate, possibly even until after the mid-term elections in November next year.

Without Senate action, it will be hard for Mr Obama to sign any treaty in December. "It is work that will not be easy. As we head towards Copenhagen, there should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us," Mr Obama said. "All of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge."

Mr Obama called on developing nations to accept sacrifice. "Rapidly growing developing nations that will produce nearly all the growth in global carbon emissions in the decades ahead must do their part... they need to commit to strong measures at home and agree to stand behind those commitments just as the developed nations must stand behind their own."

Arriving in New York yesterday, Gordon Brown chaired a meeting on the issue of how much industrialised nations should pay developing countries to combat climate change. He has already proposed a $100bn-a-year (£61bn) payment by 2020.

Mr Brown urged fellow world leaders to attend the talks in Copenhagen in December on a new global deal. He fears that the issue is so complicated that the traditional negotiating tactic, of nations not declaring their hand until they get to Denmark, would end in failure.

British officials travelling with the Prime Minister do not believe there will be a formal agreement on climate change at this week's UN and G20 meetings, but hope they will provide momentum towards one. One said: "This is not the point at which a deal is done, but the point at which leaders look each other in the eye and say we must do a deal in Copenhagen."

British Government sources said the issue was "too important to be left to officials" and that leaders should start negotiations now to avoid running out of time in Copenhagen. "It's too complex to leave to a couple of days in Copenhagen. We have to see countries converging before then," one said.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/25/g20-leaders-debate-ending-fossil-fuel-subsidies-to-curb-global-warming/

G20 Leaders Debate Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies to Curb Global Warming
Group of 20 leaders are close to an agreement on phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels in an effort to curb global warming, though no fixed dates have been set, reports Reuters.
Several G20 countries subsidize fuel such as coal and oil, at a cost of about $300 billion, to keep prices artificially low for consumers, which boosts both demand for hydrocarbons and emissions, reports Reuters.
Obama aide Michael Froman told Reuters that phasing out fossil fuel subsidies worldwide could cut greenhouse gases by up to 12 percent by 2050, citing estimates by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Energy Agency. He said United States would agree to the cuts as well.
The United States is urging developing nations such as China, India and Russia to cut those subsidies in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But some, like India, want to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels over time, citing the needs of the nation, reports Bloomberg News.
Shyam Saran, India's special envoy on climate change said in the article that a strong message from leaders on carbon pollution limits would have a favorable impact on talks at the United Nations meeting in Copenhagen in December.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/24/caterpillar-fedex-join-debate-over-carbon-tax-vs-cap-and-trade/

Caterpillar, FedEx Join Debate Over Carbon Tax Vs. Cap and Trade
Industry-leading businesses and associations are locking horns over the merits of a carbon tax versus a cap-and-trade program as passed in the House's climate legislation in June. Those in favor of a carbon tax include Caterpillar and FedEx. However, globally, shippers prefer a cap-and-trade program.
The chief executives of Caterpillar Inc. and FedEx Corp. said at an energy conference in Washington that they prefer a tax on carbon dioxide emissions and criticized the cap-and-trade measure being debated in Congress, reportsBloomberg News.
Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, said in the article that the legislation approved by the House in June gives certain industries free pollution permits that would distort the market.
George David, chairman of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp., told Bloomberg that the carbon tax has been revived in part because of the complexities and loopholes in the cap-and-trade legislation. United Technologies owns Carrier, Sikorsky, Otis and Pratt & Witney, among others.
Some executives have said that measure doesn't create a direct enough disincentive to pollute, reports Bloomberg.
However, five shipping industry associations said in a study that a global cap-and-trade scheme is the most effective way to cut carbon emissions, reportsReuters.
Under cap-and-trade schemes, companies or countries face a carbon limit and if they exceed their limit they can buy allowances from other polluters which stay under their cap.
The national ship industry associations of Australia, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and the UK have jointly released a paper arguing that a cap-and-trade scheme is best for the whole industry, and provides two options for the mechanism, reports Reuters.
Robert Ashdown, head of the UK Chamber of Shipping's technical division, said in the article that an emission trading scheme would cost the seaborne industry 5 billion euros ($7.39 billion) to 6 billion euros a year, depending on the price of carbon.
The first option treats shipping as a country in its own right which means the sector would be given a specific amount of carbon credits, while the second option allows for the number of credits earmarked to be determined by the number of sales of bunker fuel sold by governments at auction to shipping firms, according to Reuters.
The proposals did not set targets.
UK Chamber of Shipping President Jesper Kjaedegaard told Reuters that some shipping nations and industry associations might have "different ideas" but the industry "can no longer take an ostrich approach."

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/28/un-even-with-emissions-cuts-planet-to-warm-6-3-degrees-by-2100/

UN: Even With Emissions Cuts, Planet to Warm 6.3 Degrees by 2100
Climate researchers now project the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if industrialized and developing countries meet their most ambitious climate commitments, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), reports The Washington Post.
Michael MacCracken, one of the scientific reviewers for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a contributor to the UNEP report, said in the article that even if developed nations cut their emissions by half and the developing countries continued on their current path, or vice versa, the world would still experience a temperature increase of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050.
The new global warming research, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009, aimed at garnering political support for a new international climate pact by the end of the year in Copenhagen, highlights recent scientific assessments that have moved up the time table for predictions released by the IPCC in 2007.
The research is divided into five categories: Earth Systems, Ice, Oceans, Ecosystems and Management.
Robert Corell, who chairs the Climate Action Initiative and reviewed the UNEP report's scientific findings, told The Washington Post that the increase is nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can handle in order to avert catastrophic climate change.
Some scientists also are concerned that that thresholds may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades including dramatic changes to the Indian sub-continent's monsoon, the Sahara and West Africa monsoons, and climate systems impacting ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest, according to the report.
The report also indicates concern by scientists that the planet is committed to some damaging and irreversible impacts as a result of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. As an example, the report cites shifts in the hydrological cycle resulting in the disappearance of regional climates with related losses of ecosystems, species and the spread of drylands northwards and southwards away from the equator.
Climate researchers at the Vermont-based Sustainability Institute, Massachusetts-based Ventana Systems and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who collaborated with Corell, revised its estimates since the release of the U.N. report, reports The Washington Post.
The group took the upper-range targets of nearly 200 nations' climate policies and found the average global temperature is likely to warm by 6.3 degrees, reports The Washington Post.
Other findings indicate that the sea level might rise by as much as six feet by 2100 instead of 1.5 feet, as the IPCC had projected, and the Arctic may experience a sea-ice summer by 2030, rather than by the end of the century, reports The Washington Post.
While the Obama administration is pushing for an end to fossil-fuel subsidies as part of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, activists such as 350.org director Bill McKibben told the Washington Post that politicians worldwide are not taking aggressive enough steps to address climate change.
McKibben's group aims to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm), well below the 450 ppm target that leaders of the Group of 20 major nations have supported, reports the newspaper.

http://atrisk.net/companies-recognizing-climate-change-as-business-risk/

Companies Recognizing Climate Change as Business Risk

September 23, 2009

On Monday, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) released its annual S&P 500 Report, and the results indicate that companies are increasingly willing to disclose their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their plans for emissions reduction.

What's more, the data also shows me that companies are increasingly beginning to recognize the business risks associated with climate change.

Consider this: The CDP received 332 responses, representing 66% of the S&P 500 –that's up slightly from 65% in 2008. Of these, 79% now disclose GHG emissions and more than half (52%) report emissions reduction targets (nearly doubling from 32% last year).

Here are a few other key findings:

68% of respondents reported board or executive-level responsibility for climate change oversight.
Even though regulatory risks loom large, the companies in the study cited more climate change business opportunities (86%) than risks (82%).
Reporting of indirect (Scope 3) emissions –such as those caused by the supply chain –rose a whopping 215.5%. At last. The majority of a company's carbon footprint is embedded in its supply chain, and it's exciting to see that awareness about Scope 3 emissions is finally taking hold.
More than one-third of those polled (35%) are linking corporate compensation incentives programs to the achievement of climate change related goals.

As an article in Monday's Washington Post points out, companies are starting to appreciate the threat that global warming poses to their bottom lines.

Changes in both global climate and resources availability will require companies to adapt –if they want to succeed. Your business needs to start identifying and planning for appropriate responses and solutions, such as strategic sighting of production centers and re-thinking materials and resource use/resuse.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2250098/global-low-carbon-markets

Report touts global low carbon job boost
Think tanks call on G20 leaders to act together to create the efficient low carbon markets

Tom Young, BusinessGreen, 25 Sep 2009

G20 Governments meeting in Pittsburgh this weekend could create tens of millions of new jobs by agreeing to invest in low carbon technologies, according to a new report published today by the Global Climate Network of think tanks.

The report argues that bold government policies to promote rapid growth in climate-friendly innovations and industries represent one of the most effective means of tackling rising unemployment.

It concludes that measures to creating markets for low carbon technologies will serve the dual purpose of creating extra jobs in renewable energy, information technology and service sectors, as well as helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Policies the report recommends include ambitious renewable energy targets, increased R&D funding for clean technologies, the creation centres of excellence for low carbon technology, financial support mechanisms such as feed-in tariffs, phasing out subsidies for carbon-intensive industries, and taxing carbon emissions.

The report argues that the positive economis and environmental benefits of such policies will be significantly multiplied if they are adopted in a globally co-ordinated manner, instead of being enacted within separate countries.

"Governments have to be bold, smart and collaborative in the way they approach creating stable markets in low carbon technologies," said Andrew Pendleton, coordinator of the Global Climate Network."The G20 in Pittsburgh is the perfect opportunity to begin this work."

While jobs will be lost in conventional, carbon-intensive sectors, Global Climate Network's research shows that more jobs will be created than lost provided that policies are ambitious enough.

For example, the study predicts China's existing plans to decouple emissions from economic growth and develop new low carbon industries could lead to the creation of over 40 million new jobs. In contrast, there may be 10 million fewer new jobs created due to closure of factories with inefficient technologies in the manufacturing, construction and transport sectors.

The findings echo earlier research from Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), the UK member of the GCN, which suggested that up to 70,000 long-term jobs could be created in the UK offshore wind industry with strong government support.

Similarly, a recent study from Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council predicted that shifting from a high to a low carbon energy infrastructure could deliver a net increase in EU employment of 2.7 million jobs by 2030.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/24/pge-quits-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-over-climate-change-nike-applies-pressure/

PG&E Quits U.S. Chamber of Commerce Over Climate Change, Nike Applies Pressure
Citing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "extreme position on climate change," Pacific Gas & Electric has quit the chamber, reports the New York Times. Nike also is taking umbrage with the chamber's position, according to various news outlets.
The move by PG&E, a major California utility, follows similar moves by Duke Energy and Alstom to quit the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy in recent weeks, reports SocialFunds.
The Chamber of Commerce has threatened a lawsuit to challenge the science behind global warming.
PG&E sent a letter to the chamber, parts of which are excerpted on the PG&E blog post "Irreconciable Differences."
In the letter, PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee wrote: "We find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored. In our opinion, an intellectually honest argument over the best policy response to the challenges of climate change is one thing; disingenuous attempts to diminish or distort the reality of these challenges are quite another."
Darbee wrote that he feels the Chamber of Commerce has "forfeited an incredible chance to play a constructive leadership role on one of the most important issues our country may ever face."
Nike, meanwhile, is becoming more critical of the chamber's stance. Erin Dobson, Director of Corporate Responsibility Communications at Nike, copied the Natural Resource Defense Council on a statement it has made about the chamber's stance.
"Nike fundamentally disagrees with the US Chamber of Commerce's position on climate change and is concerned and deeply disappointed with the US Chamber's recently filed petition challenging the EPA's administrative authority and action on this critically important issue.
"Nike believes that climate change is an urgent issue affecting the world today and that businesses and their representative associations need to take an active role to invest in sustainable business practices and innovative solutions to address the issue. It is not a time for debate but instead a time for action and we believe the Chamber's recent petition sets back important work currently being undertaken by EPA on this issue."
The chamber continues to defend its position. From a recent blog post on the chamber's site: "Preserving and protecting our economy and our environment for future generations is one of the top priorities of the U.S. Chamber. American business is the single largest investor and innovator in clean energy solutions and remains committed to propelling this nation to a prosperous and lower carbon future. We support sound policies that incentivize innovation and new business opportunities rather than the approach coming out of the House and the EPA which will strangle business with thousands of new regulation and stifle America's competitiveness."

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/23/deloitte-reports-tax-implications-for-u-s-ghg-regulations/

Deloitte Reports Tax Implications for U.S. GHG Regulations
Whether the U.S. chooses a cap-and-trade scheme as passed in the House's climate bill in June or adopts a carbon tax, there will be tax implications for all types of businesses in many aspects of their operations, according to a white paper from Deloitte.
The Deloitte whitepaper, A Climate for Change? Tax Implications of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Regulation, describes general approaches to climate change legislation and the resulting implications for tax policy. The paper focuses on a cap-and-trade program and the role of taxes in efforts to directly limit GHG emissions.
A cap-and-trade system raises two tax-related issues, according to the white paper. The first is whether a tax designed to discourage activities that result in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would be more desirable than a regulatory approach, and the second is whether the tax treatment of various assets, liabilities, and transactions under a cap-and-trade system is sufficiently defined, according to the paper.
Some have suggested a carbon tax as an alternative to a cap-and-trade system, which would reduce emissions by placing a direct tax on the production, distribution, or emission of carbon and possibly other GHGs, reports Deloitte. This could be done at the same points at which a cap-and-trade program would require allowances, according to the paper.
In theory, a GHG tax could achieve the same results as the granting of free allowances and offset credits by providing tradable GHG tax exemptions, according to the paper. However, to meet the desired GHG reductions under a carbon tax system, the actual tax on GHG emissions would have to be set at a level sufficient to make excess emissions more costly than mitigation strategies, cites the paper.
Deloitte says it would not be surprising to see climate change regulation, in terms of its business impact, to be regarded in the same way as securities regulation, food and drug safety regulation, financial services regulation or employee retirement income security rules.

Alternative Energy newsclips for Sept 28, 2009: California moves ahead, Canadian wind picking up, and Smart Grids actually work

2009-09-28T21:56:00.000-04:00

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE58N70520090924

California sets biggest energy efficiency plan
Thu Sep 24, 2009 7:10pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California said it had approved the most aggressive energy efficiency plan among U.S. states on Thursday, earmarking $3.1 billion to retrofit homes and other programs that will cut power needs equivalent to three medium-sized power plants.

Conservation and efficiency have become national buzzwords as the economy has failed, since such investments have some of the quickest paybacks of any in 'green' industries.

The California Public Utilities Commission set a three-year budget for utilities 42 percent higher than the previous plan. The state pioneered the concept of letting utilities raise rates as they spurred conservation, which still is not the case in many U.S. states.

Edison International's unit Southern California Edison, PG&E Corp's main unit Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric Co and its Southern California Gas Company will funnel the money into a dozen statewide programs and some extra smaller initiatives.

The energy saved through the programs would be the same amount of power produced by three 500 megawatt power plants, according the California Public Utilities.

The programs will also avoid 3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions and create between 15,000 and 18,000 jobs.

The move by regulators follows California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's order earlier this month that the state get a third of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020.

The most populous state is also the biggest U.S. alternative energy market, and its environmental standards, including car pollution rules and green building regulations, are models for national and international policies.

To reach California's goals, however, broader programs that have "holistic approaches" to energy efficiency are key, said Michael Peevey, the commission's president, in a statement.

"Capturing the full energy efficiency potential in the state requires more than simply providing rebates to support the installation of the latest and greatest widget," Peevey said.

The funds will kick off the largest residential retrofit effort in the United States. Called CalSPREE, the program aims to cut energy use by 20 percent for up to 130,000 homes in the state by 2012.

The budget also includes $175 million for innovative programs to make zero net energy homes and commercial buildings; $260 million for local efforts to retrofit public sector buildings and save energy; and more than $100 million for education and training programs.

It also phases down subsidies for basic compact fluorescent lamps, shifting to solid state lighting and other efficient light technologies.

http://planetark.org/wen/54786

Key Facts About Wind Power In Canada
Date: 23-Sep-09
Country: CANADA
Author: Nicole Mordant and Susan Taylor
The Canadian Wind Energy Association is holding its annual conference and trade show in Toronto this week. It is expected to draw more than 2,000 attendees, 200 exhibitors and more than 100 speakers.
Below are facts about wind power in Canada:
* Canada has 2,854 megawatts of installed wind energy capacity, enough to provide power to 860,000 Canadian homes. That is equal to about 1 percent of the country's electricity demand.
* Because of its vast size and geography, Canada has the world's second-largest wind energy potential after Russia.
* Canada ranks 12th in the world for installed wind power capacity and percentage of electricity generated from wind.
* This year will be a record year for wind energy development in Canada with new installed capacity from projects totaling 790 MW. By year-end, Canada will have 3,159 MW of installed capacity.
* Every province in Canada generates some electricity from wind, with Ontario having the most wind farms.
* The Canadian Wind Energy Association has a vision of supplying 20 percent of the country's electricity needs from wind by 2025. That would require installation of about 55,000 MW, more than 20 times what is in operation now. It would involve putting up 22,000 turbines over 450 locations across Canada.
* Achieving this goal would cost a projected C$132 billion ($122 billion), create 52,000 full-time jobs and reduce Canada's annual greenhouse gas emissions by 17 megatons of carbon dioxide a year.
* Canadian wind projects depend almost exclusively on European and U.S. suppliers for turbines and other key components.

http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2009/09/22/ibms-smart-grid-test-run-cuts-power-use-15-percent

IBM's Smart Grid Test Run Cuts Power Use by 15 Percent
By GreenBiz Staff
Published September 22, 2009
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ARMONK, NY — IBM yesterday unveiled the results of a smart grid pilot project that aims to show how much energy savings are possible through the use of electricity monitoring devices.

In partnership with Consert, IBM installed controller devices in 100 businesses and residences on appliances and other energy-intensive items. The controllers conveyed energy usage to the Fayetteville Public Works Commission (FPWC) over the course of six months.

The results show significant savings available from relatively easy changes to behavior. After six months of the pilot project, the average savings at homes and businesses was 15 percent; after the six-month trial period Consert has measured energy savings of as much as 40 percent in some participating homes.

A key to the project was the use of personalized, web-based displays for each business or residence that allowed facility managers or homeowners to log in and see how much energy their appliances and gadgets are using in real-time. the project also allows the FPWC to manage energy use from these devices during high electricity demand periods.

The companies' goal with the pilot project was to highlight the energy used by "ghost" devices: air conditioners, water heaters, and other devices that are using electricity even when no one is around. With the instant information provided by the smart meters, individuals and businesses are able to see when unecessary energy is being used, and turn those devices down or off.

In addition to saving companies on their energy bills, electric utilities are pushing for smart grid technology as a way to reduce demand on the electric grid during peaks. With technologies like those at work in the IBM/Consert pilot project in place, a utility can cycle devices on and off for short intervals to cut down on energy used by any given location.

"The only way we're going make energy grids greener is to add instrumentation and intelligence. Projects like these illustrate that with the right technology and partnerships, it can be done," said Chris O'Connor, an IBM vice president. "Technology is at the core of the next generation of smart grids and IBM is making significant investments into research, skills development and partners to make smart grids a reality."

IBM has also unveiled a new project to take smart grids to the next level. Last week, the company announced a partnership with the city of Dubuque, Iowa, to turn that city into a keystone in IBM's "Smarter Planet" initiative.

The project will incorporate a host of smart sensoring technologies to help city officials, local businesses and residents measure and manage their resource use, with an end goal of minimizing the environmental impact of the city of 60,000 people.

The first two phases of the Dubuque partnership involve IBM's construction of a "Platform for Real-Time Integrated Sustainability Monitoring," allowing city officials to oversee current energy and water use as well as general city services.

At the same time, the city is incorporating into its ongoing citywide water-meter replacement project a device called the "Unmeasured Flow Reducer," which gives end users highly accurate measurements of water use and pinpoint areas that can benefit from greater water efficiency.

All told, the project will bring as many as 1,300 green jobs to Dubuque, through iBM's new technology services delivery center in downtown Dubuque.

"The results of this partnership will empower citizens with decision-making tools to change how they impact the world," said Iowa Governor Chet Culver. "The State of Iowa is a proud partner in this undertaking to contribute to global sustainability efforts."

For more information on IBM's Smarter Cities project, visitwww.ibm.com/smartercities; and to see a demonstration of the company's North Carolina smart-grid technology, Consert has posted a short video on YouTube.

NBS: Socially Conscious Consumerism report findings now available

2009-09-28T21:07:00.000-04:00

FYI

The Network's Socially Conscious Consumerism report is now available in a number of formats. The findings reveal that consumers are willing to pay an average 10 per cent premium for sustainable goods and services. It also suggests how marketers can translate consumer intentions into actual purchases of sustainable products and services.

The project looked at over 30 years of research on what we know and don't know about socially conscious consumerism. It also found that surveys are poor predictors of consumer behaviour. Real-life experiments are a much better way to understand and predict shoppers' buying behaviours.

Please feel free to distribute the report and executive briefing among your personal contacts.

Regards,

Jo Ann Robinson
Communications Manager
Network for Business Sustainability
Business. Thinking. Ahead.
www.nbs.net
www.twitter.com/NBSnet
Facebook

Green Newsclips for 22 September 2009: Newsweek's green rankings, Climate business is big, and GHG pledges are not getting us there

2009-09-22T17:14:00.000-04:00

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/22/hp-dell-jj-intel-and-ibm-top-newsweeks-inaugural-green-rankings/

HP, Dell, J&J, Intel and IBM Top Newsweek's Inaugural Green Rankings
Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Intel and IBM are the top five leaders in Newsweek's inaugural environmental rankings of America's 500 largest corporations.
The Green Rankings were the result of collaboration among environmental researchers KLD Research & Analytics, Trucost, and CorporateRegister.com that ranked the 500 largest U.S. companies based on their environmental performance, policies and reputations.
More than half of companies' overall Green Scores are based on their environmental policies and reputation, and industry-neutral metrics that helped even the playing field for companies in carbon-intensive businesses, said Newsweek.
Newsweek also used data from Trucost, which has developed a system for estimating emissions of companies that fail to provide them.
Here's a quick rundown on Newsweek's top five rankings.
Hewlett-Packard earned its number one position due to its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction programs, and was the first major IT company to report GHG emissions associated with its supply chain, according to the ranking. In addition, HP has made an effort to remove toxic substances from its products, though Greenpeace has targeted the company for not doing better.
Dell, which comes in at number two, ranks fourth among the top U.S. corporate users of renewable energy, and leads the industry with its product take-back and recycling programs. Its headquarters uses 100 percent renewable energy and all its desktop and laptop computers will consume up to 25 percent less energy by 2010, according to the ranking. Dell became carbon neutral in 2008 by using offsets and other methods and plans to maintain its carbon neutrality for the next five years, according to the report.
At number three, Johnson & Johnson has a strong environmental management strategy in place. The company also touts the largest fleet of hybrid vehicles in the world. However, it's a top emitter of toxic pollutants compared to other companies within its industry, according to the report.
Intel, ranked number four, is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the U.S., which is equivalent to 46 percent of the company's U.S. energy use. Rather than focusing solely on increasing speed, Intel aims to reduce energy consumption of its chips.
Rounding out the top five is IBM, which has had formal environmental policies since 1971, according to the ranking. IBM is the only company to receive EPA's Climate Protection Award twice. IBM participated in a pilot program to reduce Stockholm's traffic congestion, which led to 40 percent decrease in inner-city greenhouse gases, according to the report. London is next. The company is spending $1 billion a year to double the capacity of data centers by 2010 without increasing their power consumption.
The green ranking also evaluates the top 500 companies by sector. Here are a few examples. The top three companies in the food and beverage industry are Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola, and Brown-Forman; the top three retailers are Kohl's, Staples and The Gap Inc.; the top three utilities are PG&E, Pepco Holdings and Northeast Utilities and the top three health care companies are Baxter International, Medtronic and Becton-Dickinson.
Click here for the complete ranking

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/22/climate-related-business-could-top-2-trillion-by-2020/

Climate-related Business Could Top $2 Trillion by 2020
Global revenues from energy efficiency, renewables and other climate-related sectors could top $2 trillion by 2020, up from $530 billion last year, according toHSBC Global Research.
The $530 billion last year was the result of 75 percent growth over 2007, according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
The 2008 figure has far exceeded the projections of a 2006 Stern Review study that predicted climate-related revenues to be $500 billion by 2050.
The U.S., Japan, France, Germany and Spain account for just over three-quarters of global climate revenues.
The HSBC report shows that the four major areas of climate-related revenues are:

low-carbon energy production
energy efficiency
control of water, waste and pollution
climate finance

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that tackling climate change can increase the global GDP, in a report from the Climate Group.
The report states that ambitious, coordinated efforts to cut emissions can:

Create as many as 10 million new jobs in 2020;
Generate additional economic growth worth as much as the green stimulus packages recently adopted by major governments; and
Enable a more than 15-fold reduction in carbon price (from $65 per ton of CO2 to $4 per ton of CO2).

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/22/hp-sets-goal-of-40-energy-reduction-for-products-by-2011/

HP Sets Goal of 40% Energy Reduction for Products by 2011
HP has raised its goal for reducing energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions from its products. The new goal calls for a 40 percent reduction by 2011, compared to 2005 levels.
The company already had set – and met- a goal of a 25 percent reduction by 2010, according to a press release.
In addition to the new goal for its products, HP plans by 2013 to reduce absolute emissions from all its operations by 20 percent, compared to a 2005 baseline. The emissions reductions will come from energy efficiency measures, as well as investments in renewable energy.
Between 2005 and 2008, the company has reduced emissions by more than 4 million metric tons, through a combination of product innovations and operational changes.
The company still has work to do to meet its goal of reducing energy in its operations 16 percent by 2010, as it has achieved a nine percent reduction thus far.
Find the company's sustainability Web page here.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090921091751.htm

Current Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions Pledges Leave Climate Targets In The Red, Analysis Finds
ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2009) — Total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions currently proposed by industrialized countries fall short of the pathway to reaching a 2 degree target as referred to by the UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol negotiating group, despite the fact that the cost of meeting these pledges is much lower than anticipated, according to a new study.
The study by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) states that by 2020, total GHG emissions of industrialized (Annex I) countries would decline by between only 5% and 17%, relative to 1990, depending on the conditions associated with the pledges.
The aggregate proposal falls short of the 25-40% range referred to by negotiating Parties in 2007. In particular, a reduction by only 5% would merely carry forward the Kyoto Protocol targets to the next decade.
The analysis, conducted using IIASA's GAINS (Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies) model, suggests that with appropriate economic trading mechanisms, the 5% reduction implied by the conservative interpretation of pledges would involve no net costs to Annex I countries as a whole. Most of the nominal reductions could be satisfied through accounting of surplus emission permits that are implicit in the current pledges of some countries. Remaining emission cuts could be achieved through low-cost energy efficiency measures which pay for themselves over their lifetime (such as improved insulation of buildings or more efficient vehicles).
"Our analysis strongly suggests that the cost to Annex I countries implied by their current negotiation offers are indeed very low with respect to their GDP," says Dr Markus Amann, leader of IIASA's GAINS team.
"Even for the most optimistic 17% emissions reduction, our analysis suggests that mitigation costs would not exceed 0.01-0.05%, per annum, of the GDP of all Annex I countries, this is insignificant compared to a 42% increase in GDP that is assumed between now and 2020 for these same countries. At the same time, with fairly lenient targets, the carbon prices would remain low and developing countries would not benefit from the Clean Development Mechanism."
"A comparison of efforts by individual parties depends on the exact metric that is used. The current negotiation offers imply costs to some countries, while others would receive net revenues from an oversupply of emission allowances. Yet, if 'hot air'* emissions were excluded from the analysis and all Annex I Parties agree to small positive net mitigation costs, an overall reduction of 24% , instead of 17%, could be achieved by 2020," says Dr Amann." In addition, exclusion of 'hot air' would provide incentives to invest in measures in developing countries."
The analysis is based on projections made prior to the economic crisis. It is likely that post-crisis emissions will be lower than currently projected, and that the costs of reaching the emission reduction targets will be even less than suggested in this study.
IIASA's analysis also reveals significant co-benefits on local air quality as a result of reduced GHG emissions. Despite the low ambition, implied mitigation measures would cut SO₂, NO_x and particulate matter (PM) emissions by approximately 10% at no extra costs, which will reduce local negative health impacts from fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) accordingly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/science/earth/23climate.html?_r=1∂ner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

U.S. and China Vow Action on Climate Threat but Cite Needs
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

UNITED NATIONS — Some 100 heads of state gathered at the United Nations on Tuesday for an unprecedented daylong conference on combating climate change, with leaders like Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao of China acknowledging that agreement is an important goal, but also stressing their own needs.

Negotiators have been struggling to hammer out a deal to cut global emissions by December in Copenhagen, and the United Nations organizers are hoping that gathering the leaders will give the talks new political momentum.

Mr. Hu said that while China had made great strides in development, it still lagged relatively in terms of its wealth per individual, and that had to be taken into account in fighting emissions.

"Due to their low development level and shortage of capital and technology, developing countries have limited capability and means to deal with climate change," he said. "Developing countries need to strike a balance between economic growth, social development and environmental protection."

Mr. Hu said his country would take four steps toward greener development, although he did not give any specific numerical targets. He said China would cut carbon dioxide emissions by a "notable margin" by 2020 compared with 2005 levels; drastically increase the size of forests; increase the use of nuclear or nonfossil fuels to 15 percent of power by 2020; and work to develop a green economy.

He did not say whether China would consider the cuts mandatory, and he also tied the emissions cuts to growth in the country's gross domestic product, meaning the overall level of emissions could go up even if the amount per person was less.

Mr. Obama also repeated his commitment to green growth while acknowledging the domestic battles that many countries will face. The world "cannot allow the old divisions that have characterized the climate debate for so many years to block our progress," he said, adding that forging any kind of consensus would come slowly. "And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge."

He noted that the United States and others had tried to play down the crisis before but now recognized its gravity.

China is the largest emitter, followed by the United States, and they account for about 40 percent, split evenly between them. The United States has said that its willingness to accept mandatory emissions requirements is hinged to domestic law, and a new law, stalled by the health care debate, is awaiting Senate action.

Mr. Obama said he was committed to the United States making the largest-ever investment in renewable energy, setting new standards for reducing pollution from vehicles and making clean energy profitable, among other initiatives. He said developed nations must also provide financial and technical assistance to help the rest adapt to the impact of climate change and pursue low-carbon development.

Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, provided the scientific context, and warned that current emissions trajectories were propelling the world toward the panel's worst-case scenarios.

"Science leaves us no space for inaction now," he said.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, appealed to the leaders to set aside their national interests and think about the future of the globe.

"Instead of demanding concessions from others, let us ask how we can contribute to the greater good," he said in remarks to the leaders gathered in the General Assembly hall, describing the talks as moving at "glacial" speed. "The world's glaciers are now melting faster than human progress to protect them — and us."

The conference on Tuesday, which is not a negotiating session but designed to push toward a strategy, focused on four outstanding hurdles.

Industrialized nations, while agreeing on cutting emissions in the long term — by 2050 — have failed to agree on a crucial midterm target for carbon emissions cuts by 2020. They have pledged to go roughly halfway toward meeting the ambitious target set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a 25 percent to 40 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 — which environmental advocates say is not enough.

Developing powerhouses like China and India have agreed on the need to trim emissions, but they reject mandatory limits and demand financial and technical support in exchange.

Efforts to reach any kind of consensus around the issue of aid for the poorest countries to adapt to the impact of climate change have been shunted aside. Finally, there has been no agreement on which institutions would verify that targets were being met and supervise the financial and emissions targets.

The main hurdle is coming up with a plan over the next decade that will keep the temperature rise to about 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels. Even countries like India, which largely blames the developed world for the problem but has announced a package of cuts, admit that looking ahead to 2050 is not good enough.

"It is the height of dishonesty to have a target for 2050 because none of us will be around to be held accountable," Jairam Ramesh, the environment minister of India, told a news conference late Monday.

Some blocs of nations have their own targets. The small island states of the Pacific and the Caribbean want to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees because they fear being inundated by the sea rise that climate change could bring. Those states, along with many in Africa, are demanding billions of dollars in aid to assuage the damage they are already suffering.

During the speeches on Tuesday, the change in language coming from the United States was stark. Gone was the Bush administration's questioning about whether global warming is caused by mankind. Mr. Obama was quick to take responsibility on behalf of said mankind.

"John F. Kennedy once observed that 'our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man,'" Mr. Obama said. "It is true that for too many years mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well; we recognize that."

Mr. Obama struck a note of urgency, saying: "The security and stability of each nation and all peoples — our prosperity, our health, our safety — are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out."

Various ministers and other officials said that if major powers like China, Brazil, Indonesia all gave conciliatory indications today at the United Nations, that would probably help Mr. Obama overcome domestic opposition.

Japan's newly elected prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, whose nation generates more than 4 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, said his nation would seek a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020, and said his country was ready to contribute money and technical help for poorer countries to cut emissions.

"I will now seek to unite our efforts to address current and future climate change with due consideration of the role of science," he said. "I am resolved to exercise the political will require to deliver on this promise."

Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

Office Depot Environmental Update

2009-09-22T16:58:00.000-04:00

A very interesting set of initiatives... Thanks to Yalmaz for forwarding (for the IBMers in the list: Yalmaz is ex-PWC and ex-IBM)

September 22, 2009

Dear Office Depot Environmental Stakeholder,

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Office Depot's Environmental Update.

This is our latest effort to increase transparency with customers and stakeholders such as you. It will help you learn the newest developments in Office Depot's environmental strategy, and how they may affect you.

We hope it becomes a letter you look forward to receiving for the insights it contains and answers it provides - including answers you may be seeking for your own organizations' environmental programs. We'll be sending these no more than four times a year, and you can opt out any time.

First, I'd like to introduce myself and summarize my role. My name is Yalmaz Siddiqui and I lead Office Depot's global environmental strategy. I hold a Masters in Environment & Development from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill. Most of my prior experience was as a management consultant: first with PwC, then with IBM Consulting. At Office Depot I am ultimately accountable for ensuring we fulfill our vision "to increasingly buy green, be green and sell green." Our approach is to use a small green team to initiate, facilitate and communicate programs that are implemented by core Office Depot functions.

Key Environmental Updates

Corporate Citizenship Report 2009 Released: In September 2009 we released our latest Corporate Citizenship report. Within it you'll find highlights of our environmental programs in 2008 and an Environmental Dashboard of key environmental performance indicators.

Office Depot Recognized for Paper Leadership in 3rd Annual Green Grades Report Card: We are proud to announce that a recent report by ForestEthics and Dogwood Alliance recognized Office Depot as an industry leader in terms of environmentally preferable paper practices. We were recognized in the following way "Office Depot does the best job of tracking its forest sources, has the most detailed paper policy, has been the most systematic about avoiding paper from Indonesian Endangered Forest logger Asia Pulp & Paper, and does the best job of tracking its use of post consumer recycled paper."

A Shades of Green Product System: One of the seemingly simple, but complex questions we consistently are asked by our customers is "what is a green product?" There's been a lot of discussion on this topic recently, including a WSJ article and Office Depot's own CEO suggesting a US Green Products Council. In the absence of a national or global standard today, we are developing a Shades of Green Product System using attributes as indicators of "green-ness." This system is being developed with input from Office Depot's global green team as well as some of our most advanced green customers in the U.S., including purchasing and environmental teams at the Cities of Seattle and Portland.

Our Shades of Green Product System strives for "imperfect simplicity" rather than "imperfect complexity" as you see from our approach to the recycled attribute. We are creating similar tiers for a number of other product attributes, such as energy efficiency and reduced harsh chemicals, and over time plan to depict these attributes on our websites as we already do in our Green Book catalog.

Click on the image above to enlarge

Green Business Review (GBR): As part our strategy to "sell green," we want to help customers understand the environmental aspects of their purchases. We've piloted this GBR successfully with a few customers, and are ready to roll it out to more large accounts. The GBR uses our Shades of Green Product System to categorize and visually depict green spend. Its goal is to help customers move their spend up the shades of green.

Click on the image to the right to enlarge

To learn more about Office Depot's green programs, please visit www.officedepot.com/environment. Thanks for your interest in Office Depot.

Sincerely,

Yalmaz Siddiqui
Director, Environmental Strategy, Office Depot

Carbon newsclips for 21 Septmber 2009: Carbon emissions hurt poorest countries most, climate reductions don't hurt business and needn't stifle development

2009-09-21T17:26:00.000-04:00

Carbon emissions hurt poorest countries most, climate reductions don't hurt business and needn't stifle development... Getting to a solution in Copenhagen should be easier than it appears it will be. Where's the logic? - JFB

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU2NjI

A bad climate for development

The Economist, September 19, 2009 - The World Bank looks at the impact of climate change on developing countries

Poor countries' economic development will contribute to climate change. But they are already its greatest victims

IN LATE April Mostafa Rokonuzzaman, a farmer in south-western Bangladesh, gave an impassioned speech at a public meeting in his village, complaining that climate change, freakish hot spells and failed rains were ruining his vegetables. He didn't know the half of it. A month later Mr Rokonuzzaman was chest-deep in a flood that had swept away his house, farm and even the village where the meeting took place. Cyclone Aila (its effects pictured above) which caused the storm surge that breached the village's flood barriers, was itself a plausible example of how climate change is wreaking devastation in poor countries.

Most people in the West know that the poor world contributes to climate change, though the scale of its contribution still comes as a surprise. Poor and middle-income countries already account for just over half of total carbon emissions (see chart 1); Brazil produces more CO2 per head than Germany. The lifetime emissions from these countries' planned power stations would match the world's entire industrial pollution since 1850.

Less often realised, though, is that global warming does far more damage to poor countries than they do to the climate. In a report in 2006 Nicholas (now Lord) Stern calculated that a 2°C rise in global temperature cost about 1% of world GDP. But the World Bank, in its new World Development Report*, now says the cost to Africa will be more like 4% of gdp and to India, 5%. Even if environmental costs were distributed equally to every person on earth, developing countries would still bear 80% of the burden (because they account for 80% of world population). As it is, they bear an even greater share, though their citizens' carbon footprints are much smaller (see chart 2 on next page).

As December's Copenhagen summit on climate change draws near, poor countries are expressing alarm at the slow pace of negotiations to replace the Kyoto protocol. Agreed (partially) in 1997, this bound rich countries to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 5.2% from 1990 levels by 2012.

Counting the cost of global warming is hard because no one really knows how much to attribute to climate change and how much to other factors. But one indication of its rising costs is the number of people around the world affected by natural disasters. In 1981-85, fewer than 500m people required international disaster-assistance; in 2001-05, the number reached 1.5 billion. This includes 4% of the population of the poorest countries and over 7% in lower-middle-income countries (see chart 3 on next page).

In all, reckons the World Health Organisation, climate change caused a loss of 5.5m disability-adjusted life years (a measure of harm to human health) in 2000, most of it in Africa and Asia. Estimates by the Global Humanitarian Forum, a Swiss think-tank, and in a study in Comparative Quantification of Health Risks, a scientific journal, put the number of additional deaths attributable to climate change every year at 150,000. The indirect harm, through its impact on water supplies, crop yields and disease is hugely greater.

The poor are more vulnerable than the rich for several reasons. Flimsy housing, poor health and inadequate health care mean that natural disasters of all kinds hurt them more. When Hurricane Mitch swept through Honduras in 1998, for example, poor households lost 15-20% of their assets but the rich lost only 3%.

Global warming aggravates that. It also increases the chances of catching the life-threatening diseases that are more prevalent in poorer countries. In many places cities have been built just above a so-called "malaria line", above which malaria-bearing mosquitoes cannot survive (Nairobi is one example). Warmer weather allows the bugs to move into previously unaffected altitudes, spreading a disease that is already the biggest killer in Africa. By 2030 climate change may expose 90m more people to malaria in Africa alone. Similarly, meningitis outbreaks in Africa are strongly correlated with drought. Both are likely to increase. Diarrhoea is forecast to rise 5% by 2020 in poor countries because of climate change. Dengue fever has been expanding its range: its incidence doubled in parts of the Americas between 1995-97 and 2005-07. On one estimate, 60% of the world's population will be exposed to the disease by 2070.

Next, as Mr Rokonuzzaman's story showed, poor countries are particularly prone to flooding. Ten of the developing world's 15 largest cities are in low-lying coastal areas vulnerable to rising sea levels or coastal surges. They include Shanghai, Mumbai and Cairo. In South and East Asia the floodplains of great rivers have always been home to vast numbers of people and much economic activity. Climate change is overwhelming the social and other arrangements that in the past allowed countries and people to cope with floods. National budgets can ill afford the cost of improving defences. The Netherlands is also affected and is spending $100 per person a year on flood defences. In Bangladesh that sum is a quarter of the average person's annual income.

The biggest vulnerability is that the weather gravely affects developing countries' main economic activities—such as farming and tourism. Global warming dries out farmland. Since two-thirds of Africa is desert or arid, the continent is heavily exposed. One study predicts that by 2080 as much as a fifth of Africa's farmland will be severely stressed. And that is only one part of the problem.

Global warming also seems to be speeding up the earth's hydrologic cycle, causing both floods and droughts (more rains fall in shorter periods, with longer gaps between). In addition, by melting glaciers, global warming reduces nature's storage capacity. Two-thirds of the world's fresh water is stored in glaciers. Their melting leaves poor countries with less of a buffer to protect farmers against changing weather and rainfall patterns.

This kind of increasing unpredictability would be dire news at the best of times: hit by drought and flood, the land becomes less productive. It is compounded by another problem. The higher-yielding, pest-resistant seed varieties invented in the 1960s were designed to thrive in stable climes. Old-fashioned seeds are actually better at dealing with variable weather—but are now less widely used. Reinstituting their use will mean less food.

In India the gains from the Green Revolution are already shrinking because of local pollution, global warming and waning resistance to pests and disease. A study for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology forecast that yields of the main Indian crops would decline by a further 4.5-9% over the next 30 years because of climate change. A recent assessment based on a large number of studies of what might happen in the long run if carbon continues to be pumped into the atmosphere found that world farm production could fall by 16% by the 2080s, and possibly by as much as 21% in developing countries. Although the timescale makes such figures no more than educated guesses, there is not much doubt that climate change is undermining the gains from intensive farming in developing countries—at the very time when population growth and greater wealth mean the world will need to double food production over the next three or four decades. By 2050 the world will have to feed 2 billion to 3 billion more people and cope with the changing (water-hungry) diets of a richer population. Even without climate change, farm productivity would have to rise by 1% a year, which is a lot. With climate change, the rise will have to be 1.8%, says the bank.

If these myriad problems have a silver lining, it is that they give developing countries as big an interest in mitigating the impact of climate change as rich ones. As the World Bank says, climate-change policy is no longer a simple choice between growth and ecological well-being.

In principle that shift should make a climate-change deal in Copenhagen more likely, by increasing the number of countries that want an agreement. But two big problems remain. First, the poor countries want large amounts of money. To keep global warming down to an increase of 2°C, the World Bank calculates, would cost $140 billion to $675 billion a year in developing countries—dwarfing the $8 billion a year now flowing to them for climate-change mitigation. The $75 billion cost of adapting to global warming (as opposed to trying to stop it) similarly overwhelms the $1 billion a year available to them.

Second, poor countries see a climate-change deal in fundamentally different terms. For rich countries the problem is environmental: greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere and must be cut, preferably using the sort of binding targets recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For developing countries the problem is one of fairness and history: rich countries are responsible for two-thirds of the carbon put into the atmosphere since 1850; to cut emissions in absolute terms now would perpetuate an unjust pattern. Poor countries therefore think emissions per head, not absolute emissions, should be the standard.

Moreover, targets set at national level have little effect in poor countries where public administration works badly. So rich and poor also disagree about the conditions attached to any money for mitigating or adapting to climate change. The rich see this as a sort of aid, designed for specific projects with measurable targets, requiring strict conditions. Poorer countries see the cash as no-strings compensation for a problem that is not of their making.

The cost of climate change gives developing countries a big interest in a deal at Copenhagen. But what sort of deal they want—and how hard they push for it—is another matter altogether.

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU2NzY

Businesses unharmed so far by EU CO2 scheme-survey

Reuters, 17 September 2009 - The European Union's flagship emissions trading scheme has had no negative impact so far on business costs or competitiveness, a survey by non-governmental organisation The Climate Group said on Thursday.

But costs could rise as the EU's ETS develops and free emissions permits are phased out for some emitters, the survey found.

The report comes as policymakers in the United States debate legislation for their own emissions trading scheme. Many U.S. firms and lobby groups believe that scheme would hinder the ability of U.S. businesses to compete in international markets.

The EU ETS began in 2005 and caps emissions from European utilities and energy intensive industries, forcing them to trade emissions permits when they have a surplus or shortfall.

The Climate Group surveyed British utility Centrica, Johnson & Johnson, British retailer Tesco, cement producer Lafarge, a British glass manufacturer, a German engineering firm, a global steel maker, a global aluminium firm and a financial services company.

The companies either could not quantify any negative effect on their bottom line from the EU ETS or found no effect at all, the survey found. Fluctuations in energy prices and the economic downturn had more substantial effects on businesses.

Most companies surveyed by The Climate Group said the allocation of free permits to the scheme's most energy-intensive participants has so far helped to stem cost increases.

But some companies said that might change with economic recovery and under revised rules of the EU ETS' second and third phases, running from 2008-2012 and 2013-2020 respectively.

An EU climate plan agreed last December will force most utilities to buy all their permits at auction from 2013.

"In sum: today no costs, but tomorrow yes. We think that Phase 2 will generate substantial costs," Lafarge said.

The majority of respondents said free allocation to some intensive energy users was better than trade measures to alleviate any harmful effects on competitiveness until all firms face the same constraints under a global climate pact.

Respondents from the steel and aluminium sector said the EU ETS had affected the competitiveness of their operations, but did not pinpoint where and to what extent.

Relocating operations to countries with lower energy costs was not yet on the agenda of the companies surveyed, although some indicated that carbon pricing will be a key element in their future plant investment decisions.

Three companies said higher energy costs and, to a lesser extent carbon pricing, contributed to their decision to invest in low-carbon sources of energy.

For the steel company, however, carbon pricing has not had a great impact on low-carbon investment decisions, due to the low price of carbon emissions permits.

Prices for emissions permits ranged from a peak of 30 euros ($44.27) a tonne last summer to a low of 8 euros this February. (Editing by Sue Thomas)

($1=.6777 Euro)

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU2Mzc

Climate mitigation needn't stifle development, says report

SciDev.Net, 14 September 2009 - Countries can develop while curtailing climate change if they are 'climate-smart', the World Bank has said in a major new report.

The world need not make a decision between growth and prosperity or preservation, it argues in the latest edition of the authoritative World Development Report, so long as it takes action immediately, works together, and transforms its energy systems.

The report, 'Development and Climate Change', was launched at the Overseas Development Institute in London, United Kingdom, this week (14 September).

The authors say that climate change should not be seen as an insurmountable problem.

"We talk about a climate-smart world as opposed to a climate-resilient world because resilience is a fairly passive concept, it assumes that there's a big bad threat out there that we need to protect ourselves against and there's not much we can do to avoid that threat," said Marianne Fay, co-director of the report and incoming chief economist of the World Bank's Sustainable Development Network, at the launch.

Countries can continue to develop by employing climate-smart policies that reduce vulnerability to climate change while pursuing low-carbon growth, says the report.

"Climate change will affect the comparative advantage of a number of nations, particularly if those nations are first-movers. Therefore there will be opportunities as well as costs," said Fay.

"We will need to call on all the ingenuity and innovation that we are capable of," she added.

Lord Anthony Giddens, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics said: "This is a huge intellectual task that we face, of thinking what kind of society will have to come into being … if we are to have a chance of containing climate change within reasonable limits".

"It's not just a matter of on-the-ground facts, it's also a matter of imagination … [the society] has to look different from the current one. We're at the beginning of a long intellectual road."

Creating new and distributing existing technologies is a major part of achieving a climate-smart world, says the report. Investment in R&D needs to be drastically increased, from a total of US$53–73 billion per year to several hundreds of billions.

Increasing public funding — from US$13 billion a year — will not be enough, they say. Incentives need to be created for both the public and private sectors to pursue innovative solutions.

"The energy sector invests 0.5 per cent of its revenue in R&D. That's in contrast to innovative industries such as telecommunications which spend eight per cent and pharmaceutical sector which spend 15 per cent. Clearly the energy sector is not an innovative industry today."

Developing countries are vital to this innovation process. "You don't just go and helicopter-drop a new technology into a country. You need that country to have developed the ability to have identified the technology they need, to adopt it and to implement it," Fay told SciDev.Net.

The report acknowledges that low-carbon technology transfer to developing countries has so far been modest. Technology transfer could be boosted, by including joint production and sharing agreements for technology in any new climate deal — thus ensuring developing countries are part of the innovation process.

Link to full report

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/21/ibm-makes-cities-and-utilities-smarter-with-new-technologies/

IBM Makes Cities and Utilities Smarter with New Technologies
Moving forward with its strategy for a Smarter Planet, IBM is helping cities and utilities become smarter by providing new technologies and tools to help them better manage their resources, while reducing cost, increasing reliability and lowering energy and water consumption.
A new report from the IBM Institute for Business Value, "A Vision of Smarter Cities," makes the case that cities must use new technologies to transform their systems to optimize the use of finite resources.
As an example, IBM and the City of Dubuque, Iowa, with a population of 60,000, are collaborating to make Dubuque the first "smarter" sustainable city in the U.S. IBM and Dubuque outlined their plans to develop new "smarter" technologies and implementation strategies to create an international model of sustainability for communities of 200,000 and under, where over 40 percent of the U.S. population resides, said IBM.
Dubuque has made sustainability a priority since 2006, and has identified 11 principles of sustainability to guide the city's actions and policies. IBM, Dubuque, and other partners will revitalize the city's systems to become smarter and more efficient in order to meet the city's vision for sustainability.
The first phase of the smart city partnership includes two projects that focus on energy consumption and water management, in order to reduce costs and the overall carbon footprint. IBM will build a platform for real-time integrated sustainability monitoring to provide the city with an integrated view of its energy management, including energy consumed by the electric grid, water system, and general city services.
IBM's technology will interface with the city's water systems to provide real-time visibility into its water consumption. IBM Research will also build new service systems integration, data management, and analytic technologies that will create new insights for consumers and city policymakers.
IBM also opened a new technology services delivery center in downtown Dubuque, Iowa, which will employ up to 1,300 people by the end of 2010.
IBM, with business partner Consert, also announced the completion of installations for a smart-grid pilot project in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Through a partnership with the Fayetteville Public Works Commission (FPWC), the six-month pilot has helped nearly 100 local businesses and residents achieve up to a 40 percent energy savings.
The pilot aimed to reduce "ghost" consumption on devices such as air conditioners and water heaters that draw energy when no one is home to use them. Click here for a demonstration of the Consert and IBM technology.
Real-time energy monitoring and modifications can help the typical consumer save, on average, 15 percent or more of their normal energy use with no change in comfort or lifestyle, according to IBM. In addition, the FPWC now can calculate carbon savings at the device level, rather than at the point of generation.
To make it easier for utility companies to operate more efficiently and to speed up the development of their smart utility programs, IBM has developed a new standards-based software platform.
The new IBM Solution Architecture for Energy and Utilities Framework (SAFE) is part of the IBM Smarter Planet strategy, which provides a common vision for how utility companies can combine new and existing technologies to improve efficiency, said IBM. This includes adding new green technologies such as emissions monitoring and smart distribution, as well as renewable energy sources such as wind, hydro, solar and biofuels.
IBM said this open platform will help utilities reduce costs to protect their digital distribution networks against hacking and lower customer costs with new tools to manage consumption.
This new framework uses elements of IBM's entire software portfolio including WebSphere, Tivoli, Rational, Lotus and Information Management products, and offers technologies centered around seven focus areas faced by every utility including asset lifecycle management, informed decision making, business process automation, improved customer experience, security, as well as asset, device and service monitoring and regulatory, risk and compliance management. Click here for more information about IBM's smart utility services.

Carbon footprint of milk calculation... from today's WSJ

2009-09-21T17:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Guy Blissett for this one... JFB
=============

Link to related article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125322734427521091.html#mod=todays_us_page_one

Carbon footprint of milk calculation... from today's WSJ

2009-09-21T16:56:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Guy Blissett for this one... JFB
=============

Link to related article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125322734427521091.html#mod=todays_us_page_one

Green Newsclips for 18 September 2009: Low carbon economies; Polluted drinking water

2009-09-18T12:05:00.000-04:00

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ea19c726-a3e9-11de-9fed-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=ebe33f66-57aa-11dc-8c65-0000779fd2ac,print=yes.html

Low-carbon industries add power to economy
By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
Published: September 18 2009 03:00 | Last updated: September 18 2009 03:00
Businesses selling low-carbon goods and services now generate more revenue than the aerospace and defence sectors combined, making the sector one of the new linchpins of the global economy, according to research by HSBC.
Listed companies in the climate change sector - including renewable-power generators, nuclear, energy management, water and waste companies - reached a global turnover of $534bn in 2008, according to HSBC. The aerospace and defence sector was worth $530bn, the international bank said.
Revenues in the lowcarbon sector soared by 75 per cent in 2008 despite the recession. Joaquim de Lima, global head of quant research for equities, said the results were "surprising and very encouraging", given the financial crisis.
"This shows how important this sector is becoming in the global economy," he said. He noted that the sector had surpassed the growth rates predicted in the Stern review of the economics of climate change, published in the UK three years ago. In the landmark report, Lord Stern estimated that the low-carbon goods and services sector would be worth $500bn by 2050.
"This seemingly huge figure has already been surpassed well ahead of time as more and more businesses adapt their business model [to climate change]," said Mr de Lima.
Mr de Lima predicted that on current trends, revenues from the sector would exceed $2,000bn by 2020.
An increasing number of companies are entering the sector, with 368 on the HSBC Climate Change Index compared with 154 in 2004. The US led the index, with its companies generating revenue of $111bn. Japan took second place with $105bn, Germany stood at about $80m and the UK at $14bn.
The number employed in climate-related activities worldwide since 2004 has more than doubled from just over 1m to about 2.4m.
The research included only listed companies with a market capitalisation of more than $350m that derived more than 10 per cent of revenues from "clean technology" or related services. Only the proportion of sales that came from clean technology was counted, some of which was estimated as many companies do not fully break out their sales from green activities.
Low-carbon energy generation produced the bulk of the revenues, at $300bn, followed by energy efficiency and energy management products.
This strong showing came in spite of reported difficulties for companies seeking financing for setting up renewable energy projects.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18dairy.html?_r=1

Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells
By CHARLES DUHIGG

MORRISON, Wis. — All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe.

There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.

In measured amounts, that waste acts as fertilizer. But if the amounts are excessive, bacteria and chemicals can flow into the ground and contaminate residents' tap water.

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

"Sometimes it smells like a barn coming out of the faucet," said Lisa Barnard, who lives a few towns over, and just 15 miles from the city of Green Bay.

Tests of her water showed it contained E. coli, coliform bacteria and other contaminants found in manure. Last year, her 5-year-old son developed ear infections that eventually required an operation. Her doctor told her they were most likely caused by bathing in polluted water, she said.

Yet runoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources. The Clean Water Act of 1972 largely regulates only chemicals or contaminants that move through pipes or ditches, which means it does not typically apply to waste that is sprayed on a field and seeps into groundwater.

As a result, many of the agricultural pollutants that contaminate drinking water sources are often subject only to state or county regulations. And those laws have failed to protect some residents living nearby.

To address this problem, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has created special rules for the biggest farms, like those with at least 700 cows.

But thousands of large animal feedlots that should be regulated by those rules are effectively ignored because farmers never file paperwork, E.P.A. officials say.

And regulations passed during the administration of President George W. Bush allow many of those farms to self-certify that they will not pollute, and thereby largely escape regulation.

In a statement, the E.P.A. wrote that officials were working closely with the Agriculture Department and other federal agencies to reduce pollution and bring large farms into compliance.

Agricultural runoff is the single largest source of water pollution in the nation's rivers and streams, according to the E.P.A. An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from waterborne parasites, viruses or bacteria, including those stemming from human and animal waste, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.

The problem is not limited to Wisconsin. In California, up to 15 percent of wells in agricultural areas exceed a federal contaminant threshold, according to studies. Major waterways like the Chesapeake Bay have been seriously damaged by agricultural pollution, according to government reports.

In Arkansas and Maryland, residents have accused chicken farm owners of polluting drinking water. In 2005, Oklahoma's attorney general sued 13 poultry companies, claiming they had damaged one of the state's most important watersheds.

It is often difficult to definitively link a specific instance of disease to one particular cause, like water pollution. Even when tests show that drinking water is polluted, it can be hard to pinpoint the source of the contamination.

Despite such caveats, regulators in Brown County say they believe that manure has contaminated tap water, making residents ill.

"One cow produces as much waste as 18 people," said Bill Hafs, a county official who has lobbied the state Legislature for stricter waste rules.

"There just isn't enough land to absorb that much manure, but we don't have laws to force people to stop," he added.

In Brown County, part of one of the nation's largest milk-producing regions, agriculture brings in $3 billion a year. But the dairies collectively also create as much as a million gallons of waste each day. Many cows are fed a high-protein diet, which creates a more liquid manure that is easier to spray on fields.

In 2006, an unusually early thaw in Brown County melted frozen fields, including some that were covered in manure. Within days, according to a county study, more than 100 wells were contaminated with coliform bacteria, E. coli, or nitrates — byproducts of manure or other fertilizers.

"Land application requirements in place at that time were not sufficiently designed or monitored to prevent the pollution of wells," one official wrote.

Some residents did not realize that their water was contaminated until their neighbors fell ill, which prompted them to test their own water.

"We were terrified," said Aleisha Petri, whose water was polluted for months, until her husband dumped enough bleach in the well to kill the contaminants. Neighbors spent thousands of dollars digging new wells.

At a town hall meeting, angry homeowners yelled at dairy owners, some of whom are perceived as among the most wealthy and powerful people in town.

One resident said that he had seen cow organs dumped on a neighboring field, and his dog had dug up animal carcasses and bones.

"More than 30 percent of the wells in one town alone violated basic health standards," said Mr. Hafs, the Brown County regulator responsible for land and water conservation, in an interview. "It's obvious we've got a problem."

But dairy owners said it was unfair to blame them for the county's water problems. They noted that state regulators, in their reports, were unable to definitively establish the source of the 2006 contamination.

One of those farmers, Dan Natzke, owns Wayside Dairy, one of the largest farms around here. Just a few decades ago, it had just 60 cows. Today, its 1,400 animals live in enormous barns and are milked by suction pumps.

In June, Mr. Natzke explained to visiting kindergarteners that his cows produced 1.5 million gallons of manure a month. The dairy owns 1,000 acres and rents another 1,800 acres to dispose of that waste and grow crops to feed the cows.

"Where does the poop go?" one boy asked. "And what happens to the cow when it gets old?"

"The waste helps grow food," Mr. Natzke replied. "And that's what the cow becomes, too."

His farm abides by dozens of state laws, Mr. Natzke said.

"All of our waste management is reviewed by our agronomist and by the state's regulators," he added. "We follow all the rules."

But records show that his farm was fined $56,000 last October for spreading excessive waste. Mr. Natzke declined to comment.

Many environmental advocates argue that agricultural pollution will be reduced only through stronger federal laws. Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, has recently ordered an increase in enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, has said that clean water is a priority, and President Obama promised in campaign speeches to regulate water pollution from livestock.

But Congress has not created many new rules on the topic and, as a result, officials say their powers remain limited.

Part of the problem, according to data collected from the E.P.A. and every state, is that environmental agencies are already overtaxed. And it is unclear how to design effective laws, say regulators, including Ms. Jackson, who was confirmed to head the E.P.A. in January.

To fix the problem of agricultural runoff, "I don't think there's a solution in my head yet that I could say, right now, write this piece of legislation, this will get it done," Ms. Jackson said in an interview.

She added that "the challenge now is for E.P.A. and Congress to develop solutions that represent the next step in protecting our nation's waters and people's health."

A potential solution, regulators say, is to find new uses for manure. In Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle has financed projects to use farm waste to generate electricity.

But environmentalists and some lawmakers say real change will occur only when Congress passes laws giving the E.P.A. broad powers to regulate farms. Tougher statutes should permit drastic steps — like shutting down farms or blocking expansion — when watersheds become threatened, they argue.

However, a powerful farm lobby has blocked previous environmental efforts on Capital Hill. Even when state legislatures have acted, they have often encountered unexpected difficulties.

After Brown County's wells became polluted, for instance, Wisconsin created new rules prohibiting farmers in many areas from spraying manure during winter, and creating additional requirements for large dairies.

But agriculture is among the state's most powerful industries. After intense lobbying, the farmers' association won a provision requiring the state often to finance up to 70 percent of the cost of following the new regulations. Unless regulators pay, some farmers do not have to comply.

In a statement, Adam Collins, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said farmers can only apply waste to fields "according to a nutrient management plan, which, among other things, requires that manure runoff be minimized."

When there is evidence that a farm has "contaminated a water source, we can and do take enforcement action," he wrote.

"Wisconsin has a long history of continuously working to improve water quality and a strong reputation nationally for our clean water efforts," he added. "Approximately 800,000 private drinking water wells serve rural Wisconsin residents. The vast majority of wells provide safe drinking water."

But anger in some towns remains. At the elementary school a few miles from Mr. Natzke's dairy, there are signs above drinking fountains warning that the water may be dangerous for infants.

"I go to church with the Natzkes," said Joel Reetz, who spent $16,000 digging a deeper well after he learned his water was polluted. "Our kid goes to school with their kids. It puts us in a terrible position, because everyone knows each other.

"But what's happening to this town isn't right," he said.

Green newsclips for 17 September 2009: EU moving to "Gross National Happiness", companies see sustainability as central, and banks are getting smarter. Too bad about all that melting ice, and those pesky tsunamis and quakes

2009-09-17T22:41:00.001-04:00

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MzU2MDE

EU to introduce new indicator to complement GDP

Reuters, 8 September 2009 - The European Union will introduce an index in 2010 to track life qualities such as a clean environment, social cohesion and wellbeing to complement the gross domestic product (GDP) indicator in shaping policy.

The environmental index will chart progress in areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, water use and waste generation to better reflect economic and social progress, European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said on Tuesday.

Dimas said a broader index was needed to enable policymakers to meet new challenges and steer policies towards green growth, low carbon emissions and resource efficiency.

He said GDP, which measures the final market value of all goods and services produced within a country during a given period, was no more than an indicator of economic activity and not intended to measure wellbeing.

"It becomes a problem when GDP is understood to be the unique yardstick for progress," Dimas told a news conference in Brussels.

"It does not pick out issues that are vitally important to the quality of life, such as green environment, social cohesion or even how happy people are," Dimas said.

Brussels has been working on plans to develop indicators that look beyond GDP and other data as a measure of economic and social progress.

But Tony Long, director of the World Wildlife Fund's European policy office, said the organisation was disappointed at what he saw as the EU's lack of urgency in developing alternative indicators, 15 years since initial talks took place.

"We are no closer to implementing measures for environmental sustainability, societal progress and well-being," Long said in a statement.

"The ongoing economic crisis is a perfect example of a failure to look beyond GDP -- as a result new indicator measurements must not only record statistics but be also able to sound the alarm when we are close to limits," Long added. (Reporting by Bate Felix; Editing by Victoria Main)

http://planetark.org/wen/54718

Arctic Ice Melts To Third-Smallest Area
Date: 18-Sep-09
Country: US
Author: Steve Gorman

The island of Big Diomede sits in the morning mist on the Russian side of the Bering Strait as seen from the Russian research vessel Professor Khromov August 28, 2009.
Photo: Jeffrey Jones

LOS ANGELES - The Arctic ice pack melted this summer to its third-smallest size on record, up slightly from the low points of the past two years but continuing an overall shrinking trend symptomatic of climate change, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.
Northern sea ice retreated to its minimum extent for 2009 on September 12, when it covered 1.97 million square miles (5.1 million square km), and now appears to be growing again as the Arctic starts its annual cool-down, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported.
That level falls 20 percent below the 30-year average minimum sea ice cover for the Arctic summer since satellites began measuring it in 1979, and 24 percent less than the 1979-2000 average, the Colorado-based government agency said.
The lowest point on record was reached in September 2007, and the 2009 minimum ranks as the third smallest behind last year's level. But scientists said they do not consider the slight upward fluctuation again this summer to be a recovery.
The difference was attributed to relatively cooler temperatures this summer compared with the two previous years, with Chukchi and Beaufort seas especially chilly by comparison with 2007. Winds also tended to disperse the ice pack over a larger region, scientists said.
"The long-term decline in summer extent is expected to continue in future years," the report said.
The U.S. government findings were in line with measurements reported separately by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway, which reported this summer's minimum ice extent at just under 5 million square kilometers (1.93 million square miles).
Many scientists regard shrinking Arctic ice as among the most obvious signs of global warming. World leaders will meet at the United Nations in New York on September 22 to discuss a U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed in December.
MARITIME IMPLICATIONS
The shrinking polar cap poses a loss of crucial habitat for polar bears and has implications for maritime shipping, opening up new routes to navigation.
Once again this year, the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic Ocean along the coast of Siberia opened, enabling two German ships to navigate the passage with Russian icebreaker escorts.
Russian vessels have traversed the passage many times over the years, but the maritime fleets of other nations are showing more interest in the route as the summer thaw expands.
This year the Amundsen's Channel through the Northwest Passage also opened briefly, as it did in 2008, but the deeper Parry's Channel did not. Both opened in 2007.
Scientists have voiced concern for years about the alarming decline in the size of the Arctic ice cap, which functions as a giant air conditioner for the planet's climate system as it reflects sunlight back into space.
As a greater portion of the ice melts, larger expanses of darker sea water are exposed, absorbing more sunlight and adding to the global warming effect attributed to rising levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by human activity.
Scientists also have measured a thinning of the Arctic ice cover, as older, thicker ice more resilient to warming temperatures gives way to a younger, thinner layer that melts more easily in summer.

http://planetark.org/wen/54708

Global Warming May Bring Tsunami And Quakes: Scientists
Date: 17-Sep-09
Country: UK
Author: Richard Meares
LONDON - Quakes, volcanic eruptions, giant landslides and tsunamis may become more frequent as global warming changes the earth's crust, scientists said on Wednesday.
Climate-linked geological changes may also trigger "methane burps," the release of a potent greenhouse gas, currently stored in solid form under melting permafrost and the seabed, in quantities greater than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) in our air today.
"Climate change doesn't just affect the atmosphere and the oceans but the earth's crust as well. The whole earth is an interactive system," Professor Bill McGuire of University College London told Reuters, at the first major conference of scientists researching the changing climate's effects on geological hazards.
"In the political community people are almost completely unaware of any geological aspects to climate change."
The vulcanologists, seismologists, glaciologists, climatologists and landslide experts at the meeting have looked to the past to try to predict future changes, particularly to climate upheaval at the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago.
"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis," said McGuire, who organized the three-day conference.
David Pyle of Oxford University said small changes in the mass of the earth's surface seems to affect volcanic activity in general, not just in places where ice receded after a cold spell. Weather patterns also seem to affect volcanic activity - not just the other way round, he told the conference.
LONDON'S ASIAN SUNSET
Behind him was a slide of a dazzlingly bright orange painting, "London sunset after Krakatau, 1883" - referring to a huge Asian volcanic eruption whose effects were seen and felt around the world.
Volcanoes can spew vast amounts of ash, sulphur, carbon dioxide and water into the upper atmosphere, reflecting sunlight and sometimes cooling the earth for a couple of years. But too many eruptions, too close together, may have the opposite effect and quicken global warming, said U.S. vulcanologist Peter Ward.
"Prior to man, the most abrupt climate change was initiated by volcanoes, but now man has taken over. Understanding why and how volcanoes did it will help man figure out what to do," he said.
Speakers were careful to point out that many findings still amounted only to hypotheses, but said evidence appeared to be mounting that the world could be in for shocks on a vast scale.
Tony Song of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California warned of the vast power of recently discovered "glacial earthquakes" -- in which glacial ice mass crashes downwards like an enormous landslide.
In the West Antarctic, ice piled more than one mile above sea level is being undermined in places by water seeping in underneath.
"Our experiments show that glacial earthquakes can generate far more powerful tsunamis than undersea earthquakes with similar magnitude," said Song.
"Several high-latitude regions, such as Chile, New Zealand and Canadian Newfoundland are particularly at risk."
He said ice sheets appeared to be disintegrating much more rapidly than thought and said glacial earthquake tsunamis were "low-probability but high-risk."
McGuire said the possible geological hazards were alarming enough, but just one small part of a scary picture if man-made CO2 emissions were not stabilized within around the next five years.
"Added to all the rest of the mayhem and chaos, these things would just be the icing on the cake," he said. "Things would be so bad that the odd tsunami or eruption won't make much difference."
(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/17/30-of-firms-see-sustainability-green-products-as-central-part-of-operations/

30% of Firms See Sustainability, Green Products as Central Part of Operations
Twice as many companies see sustainability as centrally oriented to their business operations, including the sale of "green" products or services, as compared to 2006, when just 15 percent indicated so. Now, 30 percent of firms indicate so.

In the update to a similar 2006 survey, McGraw-Hill Construction and Siemens Building Technologies found that 75 percent of firms view sustainability as consistent with their profit missions, according to the 2009 Greening of Corporate America Report.

Survey respondents said they expect that green practices tied to core business strategies will reduce energy costs (75 percent), retain and attract customers (70 percent), and provide market differentiation by contributing to the firm's financial performance (61 percent).

Following are some tables and figures from the survey, which was conducted among 203 firms earlier this year.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/17/moving-from-standards-to-sustainability/

Moving From Standards to Sustainability
Thatcher Young
Sustainability Director
ignition Inc.
In many industries, the lack of standards has gotten us into trouble. For years, the financial services sector went unregulated, resulting in a financial meltdown. The impact of this meltdown is still being felt across our economy.
Similarly, years of loosely enforced environmental regulations led to the precarious state we're now in with our planet. But, we are beginning to see businesses across a variety of industries showing great desire to change — both internally and externally with their customers and spheres of influence. They want to take real, measurable steps to better the environment, and are looking beyond regulations towards sustainability standards to get them where they want to go.
Organic foods, green buildings, travel and tourism, and my industry (experiential marketing) are all stepping up to the plate.
The problem is that while standards are a necessary and logical next step, there's still a major gap in understanding between the benchmarks businesses should aim for, and the actions they need to take to meet these benchmarks. For businesses to achieve standards compliance, they need a clear picture of how sustainability standards can be translated into action-a road map.
For a number of years, I worked with Georgia Department of Natural Resources as a member of the "Partnership for a Sustainable Georgia" team, helping companies throughout the state develop their own road maps. I was inspired to see just how motivated businesses became once a sustainability plan was understood and a simple, measurable action plan was in place. Now, for the experiential marketing industry, we're working with the BS 8901 standard for sustainable events to create a roadmap that demonstrates how to integrate this standard into our client campaigns. .
Along the way, we've learned some lessons that might be transferrable to other companies looking to create their own roadmaps to compliance with sustainability standards. Regardless of whether or not a standard within your industry exists, sustainability management can be broken down into more easily digestible pieces by looking at what you can and cannot control as a company.
1. Direct control
There are countless items that you can control internally. Among them are your energy and water usage, the products you choose to buy, whether or not you recycle, and whether you host teleconferences rather than travel for meetings. The list goes on.
2. Influence
There is also a wide array of items that your business can influence, even without having direct control. These include things like how your employees get to work, whether your property manager installs energy efficient light bulbs in the building, and how your suppliers transport your purchases.
3. Example
Even if you have no direct control or influence, you can still play a critical leadership role by the very actions that you are taking. These actions set an example, and demonstrate that sustainability is an achievable and worthwhile goal.
Most companies start the journey towards sustainability by doing an internal evaluation of what their business has direct control over. This evaluation will vary based upon the type of services or products you provide, but some common areas to consider include purchasing habits, material and product use, energy and water use.
An internal assessment can look daunting, so by strategically identifying the areas you consider most important, you can break down your own organizational sustainability goals into a more manageable system. Most importantly, choose an area of impact and take action. Once you see real results you will be motivated to dig deeper.
Focusing on the things over which your businesses has direct control is a great way to get started, but where most businesses have the ultimate potential to create a paradigm shift is within the "influence" and "example" spheres. There are immeasurable ways that you can educate others and ultimately influence the behaviors of your employees, suppliers and partners, and customers.
For example, retailers have been talking about adding labels to their products, similar to nutrition labels on food, to inform consumers of the product's environmental footprint. This type of action is an "influence" action, since it's up to the suppliers to add the label to their products, and to consumers to use the label as a basis for selecting products. It's still a step in the direction of where we need to be.
Another recent success is Wal-Mart's new sustainability index, which will influence other competitors and companies throughout the supply chain to make a change. We're hoping that our sustainable experiential marketing guidelines will have a halo effect on our clients, suppliers, vendors, and partners – and lead to long-term, positive changes in our industry.
And, since experiential marketing is a consumer-facing business by its very nature, we'll continue to bring sustainable campaigns to life in the streets, every day – increasing our sphere of influence even further.
There's no real end to the journey towards sustainability – it's a continuous process of setting and reaching for new goals. But, by creating and following a roadmap, and finding ways to expand your channels of influence, businesses can dramatically enhance their sustainability efforts, and guide others towards embracing a more sustainable future.
Thatcher Young is the Sustainability Director at ignition Inc., an experiential marketing agency behind Coca-Cola's Olympic Torch Relays and the Live Earth concert. He previously served as Sustainability Advisor and Sustainability Outreach Manager to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

http://3blmedia.com/blog/John-Howell/"Smart"-Banks

"Smart" Banks?

Submitted by John Howell on September 16th 2009

"Bank" used to be one of those oh-so-solid words that made you feel grounded. As in "bank on it" or "you can take it to the bank." You could count on it.

But since the fall of 2008, the start of the Economic Collapse of the New Millennium, "bank" has taken on new, negative meanings.

"Bank" now stands for loan shark lending, IBG deals ("I'll Be Gone" after the commission is booked), overleveraged assets, consumer gouging, and Just Plain Stupid business practices.

The wonderful term "zombie banks" has entered the language, describing institutions that are open for business—they look "alive"— but are paralyzed by their failed financial policies.

SustainLink is trying to change our view of all banks as working for the Dark Side by introducing a new phrase: "eco-intelligent banks." By "eco-intelligent," SustainLink means those select financial institutions with a commitment to sustainable practices.

A research and score-carding firm, SustainLInk has launched a profiling service that reports on banks and credit unions that are doing good business in a good way. SustainLink reviews banks to evaluate them for their triple bottom line strategies. Only those that qualify as "eco-intelligent" are profiled on SustainLinks' site.

The first group of these "smart banks" has been chosen. You can see the proud winners at www.sustainlink.net.

And since we're talking about money, here's where some financial advantage comes in. SustainLink also connects sustainable improvement to incentives for borrowers, including a lower cost of capital. That means business borrowers may qualify for lower interest rates if they improve in certain areas. Anyone up for some sustainable cheap money?

Estimates are that deposits into "eco-intelligent" banks will increase by 38% during the next year. It makes sense that the smart money will go into smart banks, such as those identified by SustainLink. You can count on it.

Carbon Newsclips for 19 September 2009: Big polluters & big spenders

2009-09-17T22:41:00.000-04:00

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World's big polluters kick off climate talks in Washington

AFP, 17 September 2009 - Representatives of the world's 17 biggest carbon polluters were due Thursday to kick off a week of high-level and high-stakes talks on climate change at a meeting in Washington.

The aim of the talks, which will be held for two days at the State Department before moving to New York next week and then to Pittsburgh, is to try to patch up differences and generate momentum for a much heralded meeting in Copenhagen in December, where a UN conference hopes to produce an ambitious new pact rolling back global warming.

The meetings come as Washington tries to resume a leadership role on climate change, and follow a warning from UN chief Ban Ki-moon that world leaders need to "get moving" on climate change.

"It is absolutely and crucially important for the leaders to demonstrate their political will, leadership, and to give clear political guidelines to the negotiators," Ban told British newspaper The Guardian Wednesday, adding that he was "deeply concerned" that talks on global warming are not making much headway.

The Guardian also reported that Europe has clashed with the US administration over how to cut emissions and tackle global warming -- reports which, if true, suggest talks will be tense over the next week.

The European Union, France, Italy, Germany and Britain will be among participants at the talks at the State Department, along with Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and host, the United States.

Participants at the talks are part of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, an initiative launched in March by US President Barack Obama, who has made a U-turn from the stance on climate change held by his predecessor George W. Bush.

Bush famously rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the previous UN framework on climate change.

In July, Michael Zammit Cutajar, who chairs the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) working group on long-term cooperative action, said the United States has undergone an important mood-shift and is on the path toward "strong climate action."

"The mood is completely different now... There's a sense that the country's on the move toward strong climate action," he said, weeks after the US House of Representatives approved a bill that sets long-term limits on greenhouse gas emissions, a prime contributing factor to global warming, and aims to shift the US economy to one that runs on cleaner energy.

But in spite of the mood shift, finding common ground with other nations has not been easy -- and that could mean difficult and even inconclusive talks in Washington, New York and Pittsburgh.

Last week, the US Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern -- who will represent the United States at the talks in Washington -- told the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming that persistent disagreement between developed and developing nations has kept an international solution on climate change at arm's length.

The main aim of the week of meetings in the United States is to chart a path towards success at a major UN climate change conference due to be held from December 7-18 in Copenhagen.

Nations at the Copenhagen conference are supposed to craft a pact for curbing global warming beyond 2012, when Kyoto Protocol obligations on cutting emissions expire.

Denmark, the host of the December meeting, will attend the talks at the State Department, as will the United Nations.

Failure to tackle climate change at a key UN conference in Copenhagen could be "catastrophic" for health, the heads of 18 doctors' associations also warned.

In an exceptional joint appeal published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and The Lancet, they called on governments to act decisively to roll back the threat from global warming.

Scientists have repeatedly warned climate change could affect health in many ways, ranging from malnutrition caused by drought to the risk of cholera from flooding and the spread of mosquito-borne disease to temperate zones.

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Global investors call for binding climate policy

Reuters, 16 September 2009 - Banks, pension funds and other investment groups representing more than $13 trillion in assets called for a strong global agreement on climate policy on Wednesday, saying it would lead to a flood of investment into the low-carbon economy.

"Without the policies to encourage clean energy, investors are stuck at the starting gates," Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors and environmentalists, and the director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk.

More than 180 investor groups called for a global target of emissions reductions of 50 to 85 percent by 2050, including higher cuts by wealthy countries, and plans in developing countries to make measurable emissions reductions.

Many investors have complained that until climate policies are agreed upon it will be hard to finance and invest in billion dollar projects such as nuclear or natural gas-fired power plants.

The investors also called for revisions to the United Nation's Clean Development Mechanism, a Kyoto protocol program, that allows polluters in rich countries to claim emission cuts by investing in clean projects such as small hydropower and alternative energy in developing countries.

The call for action came ahead of a climate conference at the United Nations next week in which global leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and China's President Hu Jintao, are slated to talk about tackling climate change. The meeting is seen as a chance for leaders to break a deadlock between rich and poor countries on how to share the burden of cutting emissions blamed for global warming.

The gathering will come ahead of a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in December where 190 countries aim to hammer out a new agreement to the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.

In addition, the U.S. Senate hopes to pass its version of the climate bill that the House narrowly approved in June. The future of the bill is uncertain however.

Deep divisions between rich countries and rapidly developing ones such as China and India could keep a deal at Copenhagen at an arm's length.

Lubber said investors will keep up the pressure should the U.S. climate bill and global agreement fail this year.

"The plan is to stay the course and try harder next year, should there be no deal," she said.

Nicholas Stern, a former British Treasury official and World Bank chief economist, said the fact that the leaders of the top two greenhouse polluters, China and the United States, were coming to next week's U.N. meeting was a sign of progress. He said the Copenhagen meeting could at least end with a basic framework of where to go in the future, if no deal is struck.

Several European banks were among the investor groups calling for climate action, but there were fewer U.S. banks. Lubber said the U.S. banks were not as far along as European banks in recognizing climate change risks but were beginning to catch up, because they recognize opportunities in investing in alternative energy and efficiency.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/040577c6-a317-11de-ba74-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Finance groups demand tough climate targets
By Fiona Harvey in London
Published: September 17 2009 03:17 | Last updated: September 17 2009 03:17

Some of the biggest names in finance called on governments on Wednesday to strike a tough deal on emissions reductions in Copenhagen this December, in an effort to boost investment into climate change.
The investors, with a combined $13,000bn in assets under management, demanded higher commitments on emissions reductions than nations are likely to agree. Signatories include investors such as HSBC, Hermes, ING Group, Société Général, Swiss Re, Allianz Global Investors and numerous US and European public sector pension funds.

They called on rich countries to agree to cut their emissions by between 25 per cent and 40 per cent by 2020, compared with 1990 levels – a cut much deeper than the US has said it would sign up to but in line with what scientists have estimated will be necessary to avoid dangerous consequences from climate change.
Investors and companies should see climate change as a threat to the global economy and a business opportunity, Lord Stern, author of the influential review of the economics of climate change, said at a conference on Wednesday to launch the investment groups' call.
"Building a low carbon economy creates opportunities for investment in new technologies that promise to transform our society in the same way as the introduction of electricity or railways did in the past," he said.
The signatories also want developed nations to cut their emissions by between 80 per cent and 95 per cent by 2050, and called on the developing world to participate in a plan for global emissions to be slashed by 50 per cent to 85 per cent by the same date.
Big developing countries such as China and India have opposed such a global target, fearing it would be used as a weapon to try to force upon them more stringent emissions curbs than they are prepared to undertake.
A system of carbon trading would also be needed, the group said, and the current system under the United Nations – called the clean development mechanism – should be reformed.
The companies were brought together by several groups, including the Investor Network on Climate Risk in the US and the European Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change.
Their call reflects a growing belief among many businesses that a worldwide agreement on climate change and greenhouse gases is essential to create a level playing field among companies and to give them greater certainty and clarity in making investments, such as in building programmes.

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Wal-Mart – Thinking outside the big box

Ethical Corporation, 7 September 2009 - Wal-Mart has plans to give each of its retail products a sustainability rating in the next five years. The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, with $401bn in sales last year, has pledged to create a global, industry-wide sustainable product index.

The ambitious plan, unveiled by chief executive Mike Duke to 1,500 suppliers in July, aims to establish a sustainability rating system for each item on Wal-Mart's shelves. This will help shoppers understand the social and environmental impact of products. It should also drive innovation among suppliers.

Duke says Wal-Mart will achieve its goal in three steps. First, it will ask all of its global suppliers – more than 100,000 companies – to answer a set of 15 questions to see what sustainability policies, procedures and targets they have in place.

US-based top-tier suppliers, such as consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, have been asked to return the evaluation results by October 1. Timelines for suppliers in other countries are being worked out

Second, Wal-Mart will provide an undisclosed amount of start-up funding to a consortium of universities to create a sustainability index. The consortium will work with suppliers, retailers, NGOs and government to develop a global database of information on the lifecycle of products – from raw materials to disposal. This database will be used to create the index.

Wal-Mart has already signed up Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas to jointly administer the consortium. The company is looking to partner with leading technology firms to create a platform to power the index.

The final step is to use the information from the index to develop a "simple, convenient, easy to understand" sustainability rating for each product that consumers can use to inform buying decisions. The company expects to reach this stage in five years.

Wal-Mart says it does not intend to create or own the index. Rather, it has invited other retailers and large suppliers to join the initiative and make it an industry-wide index.

A major chunk of the information for the index needs to come from manufacturers that may be wary of disclosing too much of their production processes. To overcome this resistance, Wal-Mart has said the consortium will not ask for proprietary information on manufacturing processes or procedures.

Still, gathering credible and verifiable data will be a challenge given the complexities and several layers of global supply chains, says Sean Ansett, managing partner at responsibility consulting firm At Stake Advisors.

Wal-Mart believes the plan makes business sense. "This initiative can lower costs, raise quality and bring customers the products they need to save money and live better in the 21st century, and, in the process, make us a better business," said Duke at the high-profile launch.

It is too early to say whether other large retailers, some of which pride themselves as corporate responsibility leaders, will be willing to join a Wal-Mart-initiated project. But large suppliers such as Unilever, Procter & Gamble, General Mills and Tyson would seem to have little option but to answer Wal-Mart's questions and provide data to the consortium.

Wal-Mart's commitment to sustainable products is raising the bar for sustainability standards in retail, which rival stores will have to match or exceed to stay competitive