eCarbon News

November 2009

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This issue:

• Australian news
• World news
  • Emissions, Kyoto and policy
    • The path to Copenhagen
    • Financial support for developing countries
    • Emissions and policy
  • Economics and business
  • Agriculture and Natural Resource Management
  • Energy
  • Sequestration
  • Climate and climate change
  • Trading and tax
  • Conferences

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Australian news

Australian policy awaits Liberal leadership battle

The Liberal party is in turmoil over climate change and leadership. The Senate has delayed a final vote on the Government's Carbon Pollution Carbon Reduction scheme while those Liberals supporting the party's current policy to to vote in favour of the scheme seem to becoming increasingly outnumbers by those attempting to change the policy and the leader. A leadership vote is expected on 1 December.
30 NOvember News article
30 November The Age article
30 November Sydney Morning Herald article
27 November Reuters article

I have been waiting for this civil war since August 12, the night I went to dinner at the Cape Cod restaurant in Canberra. It's an excellent little seafood restaurant tucked into the Deakin shopping centre not far from Parliament House. It is also a haunt of Senator Nick Minchin. We dined together that night.
30 November Sydney Morning Herald commentary by Paul Sheehan

Four Corners exposes Liberal divisions

ABC TV Four Corners program broadcast on 9 November highlighted divisions within the Liberal Party on climate change. Four Corners has also commissioned a report on community attitudes to climate change, and on its website offers provides extended interviews with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Shadow Minister for Resources Ian Macfarlane.
Link to Four Corners broadcast, extended interviews and other climate-change resources

The Opposition spokesman on emissions trading, Ian Macfarlane, has attacked the National Party's attitude towards rural Australia as he jettisoned any hope of the junior Coalition partner playing any constructive role in emissions trading scheme negotiations.
10 November Sydney Morning Herald article

Macfarlane goes cold on clean coal

The Opposition's emissions trading spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, says clean coal technology (carbon dioxide capture and geological sequestration) has passed Australia by and will probably never work. "The clean coal option has passed us by. Twenty years to wait before the technology is available. Thirty years before it is commercial. We will need to move on to other options by then," he said.
10 November ABC article

Too little action, too much compensation for polluters

The Government appears unwilling or unable to accept that an urgent whole-of-government approach is needed, with limits on population growth, a strategy to phase out brown coal power stations, huge investment in low-carbon energy sources and public transport, and regulations requiring dramatic improvement in energy efficiency.
27 November The Age commentary by David Karoly, who is a professor in the school of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne and played a key role in a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Sceptic says we'll be laughing stock

Australia will go broke and become the laughing stock of the world if politicians ignore basic science on climate change, global warming sceptic Adelaide University professor of mining geology, Ian Plimer, said.
19 November AAP article through News

Australia stuck while the world has moved on

Britain's new High Commissioner, Baroness Valerie Amos, has expressed surprise that Australians are still debating whether humans cause climate change and says other nations have long since ''moved on''. ''I have been surprised that the science itself is being questioned,'' she said. ''These are things where there have been debates over a long period of time in other countries and where we have reached conclusions and moved on."
13 November Sydney Morning Herald article

The Federal Government has awarded $66.46 million in funding to Ocean Power Technology and Leighton Contractors toward the cost of building a 19 megawatt wave-power project off the coast of Victoria.
6 November The Age article

Sea levels threat

Nearly a quarter of a million homes along Australia's coastline could be submerged by 2100 unless action is taken to stop sea levels rising, a government report said.
19 November Reuters article

Cut quickly and deep or farewell the reef

Australia's Great Barrier Reef has only a 50 per cent chance of survival if global carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced at least 25 per  cent by 2020 and 90 per cent by 2050, according to the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
17 November Australian articleFunding for wave-power project

Australia listed in  'worst policy scorecards'

A new international study of policies for improving energy use has highlighted Australia in its "worst policy scorecards" section for subsidising coal power and the aluminium smelting industry. Australia is listed also in the "smart policy" section for its Energy Efficient Homes Package. The study was commissioned by WWF International and E3G.
WWF statement
Briefing note
Scorecard

Sea-level policy criticised

Property groups have criticised a planning policy aimed at limiting development in coastal regions, raising fears it has the potential to prevent construction in huge areas.
6 November Sydney Morning Herald article

Lord mayors agree to cut emissions

Office workers will be packed tighter into workplaces, old buildings will be fitted with environmentally friendly lighting, and city streets will be lit up at night with efficient bulbs under an agreement between the lord mayors of every Australian capital city to reduce carbon emissions.
6 November Sydney Morning Herald article

Victoria puts its faith in 'clean coal'

Victoria will rely on fossil fuel for energy for decades, with leaked documents revealing the Brumby Government is set to take a multibillion-dollar gamble on "clean coal"'.
4 November The Age article

World news

Emissions, Kyoto and policy

The path to Copenhagen

China promises to cut carbon intensity

China has pledged that by 2020 it would cut its carbon intensity, the measure of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP, by 40 per cent to 45 per cent compared to 2005 levels. Officials announced Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, would personally take the offer to the summit in Copenhagen.
27 November Independent article
26 November Telegraph article
27 November China Daily article
26 November New York Times article (free registration required)
26 November Guardian article

China's pledge on greenhouse gases means it would shoulder more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide emissions cuts needed to avoid dangerous global warming, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency.
27 November AFP article

China's top climate envoy said emissions absorbed by carbon "sinks" will not be covered by the country's carbon intensity target, which will be calculated using energy consumption and "production processes."
27 November Reuters article through Planet Ark

Obama to Copenhagen with US commitment for cuts

United States President Obama will travel to Copenhagen next month to attend the climate change conference, ending weeks of uncertainty over whether he would go and after intense pressure from Europe for his presence. Mr Obama will also take to the summit a US commitment to make substantial cuts in greenhouse gas pollution over the next two decades, removing one of the greatest obstacles to a deal in Copenhagen.
Mr Obama will offer to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020, a 30 per cent reduction by 2025 and a 42 per cent drop by 2030. The White House said the targets represented a "pathway" to Mr Obama's goal of cutting American emissions 83 per cent by 2050.
25 November Times article
25 November Telegraph article
25 November New York Times article

For all President Obama’s aspirations to global leadership on climate change there remains a gulf between what the world expects and what he can deliver. That gulf has been exposed by starkly contrasting reactions at home and abroad to his pledge to cut US carbon emissions. He has a mountain to climb to sell his new climate change commitments to a sceptical American public.
27 November Times article

Papua New Guinea has criticised the United States's "irresponsible" and "unacceptable" climate change policy at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. PNG PM Michael Somare said, "The targets proposed by the United States of only three per cent below 1990, by 2020 is not only irresponsibly low; it is also quite unacceptable." The "stakes are too high", he said.
29 November The Age article

President Obama will stop off in Copenhagen on December 9 on his way to Oslo to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize. He will not, his officials say, be returning to join 65 other heads of state for the crucial last three days of the conference from December 16-18. He is simply heading to Copenhagen for a photo opportunity. He is playing politics with the most important climate change negotiations for more than a decade in order to try to avoid embarrassing headlines.
25 November Times commentary by Environment Editor Ben Webster

United States of America President Barack Obama is considering setting a provisional target for cutting America's huge greenhouse gas emissions, removing the greatest single obstacle to a landmark global agreement to fight climate change. Todd Stern, the state department climate change envoy, said the administration recognised that America had to come forward with a target for cutting its emissions. "What we are looking at is to see whether we could put down essentially a provisional number that would be contingent on our legislation," Stern said from Copenhagen, where he was meeting Danish officials.
22 November The Observer article

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretasry Yvo de Boer is pressuring the United States of America for “a numerical midterm target (for emissions reduction) and commitment to financial support”. “We now have offers of targets from all industrialised countries except the United States,” Mr. de Boer said.
19 November New York Times article (free registration required)

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretasry Yvo de Boer has urged US President Obama to attend the Copenhagen conference. "Obama's presence would make a huge difference," he said.
19 November ENS article

US, China and India commit to action

Three of the world's top emitters, China, America and India are now committed to action on emissions at Copenhagen, though they have yet to reveal the actual targets. But it does significantly boost the prospect that world leaders could commit to strong action at the UN summit, despite the rancourous atmosphere among their official negotiating teams at the last set of meetings in Barcelona this month.
24 November Guardian article

Countries must "reach a strong operational agreement that will confront the threat of climate change while serving as a stepping-stone to a legally binding treaty," United States President Obama said at a press conference he hosted jointly with Indiaqn Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a joint statement, Singh and Obama spoke of their hopes for a "comprehensive" deal at the December 7-18 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen. "It should reflect emission reduction targets of developed countries and nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries," they said.
25 November Sydney Morning Herald article

Over the past fortnight, three big countries have made major new pledges to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide from industry, transport and deforestation which is causing climate change, leading to a significant improvement in hopes for the outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit.
23 November

Independent article

India promises to be no worse than the west, per capita

While acknowledging that India could be a big polluter considering its large population and growing economy, New Delhi has said it would ensure that its per capita emissions never exceed that of developed countries. “India’s per capita emissions are now around 1.2 tonnes of CO2 equivalent and are expected to be around 2-2 .5 tonnes by 2020 and 3-3 .5 tonnes by 2030. The per capita limit is an onerous binding that India has imposed on itself,” said Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.
19 November Economic Times article

India's environment minister said the country may have to be more flexible over climate change talks after China unveiled its first firm targets to cut carbon emissions.
27 November Reuters article

South Korea announces emissions target

South Korea has announced its first greenhouse gas reduction target, pledging to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by to per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
16 November AP article

Russia tightens emissions target

Russia President Dmitry Medvedev said his country would try to reduce greenhouse emissions by 25 per cent, not by 15 per cent as was planned before.
18 November Itar-Tass article

Brazil to offfer 'voluntary reductions'

Brazil will take proposals for voluntary reductions of 38-42% by 2020 to the Copenhagen climate change conference next month, country's chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff said.
10 November Guardian article

Canada urged to cut deeply

Canada's parliament has carried a resolution urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority Tory government to adopt a deep carbon dioxide reduction target at upcoming international climate talks. The motion calling on the ruling Conservatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels was supported by all three of Canada's opposition parties, 137 votes to 124. It has no legal weight.
24 November AFP article

Quebec sets target

The Canadian province of Quebec said it aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, the same target as that set by the European Union.
24 November Reuters article

Merkel calls on all to fix binding targets

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for all countries to fix binding climate change targets next year at the latest, acknowledging that no such deal is likely at global talks in Copenhagen in December.
19 November AFP article

The coming charade

We are about to see an advanced case of ''agreementism'' between world leaders at the Copenhagen climate change meeting. It is a painful and embarrassing disorder with familiar results. Every case begins the same way. Leaders gather in summits. They confer. They reach earnest consensus that they need to solve a common problem. They commission studies and agree to meet again. Next time, they tell reporters, they will make real decisions.
24 November The Age commentary by Peter Hartcher

A small spark of new hope

The United States and China, the world's two biggest polluters, said they aimed to set targets for easing greenhouse gas emissions next month, potentially breathing new life into the flagging Copenhagen climate negotiations.
17 November Guardian article
17 November Telegraph article
17 November AFP article
18 November AP article

US Senate 'to act next year'

The US Senate will act in early 2010 on legislation to battle climate change, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, ending hopes of a breakthrough by next month's global talks.
17 November AFP article

de Boer vows Copenhagen will succeed

United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer has a message for naysayers about the Copenhagen climate conference next month: It will succeed. Yvo De Boer vowed Copenhagen "will be the turning point" when words turn to action globally to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions — and a fuller treaty can be worked out by six months after the meeting.
20 November AP article
20 November AFP article

Plea for leaders to head to Copenhagen

 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appeals to world leaders to come to Copenhagen and hammer out the foundation of what he hopes will eventually be an ambitious climate deal.
17 November Spiegel article

Failure 'will cause further rise in hunger'

The world cannot achieve food security without first tackling global warming, the United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon said, warning that failure at next month's international climate change negotiations would result in a further rise in hunger.
17 November Financial Times article

Russia warns of climate catastrophe

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that climate change posed a "catastrophic" threat, using some of the sharpest comments yet on a subject the Kremlin has often seemed reluctant to confront.
16 November Reuters article

World leaders give up and turn to Plan B

World leaders have agreed to a political compromise deal on climate change aimed at salvaging next month's international UN conference in Copenhagen, which scraps the 200-page draft agreement. The leaders have begun work, instead, on a plan B document of no more than 15 pages that would not be legally binding in which nations would agree to embrace emissions reductions conditional upon other nations adopting and meeting their own targets.
16 November Australian article
16 November Independent article
15 November Times article
16 November ABC AM transcript
15 November Telegraph article
15 November Guardian article
15 November New York Times article

The worst kept secret in the world is finally out – the climate change summit in Copenhagen is going to be little more than a photo opportunity for world leaders.
15 November Telegraph analysis by Environment Correspondent Louise Gray

Any kind of ambition, hopeless or otherwise, has been rare on the ground when it comes to global efforts to curb climate change. Obama has confirmed we can expect more of the same. Despite the rhetoric about Copenhagen being a moment in history, a crucial last chance to deliver, it will likely revert to type – talks about talks.
15 November Guardian analysis by Environment Correspondent David Adam

'Human cost' of delay

The likely delays in sealing a global deal to fight climate change would have a "human cost", and increase the risks of great harm to the planet and the economic costs of dealing with it, the head of the UN environment programme said.
16 November Guardian article

'We cannot afford another Kyoto'

We cannot afford another Kyoto conference where fine words are exchanged but behaviour continues as normal. At Copenhagen it is vital that leaders keep in mind a core set of minimum requirements that, if agreed to, would represent a political breakthrough and step-change in tackling climate change.
14 November Telegraph opinion by Lord Browne of Madingley, former BP Chief Executive, now managing director and managing partner (Europe) of Riverstone Holdings LLC and president of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Can we trust the accounts?

Measurement, reporting and auditing of nations' greenhouse gas emissions is a key focus of marathon UN climate talks. The problem is that it is not yet possible to independently monitor a country's greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels or deforestation. To a large extent, the world community must take nations' reports of their emissions on trust. Rich nations such as Australia and the United States have developed reliable reporting methods on energy use and fossil fuel emissions, said Pep Canadell of the Global Carbon Project. Accuracy for developing countries was often not as good.
10 November Reuters article

US will not bow to UN enforcement power

It has become clear that the Americans will not sign up to certain aspects of the Kyoto Protocol: Namely, the legal requirement for rich nations to sign up to a world target enforced by the UN. They want different countries to propose their own targets that are agreed by the rest of the world but enforced by domestic - not international - law in a system known as “pledge and review”.  From the American perspective, a new treaty must also include legally-binding targets for developing countries. Not necessarily on carbon cuts but “actions” such as introducing a certain amount of renewable energy or phasing out dirty coal.
9 November Telegraph article

Setting aside just enough national self-interest

Even if the imperative is clear and recognised by all, national self-interest guides a different response to it in different nations, and the great trick to pull off in the Danish capital will be for all countries to put aside just enough self-interest to agree.
9 November Independent article

Gorbachev calls for climate wall to be broken 

"The road to the end of the Cold War was certainly not easy, or universally welcomed at the time, but it is for just this reason that its lessons remain relevant. In the 1980s the world was at an historic crossroad. The arms race had created an explosive situation. Nuclear deterrents could have failed at any moment. We were heading for disaster, spending billions on an arms race, rather than investing in creativity and people. Today another planetary threat has emerged. The climate crisis is the new wall that divides us from our future, and today’s leaders are vastly underestimating the urgency, and potentially catastrophic scale, of the emergency."
9 November Times article in which former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev calls for action on climate

No advance in Barcelona

Talks in Barcelona on a new UN climate pact wrapped, leaving a roster of bitterly divisive issues to be hammered out at a showdown in Copenhagen next month. Senior officials meeting over five days made scant headway on the problems dogging a negotiation blueprint for the December 7-18 conference, and activists feared the much-trumpeted outcome would be a fudge. The Barcelona session "was a waste of time. Nothing was achieved whatsoever," Austrian Environment Minister Nikolaus Berlakovich said.
7 November AFP article through Brisbane Times

40 national leaders to attend

Forty heads of state or government have signalled they will attend the world climate talks in Copenhagen next month, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said.
7 November ABC article

United States President Barack Obama said he would travel to Copenhagen next month if a climate summit is on the verge of a framework deal and his presence there will make a difference in clinching it.
10 November Reuters article

Others wait on a stalled US

With United States legislation on reducing carbon emissions caught up in political wrangling and many other nations waiting to see what the US does before making their own firm commitments, prospects are fading that a legally binding new pact to limit climate change will be signed at Copenhagen in December.
7 November Reuters article

Negotiators work on scaled-back draft

Negotiators and diplomats are working on a scaled-back version of a global climate change treaty that could be agreed by next month's deadline, without firm United States commitments. The idea of forging a political agreement, instead of a legally binding treaty, was becoming a more accepted possibility as negotiators acknowledged some nations, including the United States, would not be ready in time for the December U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
6 September AP article

US draws line in sand

In the latest round of UN climate change talks in Barcelona, the United States of America said it was unfair to expect rich countries to cut emissions while developing nations like China and India continue to pollute.
6 November Telegraph article

Big polluters hiring thousands of lobbyists

Big greenhouse polluting companies around the world, employing thousands of lobbyists, are exerting heavy pressure on governments to weaken climate change laws at home and slow progress on an international climate agreement in Copenhagen, a global investigation reveals. In the US there are more than 2800 climate lobbyists, five for every member of Congress.
6 November Sydney Morning Herald article
More details from the Center for Public Integrity

Agreement 'at least a year away'

A global deal to stop catastrophic climate change won't be agreed for another year, officials have warned, as rich and poor nations wrangle over the sacrifices each will have to make.
5 November Telegraph article
5 November Guardian article

Financial support for developing countries

Commonwealth agrees aid deal

An emergency £13 billion deal to persuade poorer nations to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions immediately was backed by the British Commonwealth after being proposed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to kickstart the Copenhagen climate-change process.
28 November Times article
27 November Guardian article
29 November Sydney Morning Herald article

UN calls for $10 billion a year pledge

United Nations Climate chief Yvo de Boer urges the developed nations to pledge $10 billion a year for three years to help poor nations cope with climate change.
19 November Reuters article

Bangladesh seeks $10 billion

Bangladesh said it would need $10 billion from rich countries in the next four years to offset the effects of climate change - double its original estimate.
17 November AFP article

World faces huge funding shortfall

The world will face a finance shortfall of 32 billion euros ($47.99 billion) in 2020 to combat climate change, analysts at Societe Generale/orbeo said. The private sector will have to be mobilised to finance national measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions to bridge that gap, analysts said in a report.
12 November Reuters article

G20 deadlock

The rich nations went into the G20 meeting expecting the emerging powerhouses such as Brazil, India and China to agree to pay at least something towards these future costs (which include everything from investing in more efficient plants and power stations to creating carbon trading platforms to paying for research to find new green technologies). The emerging nations flatly refused. The days are ticking down to Copenhagen, and it looks increasingly like one of those occasions where politicians will have to use grand gestures and statements to mask the fact that in truth they can’t find any common ground at all.
8 November Telegraph commentary

Realignment of currencies causing havoc

The decision to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a series of interlocking international emissions trading schemes rather than carbon taxes is turning into a disaster because of currency realignments. The collapsing US dollar is playing havoc with ETS projections. Governments that had been hoping to make extra revenue by selling carbon permits will now lose money, which means less cash available for subsidies to the developing countries.
5 November Business Spectator article

Euope's proposed €50bn annually 'not enough'

The giant cash deal to save the planet – proposed by Europe for the forthcoming Copenhagen climate conference – will not be enough, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, said. The public-money fund of up to €50bn annually, which the European Union suggested would be adequate to help developing nations protect themselves from global warming, and cut back on their own carbon emissions, would need to be “scaled up”, Mr Ban said.
3 November Independent article

Emissions and policy

Sceptics claim evidence of scientists manipulating data

Climate change sceptics and deniers claim documents now publicly available on the web, alleged emails and documents hacked from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, are evidence of scientists manipulating data to make the case for climate change. The head of the Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones, has confirmed that the institution's database has been hacked but he cannot confirm which of the emails are authentic and which are fakes.
20 November Guardian article
24 November The Australian article
23 November The Age article
23 November Crikey article
21 November Christian Science Monitor article

It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.
25 November Guardian opinion by George Monbiot

Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data - dubbed Climategate - have agreed to publish their figures in full. In a statement reversing previous policy, the university said it would make all the data accessible as soon as possible, once its Climatic Research Unit had negotiated its release from a range of non-publication agreements.
28 November Telegraph article

Lord Lawson, the former UK chancellor, has called for an independent inquiry into claims that leading climate change scientists manipulated data to strengthen the case for man-made global warming.
23 November Telegraph article

Altering the migratory and reproductive patterns of the world's wildlife has proved more challenging. Though we have now asserted control over the world's biologists, there is no accounting for the unauthorised observations of farmers, gardeners, birdwatchers and other troublemakers. We have therefore been forced to drive migrating birds, fish and insects into higher latitudes, and to release several million tonnes of plant pheromones every year to accelerate flowering and fruiting. None of this is cheap, and ever more public money, secretly diverted from national accounts by compliant governments, is required to sustain it.
In a 25 November National Times article, author and environmental columnist George Monbiot outlines the breadth of the "conspiracy of global warming"

The publication of damning emails about climate change could literally change the world. Gordon Rayner reports. In the US, where the CRU emails have been cited as proof of "the greatest act of scientific fraud in history", there are very real fears that hardline Republicans – together with powerful Right-wing media organisations – will use the scandal to scupper President Obama's proposed legislation to cap carbon emissions. In Australia, the world's worst carbon dioxide polluter per capita, 10 opposition front bench MPs have resigned in protest at a proposed carbon bill, their resolve seemingly strengthened by the emergence of the emails. And here in the UK, although the main political parties agree that global warming does exist and is man-made, there have been calls for the head of the CRU to resign over the scandal.
27 November Telegraph commentary by Gordon Rayner

Emissions trend up; sinks trend down

The most comprehensive analysis to date of how economic changes and shifts in the way people have used the land in the past five decades have affected the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere finds that global temperatures are on a path to increase by 6 degrees C by the end of this century. Scientists from the Global Carbon Project said that fossil fuel emissions have risen by 29 per cent in the past decade. The study found that, in the past 50 years, the fraction of carbon dioxide emissions that remains in the atmosphere each year has likely increased, from about 40% to 45%, and models suggest that this trend was caused by a decrease in the uptake of CO2 by the carbon sinks in response to climate change and variability.
18 November Independent article
18 November Guardian article
Nature Geoscience Progress Article abstract
Nature Geoscience Progress Article (suibscription required, or purchase access online)

There now seems to be a growing disconnection between the message that scientists are sending out about climate change and the corresponding reaction of politicians and the public. As the experts issue increasingly dire warnings about what could happen to the world's climate system if we don't do something about carbon dioxide emissions, politicians prevaricate, the public becomes more sceptical and we all continue to burn more fossil fuels.
18 November Independent commentary by Steve Connor

These might sound like small numbers. But their implications could not be bigger – or more dangerous.
We have long known that, unchecked, climate change is likely to result in a serious reduction in global agriculture, chronic drought, rising sea levels and the mass displacement of populations. But the implications of a 6C rise are more disastrous still. They include the acidification of the oceans, the loss of all polar ice and the combustion of the rainforests. It is doubtful that mankind could survive such a catastrophe.
18 November Independent leading article

Aviators call for 'single global framework'

British Airways, Virgin, the airports group BAA, defence firm BAE Systems and manufacturers Airbus UK and Rolls-Royce are all signatories to the Sustainable Aviation Manifesto. It calls for a single global framework for emissions, which it says is needed to stop "differential impact" of nationally-imposed targets that would damage the UK industry.
28 NOvember Telegraph article

China invests in methane capture

China, a massive consumer of fossil fuels and coal in particular, is trying to modernise its mines by containing emissions of methane and turning the gas into a source of much-needed energy.
27 November Telegraph article

Greenhouse gas concentrations rise more rapidly 

Not only is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continuing to increase, but the rate of increase is also rising, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
24 November Telegraph article
23 November World Meteorological Organization media statement
Download the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin

Reverse combustion processes produces fuel from carbon dioxide

United States researchers have demonstrated a technology that uses the sun’s heat to convert carbon dioxide and water into the building blocks of traditional fuels, a reverse combustion process that may emerge as a practical alternative to sequestration of CO2 emissions from power plants. Researchers warn the technology likely will not be ready for market for 15 to 20 years.
24 November Cleantechies article

Forget city density, it is transport policy that matters

We can keep our leafy suburbs and still save the planet. Despite opinions popular among planners, it can be demonstrated that it is transport policies that add to the sustainability of a city, not population density. Cities like the Canadian capital, Ottawa, demonstrate that relatively high denisities have little to do with the use of sustainable transport.
23 November The Age analysis by Paul Mees

Decarbonisation 'the greatest error'

The greatest error in the current conventional wisdom is that, if you accept the (present) majority scientific view that most of the modest global warming in the last quarter of the last century — about half a degree centigrade — was caused by man-made carbon emissions, then you must also accept that we have to decarbonise our economies. For a warmer climate brings benefits as well as disadvantages. Even if there is a net disadvantage, which is uncertain, it is far less than the economic cost (let alone the human cost) of decarbonisation.
23 November The Times opinion by Nigel Lawson, former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

Inaction 'imperils world'

Professor Bob Watson, chief scientist at the UK Department for Environment and Rural Affairs, said a decade of inaction on climate change meant it was now virtually impossible to limit global temperature rise to 2C. He said the delay meant the world would now do well to stabilise warming between 3C and 4C.
22 November Guardian article

Free condoms for climate proposed

Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to a UN report  that draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change.
18 November AFP article
18 November AP article

Dutch plan to charge drivers by the kilometre

Dutch drivers will be first in Europe to start paying according to the kilometres they drive rather than for owning a car, if a legislative proposal submitted to the lower house of the country's parliament goes through. The kilometre charge would replace road tax and purchase tax in 2012. The idea is to cut CO2 emissions while halving traffic jams in what is one of Europe's most congested road networks.
17 November EurActiv brief

Forget emissions, focus on equity and research

Any prospect of meeting the aggregate global emissions target consistent with developing countries not sacrificing their energy needs will require revolutionary improvements in the technology. There is a low-carbon path out of the climate change problem or there is no path at all. The world needs to go on a war footing to bring about such technological change. The major emitters – developed and developing countries – should put public funds into green energy research. And we should decide on a new starting point for negotiations: countries should prioritise eliminating the vast inequities in energy opportunities.
17 November Financial Times opinion by Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian, Center for Global Development

Canada delays again

A Canadian plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions will be delayed yet again because global warming talks set for next month in Copenhagen won't result in a binding legal treaty, Environment Minister Jim Prentice says. Those plans are already slow-moving because they are waiting on legislation that is being written and debated in the US Congress. Canada hopes to harmonise the two countries' policies and create a North American market to cap greenhouse gases and trade emissions credits.
17 November Toronto Star article

It's all a lie - British poll

Less than half the British population believes that human activity is to blame for global warming, according to a poll for The Times.
14 November Times article

EU-15 beat their target

The 15 European Union members which pledged to curb greenhouse gases by an overall eight per cent under the UN's Kyoto Protocol are on track to beat the target, the European Environment Agency said. Under the 1997 Protocol, the EU-15 promised as a whole to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by eight per cent by a 2008-2012 timeframe compared to 1990 levels. Latest projections indicate that the EU -15 will achieve a 13 per cent reduction from the base year.
12 November AFP article

'Clean and green' New Zealand shameless on emissions

My prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as "clean and green". New Zealand secured a generous Kyoto target, which simply required it not to increase its emissions between 1990 and 2010. But the latest UN statistics show its emissions of greenhouse gases up by 22%, or a whopping 39% if you look at emissions from fuel burning alone.
12 November Guardian article

South Korea reconsiders targets

South Korea, the OECD's fastest-growing carbon polluter, has ditched its weakest voluntary 2020 emissions target and will choose one of two stricter options ahead of a global meeting in Copenhagen. In a statement  the government said it had dropped an option for an 8 per cent increase from 2005 emissions levels by 2020. It would finalise the 2020 target on November 17 at between unchanged from and 4 per cent below 2005 levels.
6 November Reuters article

Germany, Mexico and US win praise

Germany, Mexico and the United States have crafted some of the world's smartest policies for improving energy use, according to a study released on the sidelines of the UN climate talks. The study was commissioned by WWF International and E3G.
6 November Independent article
WWF statement
Briefing note
Scorecard

Economics and business

Solar cost forecast to drop

Solar energy costs will drop by half in 2009 while other low-carbon technology costs will see their pre-subsidy costs drop by 10-20 percent, renewable energy analysts said.
24 November Reuters article

Green technologies threatened

Vital business investment in clean technology to tackle climate change is being threatened by delays and doubts over the Copenhagen deal on climate change, according to senior figures".
18 November Guardian article

IEA warns on increasing cost of fossil fuels

The International Energy Agency has warned that energy bills are likely to double in Europe if global leaders fail to reach an agreement on halting demand for fossil fuels at the Copenhagen climate change summit next month. The independent body said the huge price of tackling climate change will eventually be overtaken by the cost of remaining dependent on fossil fuels, which are becoming more difficult and expensive to extract.
10 November Telegraph article

$10.5 trillion investment needed - IEA

The world's energy systems will need an extra $10.5 trillion (£6.3trn) in investment between now and 2030 to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and avoid "irreparable damage to the planet", the International Energy Agency  warned in its annual global outlook.
11 November Independent article
Link to International Energy Agency media statement, fact sheet, graphs, executive summary and to order report

Finance for onshore wind farms

The European Investment Bank has opened a £700m fund to tackle the lack of finance for the UK's onshore wind farm developers.
11 November Independent article

Enel buys into wind power

Enel Green Power, renewable energy arm of Italy's biggest utility Enel, has bought a majority stake in two wind power projects in Italy with a total installed capacity of 64 megawatts, the company said.
10 November Reuters article

'$500 billion cost for each year's delay'

The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming, the International Energy Agency said.
10 November Reuters article

Chrysler abandons electric car plans

Chrysler has disbanded a team of engineers dedicated to rushing a range of electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars set as it was sliding toward bankruptcy and seeking government aid.
9 November Reuters article

Small wind companies at risk

Small wind energy companies could be taken over cheaply because fresh funding for the sector is set to flow selectively to bigger names, placing them in a stronger negotiating position.
9 November Reuters analysis

Refiners look to reduce capacity

An international pact and United States legislation to tackle climate change will hit oil refiners' profits and may force some to shut some capacity because of reduced demand, Thomas O'Malley, chairman of Swiss refiner Petroplus, said.
6 November Reuters article

Agriculture and Natural Resource Management

Threat to Arab agriculture

Climate change is likely to hit the water-starved Arab world harder than many other parts of the globe and threatens to slash agricultural output in the area, United Nation and Arab League officials said.
26 November Reuters article

The gap between rhetoric and reality

Farm-Africa's chief executive, Christie Peacock, warns that despite the experience of generations of farmers in adapting to harsh conditions, "the pace of change is stepping up", while the reaction of the major polluters remained "depressingly poor".
26 November Guadian analysis by Anne Perkins

Agriculture 'can adapt'

Innovative agricultural technologies can produce crops that meet climate change challenges, says International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics head William Dar. Sustainable land and water management combined with innovative agricultural technologies could mitigate climate change and help poor farmers adapt to its impacts, he said.
20 November Science and Development Network article

Beef industry 'almost carbon neutral'

Australia's $8 billion beef industry has welcomed research that indicates it is almost carbon neutral. The industry has been subjected to advertising campaigns and allegations that it says are misleading. Queensland Primary Industries Department researchers have done a preliminary analysis of the net carbon position of the state's beef industry, concluding that the net carbon position at the farm level is likely to be close to zero.
19 November Sydney Morning Herald article

Burning peat pours carbon dioxide into atmosphere

Peat, formed over thousands of years from decomposed trees, grass and scrub, contains gigantic quantities of carbon, which used to stay locked in the ground. It is now drying and disintegrating, as once-soggy swamps are shorn of trees and drained by canals, and when it burns, carbon dioxide gushes into the atmosphere.
19 November Washington Post article

Curb climate change and boost food output

Low-carbon farming can both curb climate change and boost food output in developing nations and so must be rewarded under a global climate deal due in December, the U.N.'s food agency said. Steps to cut carbon emissions on farms in developing countries could also boost yields where food is shortest, the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report.
6 November Reuters article

An exhausting saving on fertiliser

A farmer in Australia has joined peers in Canada, Britain and South Africa in injecting tractor exhaust into the soil, both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and simultaneously fertilising the soil. The Australian farmer says the process saved him $500,000 in fertiliser costs this year alone.
1 November Age article 

Energy

Feed-in tariffs cut

The Czech energy regulator has cut feed-in tariffs for solar-generated power by 5 per cent from the beginning of 2010, the country's energy regulator announced.
26 November Reuters article

Solar mirror plants for Spain

Spanish renewable energy company Abengoa will team up with German utility E.ON to build two solar mirror plants in southern Spain, benefiting from E.ON's cash and large grid expertise.
26 November Reuters article

Norway builds (tiny) osmotic power plant

Norway has opened the world's first osmotic power plant, which produces emissions-free electricity by mixing fresh water and sea water through a special membrane. State-owned utility Statkraft's prototype plant, which for now will produce a tiny 2-4 kilowatts of power or enough to run a coffee machine, will enable Statkraft to test and develop the technology needed to drive down production costs.
25 November Reuters article

India's solar plan

India's cabinet has approved its first solar power plan, pledging to boost output from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2020.
20 November Reuters article

Partnership for wind energy

The governors of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware in the United States of America have announced a partnership designed to promote and coordinate the development of wind energy off the mid-Atlantic coast.
19 November Washington Post article

EU compromises on energy savings in buildings

EU lawmakers have forged a long-awaited compromise on the recast buildings directive, agreeing that all new buildings would have to comply with high energy-performance standards and supply a significant share of their energy requirements from renewable sources after the end of 2020.
18 November EurActiv brief

Tidal turbines exceed expectations

Speaking at the Lisbon International Ocean Power Conference, Peter Fraenkel, Technical Director and co-founder of Marine Current Turbines (MCT), the UK-based company that designed and developed SeaGen, the world's only commercial scale tidal stream turbine, told delegates that "We are delighted with SeaGen's performance. It is running reliably and delivering more energy than originally expected in an extremely aggressive environment."
18 November Reuters article

50 million tonnes of timber imports to make 'green' power

To feed its new biomass-fired electricity generation plants, Britain is set to increase its timber imports by 150 per cent to 50 million tonnes a year, burning fuel both in the shipping to Britain and in baking the timber to ensure it contains no pests before being shipped. But the timber will, according to a spokesman for one of the generating plants, be sourced only from proven sustainable sources.
16 November Times article

Spain plans more renewable capacity

Spain plans to bring 8.8 gigawatts of renewable energy generating capacity onstream in 2010-2012, 5.3 GW of which will be wind power and 1.5 GW will be from solar mirrors, the government said.
16 November Reuters article

Double win in new gasification process

Scientists have adaspted the gasification process, injecting carbon dioxide into the process and increasing efficiency. The technique has a double benefit for the environment: it provides a use for carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere and, after the hydrogen is siphoned off from the syngas, the remaining carbon monoxide can be buried safely underground.
15 November Guardian article

Perverse outcome potential from EU cars law

The idea that a wholesale switch to electric transport would automatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and dependence on oil is a myth, says the analysis prepared for the Environmental Transport Association. In fact, says the report, a loophole in EU vehicle emissions regulations means the more electric cars produced, the more auto manufacturers can produce gas-guzzling vehicles such as SUVs while still hitting their overall emissions targets. Ultimately, this would lead to an increase in the amount of oil used and the amount of carbon dioxide generated by the car fleet as a whole.
12 November Independent article

Energy policy 'an incoherent mess'

Britain’s energy policy is an incoherent mess. We need a simple and explicit carbon tax to fund the greenest alternatives. First, we have simply not invested enough in infrastructure to meet future demand for heat and power. The second problem is how to mitigate climate change by cutting carbon emissions.
11 November Times opinion by Dieter Helm

Japan plans power station in space

Japan’s space agency is planning to construct a solar power station in space and use it to beam energy down to Earth using lasers.
10 November Telegraph article

Britain plans 10 nuclear plants

British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Milliband has announced plans to build 10 new nuclear power stations capable of providing up to 25 per cent of the country's power needs.
9 November Telegraph article

Ed Miliband says: we need 10 new nuclear stations – and quick about it. The men with the calculators reply: at the moment, it’s looking about as possible as splitting the atom with a blunt instrument and your bare hands.
10 November Telegraph commentary

Funding for wave-power project

Renewable energy firm Ocean Power Technologies has won a A$66.5 million ($61 million) grant from the Australian government for a project set to be one of the first to generate power from waves on a utility scale. It is expected to begin work in mid-2010 on the 19 megawatt project which uses buoys floating up and down to drive an electrical generator, with the power generated being transmitted onshore via an underwater cable. The project is off Victoria, and is being carried out in conjunction with Leighton Contractors.
9 November Reuters article

Al Gore proposes 'green cathedral' thinking

Al Gore, climate change campaigner and former US vice-president, wants to build "a green cathedral". By that he means he wants leaders and their communities to do what the communities in the Middle Ages did when they worked for generations to erect the great cathedrals of Europe. He wants us to give up short-term thinking and instead turn on the parts of our brains that allow us to react not just to threats we are conditioned to but threats such as climate change that can only be understood through reason.
6 November The Age article 

Sequestration

Fund to preserve rainforests

A global emergency funding scheme to drastically reduce the destruction of tropical rainforests over the next five years was announced by the Prince of Wales, with the US pledging $275m towards rainforest protection.
19 November Guardian article

Guyana and Norway hailed a historic agreement that will see the Scandinavian country invest $250m (£150m) to preserve the rainforests of the Latin America nation. With world leaders warning that no legally binding agreement will be possible at the climate summit in Copenhagen next month, the two comparative minnows completed one of the biggest forest conservation deals ever signed.
19 November Independent article

'Balance forest sinks against fire risk'

National forests can be used as a carbon sink with vast numbers of trees absorbing carbon dioxide to help slow global warming, the United States Forest Service chief said, but that goal must be balanced. He's also concerned about the risk of catastrophic wildfires that produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide.
19 November AP article

Kyoto forests set NZ for an emissions surge

While using "Kyoto forests" planted in the 1990s to make its emissions path seem not quite as bad as it is, New Zealand may well face difficulties meeting any emissions targets in the 2020s when these forests are scheduled to be harvested for timber.
19 November Guardian article

Oceans losing sequestration capacity

The Earth’s oceans have recently grown less efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide, according to new research led by Samar Khatiwala, a research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
18 November New York Times article
Nature abstract
Nature article (subscription required, or purchase access online)

Brazil cuts deforestation

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped nearly 46 per cent from August 2008 to July 2009 — the biggest annual decline in two decades, the government said.
12 November AP article 

Study credits peat with more

An Indonesia-based study shows carbon-rich tropical peat lands trap more greenhouse gases than first thought, driving up their potential value on the carbon market and strengthening a case for their protection.
9 November Reuters article 

CCS 'might never get beyond blueprint'

Extra funding and better market conditions must be created for clean coal if it is ever to progress "beyond the blueprint" of trial plants, Dr Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK, has warned.
25 November Telegraph article

Canada plans carbon dioxide pipeline

The Canadian and provincial Alberta governments said they will invest as much as C$558 million ($525 million) in a pipeline project to carry carbon-dioxide from an industrial region near Edmonton, Alberta, to aging oil fields,  where pumping it into the reservoirs will remove the it from the atmosphere and help increase oil production.
25 November Reuters article

Dutch geosequestion project to be staged

A project to capture and store carbon dioxide underground near the Dutch town of Barendrecht will go ahead in phases, the Dutch Economy and Environment ministers said, despite local opposition. Initially a small storage test site will be constructed, followed by a larger site as long as no complications emerge in the test phase, the ministers said in a statement.
18 November Reuters article

Canada looks to fund CCS

Canada may soon fund carbon capture and storage in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, expanding its plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt said.
11 November Reuters article

Japan trials CCS

The cutting edge but controversial technology of carbon capture and storage is being tested at the Mikawa power station, located near the coast of Japan's southern Fukuoka prefecture.
10 November Telegraph article

Clean coal plans in disarray

British Government plans for carbon capture and storage appear to be in disarray, with only one consortium remaining in the competition to win government support to build a £1bn capture plant by 2014. Any delays to carbon capture and storage plants will make the need for new nuclear stations more pressing, given that the UK wants to replace 55 per cent of its generating capacity in the next 15 years.
9 November Telegraph article

Climate and climate change

Climate change 'to increase risk of civil war'

The march of climate change could make civil wars much more likely, research suggests, with models predicting nearly 400,000 extra deaths in African conflicts by 2030. Marshall Burke, a University of California economist and the study's lead author, said: "Our study finds that climate change could increase the risk of African civil war by over 50 percent in 2030 relative to 1990, with huge potential costs to human livelihoods."
25 November Telegraph article

Climate tracks worst-case scenarios

Key climate change measures are tracking near or beyond worse-case scenarios predicted just two years ago, according to a science update drawing on more than 200 recently published studies. Co-authored by 26 climate scientists, The Copenhagen Diagnosis reports that melting of summer Arctic sea ice, loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and projections of the rise in sea levels have accelerated dramatically since 2007. It says greenhousing gas emissions are surging, Arctic sea-ice decline has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models, that delay in action risks irreversible damage, and that annual per-capita emissions must shrink to below 1 tonne of carbon dioxide by 2050, 80 to 95 per cent lower than recent emissions in developed nations.
25 November The Age article
24 November media statement by authors of The Copenhagen Diagnosis (through Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Link to download The Copenhagen Diagnosis or read it online

Next year forecast to be hottest yet

A new Hadley Centre forecast for the decade from 2009 onwards suggests that "at least half" of the years up to 2019 will be hotter than the hottest year so far, which was 1998. And it indicates that the first of the years to break the current record will actually be 2010.
25 November Independent article

$trillions in assets at risk

A possible rise in sea levels by 0.5 metres by 2050 could put at risk more than $28 trillion worth of assets in the world's largest coastal cities, according to a report compiled by the Tyndall Centre for the insurance industry.
23 November CNN article

Antarctic ice loss faster than thought

The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study led by University of Texas Professor Jianli Chen.
23 November Independent article
Abstract from Nature Geoscience
Article from Nature Geoscience (subscription required, or purchase access online)

Diluted ocean waters threaten shellfish

Melting of the Arctic sea ice due to global warming is diluting surface waters and this is endangering some species of shellfish which need minerals in the water to form their shells and skeletons, according to research led by Fiona McLaughlin, research scientist at Canada's Institute of Ocean Sciences's department of fisheries and oceans.
19 November Reuters article
Science abstract
Science article (subscription required, or buy access online)

Just 10 years to slash emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions need to be brought under control within 10 years to stop runaway climate change, according to the latest Met Office predictions. n the first study of its kind, climate scientists looked at how much pollution the world could afford to produce between now and the end of the century in order to keep temperature rises within a "safe limit". A number of different scenarios were run and the most likely outcome was that carbon dioxide emissions peaked somewhere between 2010 and 2020 and then fell rapidly to zero by 2100. In the worse-case scenario, modelled by the Met Office Hadley Centre, emissions had to turn negative by 2050 to stand any chance of keeping the temperature rise below 2C (3.6F). This would mean using "geo-engineering" such as artificial trees that are designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
15 November Telegraph article

'Philosphy' of climate change worries scientists

A ruling by a judge in England that a worker was entitled to legal protection for his 'philosophical belief in climate change' has alrmed scientists, who point out that science emerged self-consciously, as an alternative to world views based on faith, moral conviction and other forms of a priori thought. If science is recast by a legal ruling as simply a moral or religious world view, then its pre-eminent authority is likely to be compromised. What is to distinguish science from quacks with strongly held principles?
13 November The Australian article

'Oceans and forests store ever-more carbon dioxide'

The proportion of carbon dioxide emissions captured and stored in oceans and forests has remained around 50 per cent of all emissions over the past 150 years despite huge increases in annual emissions over that period, according to a study by researchers at Bristol University.
11 November Telegraph article

War of words over glacier melt

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri has accused the Indian environment ministry of "arrogance" after the release of an Indian Government report claiming that there is no evidence climate change has caused "abnormal" shrinking of Himalayan glaciers. The government report was prepared by a geologist, Vijay Kumar Raina, a former Deputy Director General of Geological Survey India. He is said to have retired some years ago. Pachauri says the report has not been peer reviewed and has few scientific citations.
9 November Guardian article
Download the report, A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change (3.6MB pdf)

Threat to meagre arid-area plant-life

As the climate gets warmer, arid soils lose nitrogen as gas, reports a new Cornell University study. That could lead to deserts with even less plant life than they sustain today, say the researchers.
5 November Cornell Chronicle article

'Greatest hoax of the century?'

Preparing for the deluge of rising sea levels, we were treated to footage from parliamentary question time starring Julia Gillard and her gumboots. Appropriately she was followed on ABC1 by Bananas in Pyjamas. Could man-made climate change turn out to be the greatest hoax of the present century? Certainly, ordinary people are beginning to ask questions.
4 November The Australian opinion by Janet Albrechtsen 

Trading and tax

Prices drop early and recover

European carbon emissions futures hit a new 5-month low early mid-week before climbing back into positive territory on the back of stronger German power prices, traders said.
26 November Reuters article

NZ approves trading

After fierce debate New Zealand's parliament has passed its emissions trading scheme, with the legislation scraping through 63 votes to 58.
25 November ABC article

World 'better off without ETS'

Australia and other countries would be better off with no ETS. Offsetting denies the right of poor countries to develop and at the same time retards structural change designed to reduce emissions in advanced industrial countries.
23 November The Age opinion by Kenneth Davidson

Offsets market 'needs US involvement'

An injection of United States talent into the $6.5 billion market in carbon offsets would help clear bureaucratic bottlenecks, making way for increased investment in clean energy, the CEO of a $310 million environmental fund said.
19 November Reuters article

Trading 'at a crossroads'

Emissions trading stands at a crossroads - a future as a $2 trillion market if the United States bolsters it, or as a modest sideline to energy and commodities trade if a new climate treaty is not agreed.
18 November Reuters analysis

More automatic approval for CDM projects

The chairman of the world’s largest carbon-offset market, the Clean Development Mechanism, said more emissions-reduction projects will be automatically approved after the rate plunged from a year earlier, curbing investor funding.
16 November Bloomberg article

Lithuania wants to sell credits

Lithuania wants to sell 50 million tonnes of emission rights from its 2008-2012 period quota, the Lithuania environment ministry said.
16 November Reuters article

European market fears storm

The European carbon market is bracing itself for a storm as another wave of selling by industrial companies is anticipated at the end of December or early January.
12 November Reuters article

Merger talks

Britain's Trading Emissions and Leaf Clean Energy are in early merger talks in a move that would create the largest carbon-focused company listed in London.
10 November Reuters article

Carbon futures fall

European Union carbon emissions futures slid toward 14 euros a tonne after oil prices fell by more than $2, traders said.
9 November Reuters article

Traders deny carbon is 'next sub-prime crisis'

Carbon traders have refuted claims that the European emissions trading market is “the next sub-prime crisis”, after a report by Friends of the Earth called for the system to be abolished. The environmental charity said not only does the current system of trading permits fail to tackle climate change, it is also financially dangerous.
5 November Telegraph article 

Conferences

Responses to climate change

The 9th International NCCR Climate Summer School, Adaptation and Mitigation: Responses to Climate Change,  will be held from 29 August to 3 September 2010, in Grindelwald, Switzerland.
Details

International Conference on Applied Energy (ICAE2010)

21-23 April 2010, Singapore. Energy Solutions for a Sustainable World. Based on the theme of “Energy Solutions for a Sustainable World”, ICAE2010 offers a wide range of topics covering clean energy and renewables, advanced energy systems, energy and the environment, energy in buildings, and energy policy.
Details

Global Biosecurity 2010: safeguarding agriculture and the environment

28 February – 3 March 2010, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. The program will focus on agricultural and environmental biosecurity and includes conference streams examining: DRIVERS, IMPACTS, KNOWLEDGE and SYSTEMS
Details

Sussex Energy Group Conference

25-26 February. University of Sussex. United Kingdom. The Sussex Energy Group at SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex is organising and hosting an international conference to discuss and debate emerging research agendas in energy social science. Open to academics, policy makers, industry and non-governmental organisations working in the field of energy transitions.
Details

Forest Day 3

13 December 2009 Copenhagen, Denmark.Hosted by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, the Government of Denmark and CIFOR. Forest Day 3 aims to ensure forests are high on the agenda for future climate outcomes.
Details

Bioenergy Australia 2009

8-10 December 2009, Gold Coast, Queensland. (conference tour on 8 Dec) Concerned with all aspects of biomass and bioenergy, from production through to utilisation, and its work embraces technical, commercial, economic, societal, environmental, policy and market issues.
Details

15th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP15) and 5th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP5)

7-18 December 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark. These meetings will coincide with the 31st meetings of the UNFCCC’s subsidiary bodies. Under the “roadmap” agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007, COP 15 and COP/MOP 5 are expected to finalize an agreement on a framework for combating climate change post-2012 (when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends)
Details

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