The week in clean energy… via It's Getting Hot In Here
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Members of Durban Group For Climate Justice on Carbon Trading Speaking Tour this Winter via It's Getting Hot In Here
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International Hoax Targets US Business Consortium Amidst Bali Climate Negotiations! via It's Getting Hot In Here
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El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido - the people united will never be defeated via It's Getting Hot In Here
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California Oil Refinery Agrees to $10 Million Offset Deal via It's Getting Hot In Here
In what is being hailed a landmark deal for California - California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced ConocoPhillips has agreed to pay $10 million to offset emissions from its proposed expansion of an oil refinery near San Francisco.
The money is supposed to offset 500,000 tons of C02 that the expansion would release every year, once operating in 2009. The money will be used on various offset projects, including:
$7 million to start a fund that will finance projects to cut carbon dioxide in the Bay Area operated under guidelines to be developed by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District
$2.8 million to grow trees in mature forests that absorb carbon dioxide.
$200,000 would help restore wetlands on San Pablo Bay.
70,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions...
World to bet the farm on carbon trading? via It's Getting Hot In Here
It’s one thing for a campus to claim its gone carbon “neutral” solely by buying carbon offsets, but no one would even suggest that it would make sense for all of the emissions “reductions” of the entire industrialized world to actually just be projects like co2 sucking tree plantations located in the developing world.
Anyone with a solid grasp of climate science and international politics knows that we need to make major real reductions in fossil fuel use here at home; the rich shouldn’t just be able to pay the poor to reduce carbon use. Right?!?
Well apparently Yvo de Boer, leader of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the entity responsible for the Kyoto Protocol feels otherwise. In a recent interview with the BBC Boer stated flatly that...
Is your couch a carbon offset? via It's Getting Hot In Here
So - people are familiar with carbon offsets right? Basically - the general idea is that all carbon dioxide emissions are equal - and it doesn’t matter if emissions come from New York or in Russia. While there are arguments to be made how that is a horrible way to view it - it’s largely the accepted view right now. So if I pollute when driving my car, but make sure someone else doesn’t pollute the same amount that otherwise would have - it all balances out right? Or as is commonly done in with popular carbon offset schemes - if I build a dirty coal-fired power plant, but pay someone else to plant some trees elsewhere that theoretically absorb the same amount of carbon - then it’s all hunky-dory. That’s the basic concept - though it gets a lot more complicated and questionable...
2007 Maine State Climate Summit a Success! via It's Getting Hot In Here
On Friday, February 9th, over 100 people gathered at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Me to hear Allison Drayton speak about the challenges of Climate Change and what it will take to solve them. Though depressing in some aspects, her words were engaging and gave a great kick-off to a very successful weekend.
Saturday was spent getting talked at by a diverse group of impressive speakers. The topics included international climate politics, urban planning, carbon sequestration using plankton and concrete, solar installations including financing options, sustainable endowments, climate science skepticism, ice core research, and the impact of food on climate change. The diversity of subjects and active engagement of participants made for a productive and exciting dialogue that lasted... APSU Students Vote Green via It's Getting Hot In Here
Students at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN voted last week to approve a $10 per student per semester Renewable Energy fee to increase energy efficiency and the use renewable energy for the campus. The referendum was approved by an overwhelming 83% majority.
“The mandate is clear: Austin Peay students want to be a force for change. We want to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels,” says Gail Gillis of Students Organized to Advance Renewable Energy (SOARE). “We hope students on other campuses will campaign for similar fees. Our leaders are beginning to listen, and together we can present a united voice and positively impact our entire country’s energy future.”
Now the APSU student government and administration will forward the fee increase... Plantations are not forest: Biodiversity for sale in the carbon market via It's Getting Hot In Here
Earth First! and Rising Tide North America took to the high seas today to protest monoculture industrial timber plantations and demanding a ban on genetically engineered trees.
Image: Boat Protest in Charleston, SC (U.S.) Against Timber
Stakeholder groups demonstrated against timber plantations and forest biotechnology during the kick-off event for a conference on fast growing plantations in South Carolina. Banners read “ArborGen: No GE Trees or Plantations in US South or Brazil” , and, in Portuguese, another read “Eucalyptus Plantations Are Not Forests.” A third Spanish banner read “We demand protection for native forests and respect for the Mapuche people.”
Dont be deceived, tree plantations to offset emissions are not a win-win solution to... AES Sets Path of Business Carbon Offsets via It's Getting Hot In Here
I missed this last week, but thought I would pass it along. Information provided courtesy of Fred Beck, EESI Climate Change News - September 22, 2006, www.eesi.org
One of the world’s largest global power companies with 2005 revenues of $11 billion—announced it has committed to produce 10 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emission (GHG) offsets by 2012 and said it will pursue offset development projects under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. The announcement was made at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference in New York.
William Luraschi, AES Executive Vice President of Business Development, said “AES is proud to help meet the challenge of global warming through projects and technologies that reduce or offset greenhouse gas...