Emission Cuts Are `Feel Good,’ Won’t Save World, Lomborg Says

December 24, 2007 (Bloomberg) – The world’s lawmakers should abandon attempts to set “optimistic” targets for greenhouse-gas emissions, said Bjorn Lomborg, the author of the best-selling book “The Skeptical Environmentalist. ”The U.S. and developing nations on Dec. 15 agreed at United Nations-sponsored talks to negotiate a new global-warming treaty by 2009, after the U.S. accepted a compromise agenda to protect the climate after 2012, when the existing emissions-limiting accord runs out.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol and last week’s talks on the Indonesian island of Bali are expensive and inefficient ways to tackle climate change, said Lomborg, dubbed in 2004 by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Instead, nations should spend more money on developing renewable energy such as wind and solar power, he said.

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China has made active response to climate challenge

December 24, 2007 (United Nations Resident Coordinator in China, Khalid Malik) – In outgoing 2007, almost all important intergovernmental panels have so far focused their core topics for discussion on climate change, and this year will surely go down into the annuals of the world history as a crucial year.Internationally, a great deal of talks or discussions globally acknowledge that China would replace the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas in the next decade. People, nevertheless, do not known much about the unremitting, continuous efforts and contributions China has so far made in dealing with climate challenges. China was expected to invest 10 billion US dollars this year on the research and development of renewable energies, and was thus cited as the global No. 2 in term of the input made in this sphere, only next to Germany.

At a recent summit of East Asian Leaders in Singapore, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to reduce energy consumption (per unit of GDP) by 20 percent over the coming five years. This pledge of Wen’s is more or less the same with the commitment of the EU member states to reducing their greenhouse gases emission by 20 percent by the year 2020.

Indian Solar Energy Firm Says Carbon Credits Don’t Work

Editor:  We regret that the following byline was inadvertently omitted to credit the author for this post:

Keya Acharya * IPS/IFEJ 

December 21, 2007 (Keya Acharya * IPS/IFEJ) – A small but successful solar energy company involved in rural electrification in India is complaining that the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM) has been of no practical use to it. Selco (Solar Electric Light Company), winner of the 2005 – 2007 London-based Ashden Awards for outstanding achievement in sustainable energy, has found it impossible to harness any benefits from CDM, forcing it to turn to the voluntary emissions market instead.

“Since we deal with selling lighting to poor households, that really do not emit much greenhouse gases (GhGs), we found the process for selling savings on carbon emissions through the Kyoto Protocol’s CDM too expensive and time-consuming for us,” says Thomas Pullenkav, vice-president of Selco.

 

Indian VCs ready to finance carbon credit business

December 19, 2007 (The Times of India) – The Indian carbon sector is getting hot. Venture capital firms are making a beeline to set up exclusive carbon funds for clean development projects (CDM) which have the potential to generate carbon credits. Kick-starting the process is IFCI Venture Capital Fund, which is planning to float Green India Venture Fund with a corpus of around euro 50 million, to begin with. The fund could be raised to euro 100 million once a partner is roped in. ‘‘We are currently looking out for a partner. We will raise the corpus of the fund, depending on the appetite for the carbon sector in India. One can size up the growth potential after the interest generated in greenhouse gas mitigation projects post-Bali,” said IFCI Venture Capital Fund managing director Ashok Kumar Choudhary.

‘Bali and beyond: a new green economics’ – Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General

December 3, 2007 (UN.org) – WE have read the science. Global warming is real, and we are a prime cause. We have heard the warnings. Unless we act, now, we face serious consequences. Polar ice may melt. Sea levels will rise. A third of our plant and animal species could vanish. There will be famine around the world, particularly in Africa and Central Asia.

Australian company to help save Malaysia forest

November 29, 2007 (AAP) – An Australian forestry investment company is working with the Sabah Government in East Malaysia to create financial instruments [biodiversity credits] to allow palm oil producers to participate in forest conservation. The agreement between Sydney-based New Forests and the Borneo state will help protect about 34,000 hectares in the Malua Forest Reserve, which is home to orangutans, Sumatran rhinos and clouded leopards.

In return for an estimated $US10 million ($A11.4 million) investment to create a “conservation bank”, New Forests will sell so-called biodiversity credits in the protected site on the island of Borneo, with the Malaysian Government retaining ownership of the forest.

Australia’s challenge: to go from climate laggard to climate leader

LABOR’S exceptional victory is built on its core promises, and tackling climate change is one of them. Kevin Rudd has promised that one of his first acts in government will be to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. This will come as a welcome relief to most Australians. We have been suffering from deferred ratification for a long time, and the move is 10 years overdue.

However, while in the conservative context of Australian climate politics ratification may seem like one giant leap for Australians, it is now only a modest step for mankind (and other species).

Asia signs ‘green region’ environment pact

November 22, 2007 (Forbes) – Leaders of 16 Asian nations including China and India signed a pact on the environment Wednesday, pledging action on climate change and forest cover, and promoting the use of nuclear energy. The East Asia Summit members threw their support behind a UN plan as the ‘core mechanism’ for tackling global warming.

Asia will bear brunt of global warming; India must move to clean tech

November 20, 2007 (LiveMint – WSJ) – Environmental and development groups say India should go all out to invest in clean technology even if it means incurring an estimated cost of $2 trillion.

New Delhi: The fallout of global warming will severely impact Asia, yet another study, this time conducted over four years by a group of 35 environmental and development groups, predicts. “Without immediate action, global warming is set to reverse decades of social and economic progress across Asia, home to over 60% of the world’s population,” the study, Up in Smoke, said.

UN warns of climate catastrophe for Australia, New Zealand

November 19, 2007 (News.com.au) – CLIMATE change is upon us and its impacts could be abrupt and irreversible.

The latest UN report on global warming predicts that in just 13 years, Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics will start to suffer significant biodiversity losses.