Russia May Become Third-Biggest CO2 Offsets Supplier
Russia may overtake Brazil to become the world’s third-biggest supplier of credits from projects that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, with the new supply of offsets expected to weigh on prices, CDC Climat Research said. Russian supply of Emission Reduction Units started to rise thanks to political support from President Dmitry Medvedev, who in June said Russia needed to take advantage of the United Nations’ offsetting mechanism, CDC said in a research note. The country may issue 142 million credits for the 2008-2012 period under the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, ranking third after China and India, according to CDC, a climate-protection unit of Caisse des Depots et Consignations, the French state-owned bank. Emission Reduction Units, or ERUs, are issued under the UN’s Joint Implementation program, which encourages investments in low-carbon energy by industrialized countries in other nations that have emission-reduction goals under the climate- protection Kyoto Protocol. To read this article in full click here
READ: Will California's ETS spark an offset gold rush?
LOS ANGELES - California will in 2013 likely launch an emissions trading scheme with a CO2 price far higher than the EU or NZ markets, a move that could trigger a gold rush for cheap offset projects. Under rules approved last week, companies covered by the state's scheme will be able to use carbon credits from emission reduction projects, instead of state-issued permits to cover up to 8 percent of their emissions. Analysts say California's aim of returning state-wide emissions to 1990 levels by the end of the decade could potentially create demand for about 221 million offsets over the next 8 years. And with Californian CO2 permit prices already fetching around $19 -- 30 percent more than prices in the EU -- the rules could spark a scramble to develop emission reduction projects that can produce credits that the state's emitters can use. So far, eligible credits can come from four project types endorsed by regulators -- those that cut emissions of ozone depleting substances, methane from agriculture and others that store carbon in trees. To read this article in full click here
BASF tops carbon disclosure ranking of world’s largest companies
German chemical company BASF has topped a ranking of the world’s 1300 largest companies on the basis of its carbon disclosure record. Joining BASF in the top five are Anglo American, Gold Fields, Alcatel-Lucent and Santander. The rankings, which are compiled by UK NGO the Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO), list companies by their carbon disclosure, covering both direct emissions and – for the first time – ‘Scope 3’ or indirect emissions. Scope 3 emissions cover those produced by employee commuting and travel, as well as from a company’s supply chain. BASF was the only company to disclose emissions in all categories of its Scope 3 emissions, as well as its direct Scop1 1 and 2 emissions. “Scope 3 emissions have been the ‘elephant in the room’ for a long time now, and this has been something that the EIO has been keen to include in its rankings,” says operational director at EIO Sam Gill. To read this article in full click here
Shipping emissions must be included in 2050 carbon target
The government should include emissions from UK shipping in its 2050 carbon targets and step-up efforts to decarbonise other sectors, the influential Committee on Climate Change (CCC) will say today. Carbon emissions from both shipping and aviation are currently excluded from the limits set by the Climate Change Act, which stipulates only 160 million tonnes of CO2 can be emitted by the UK by 2050 - a reduction of 80 per cent on 1990 levels. However, the CCC's new report, out later today, warns the country's share of global shipping emissions could equate to up to 18MtCO2 by 2050 - around 11 per cent of the UK's overall carbon budget, and a level that the committee says is too high to be ignored. "[The report] confirms shipping emissions are material and if we're not talking about shipping emissions we are missing a potential non-trivial source," David Kennedy, chief executive of the CCC, told reporters at a briefing earlier this week. "They should definitely be included in the [2050] target, as not having them would lead us to proceed in a way not consistent with the Climate Change Act." To read this article in full click here
Seven Billion People and Their Carbon Emissions - What's the Correlation?
Environmental debates never escape the proverbial slip of the tongue about the planet having too many people. This debate may have some relevance, but high carbon emissions and population size tend to be lumped together in simplistic ways, which do not clearly demonstrate the true relationship between population size and carbon emissions. This past Monday, October 31, a new historical moment was reached: the world population became home to seven billion people. By 2025 it is expected the population will reach eight billion and by 2043 or so about nine billion people. On average, if the population growth rate is around 4% the population will double in 18 years. If, population growth is, 1% it will double in 70 years. Coincidentally, our own population census was completed on the same day the world reached seven billion people. The predictions are that the population numbers will be close to 55-60 million people for South Africa. Nonetheless, contrary to popular perception, our population growth rate has actually come down. In the 1960s, South Africa's population growth rate was 2.5%. It then registered a drastic decline to 1.1% for 2009 figures. To read this article in full click here
Carbon emissions soar
WASHINGTON -- The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst-case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.
"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
The world pumped about 564 million more tons of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries -- China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases. It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past. To read this article in full click here
