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Carbon trading explained through biscuits.
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emissions trading
To sell or not to sell...
We had an interesting meeting with steel manufacturers Corus today. They are one of the biggest UK companies participating in the EU trading scheme and appear to have a very comfortable surplus of permits (in the UK at least*) compared to recent emissions levels, even after taking into account the rule changes between 2007 and 2008.
With regard to how to tackle climate change internationally we were actually in agreement – the approach has to be global and, in sectors exposed to international competition , companies need to be treated equitably.
But when it comes to the current phase of trading and the cancelling of permits, to tighten the cap and reduce pollution, views diverged.
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Progress
This week we had some good news – our very first fundraising application was successful. This means we now have the resources to take set up an office. Until now we have been a working from home and in places we like with free wi-fi ( I’d recommend the Regent pub on Liverpool Road) - an arrangement which has worked well but which really isn’t sustainable. So this week we were visiting potential offices and weighing up pros and cons. We could take up residence on ‘Silicon Roundabout’ with some exciting new web start ups, or take advantage of the serviced offices provided by the Ethical Property Company also in Old St. While we make our minds up it’s likely we’ll take up temporary residence at one of the ‘hubs’ in Angel and Kings Cross where there are lots of like-minded organisations. The Kings Cross venue has just opened and is a more social space complete with bar/coffee shop.
On the campaign front I was at a dinner hosted by PR firm Hills and Knowlton this week and was chatting to Dr Stuart Smith, their Head of Corporate Practice, who mentioned that he believed the firm 3M had at some stage adopted a corporate policy not to sell spare emissions permits.
Continues...
Super Tuesday
An influential Committee of the European Parliament voted today on rule changes in the emissions trading scheme post 2012. Since these rules will dictate how much pollution we are prepared to tolerate for a long time into the future it is important that they are got right.
Overall the outcome from today looks positive. We wrote to Committee Members in advance of the vote about three things:
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making the cap tighter,
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not letting proposals to sell permits to industry, rather than handing them out for free, be watered down, and,
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not allowing more use of international credits to replace action to reduce emissions here in Europe.
On the first, though the reduction target was not increased, yet, it remains the case that it will automatically increase (from a 20% to a 30% reduction by 2020) if and when a global deal is reached in the UN international negotiation process. Industry lobbying seeking to weaken this was defeated and also a new requirement that Member States prepare plans and projections for meeting the higher target was introduced.
Continues...
1 billion volunteers needed
"There's a lot of effort to curb emissions of CO2 but the scale is not big enough. It has to be on a much, much larger scale. The scale of the problem is enormous.'' Corinne Le Quere, British Antarctic Survey and Global Carbon Project.
The team of scientists making up the Global Carbon Project today reported that manmade emissions of carbon dioxide grew 2.5 percent last year and warned that global efforts so far were failing, putting the globe on track for the more pessimistic future scenarios. That could see a temperature increase of as much as 6.3 degrees by 2100, resulting in the melting of Greenland's ice sheet, raising sea levels by about 7 meters.
So sandbags at the ready everyone.
Continues...
I don't know what it is but I like it...
Sorry for the lazy post but liked the news report below so much I decided to reproduce it. Go Rudd! Of course petrol should be included in capped schemes - oil companies need to start paying their way and stop moaning.
Slightly old news now but I was interviewed by the Guardian's science podcast team the other week -
listen to the June 23rd show here
King Corn and Capitalism
Markets - are they good or bad? Emissions trading basically uses the capitalist system to try to deliver an environmental good. But if market based capitalism and its obsession with growth helped get us into this situation in the first place can we really trust the market to get us out of trouble?
I think Amory and Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken got it right when they set out their theories for harnessing market forces to help us stay withing ecological limits (I always recommend chapters 12 and 13 of their excellent book 'Natural Capitalism' to anyone just getting into the issue of climate change - it's clear, leaves you with a sense of optimism and it's available for free online)....
Throwing the baby out with the bath water
Wired magazine this month decided to slay some environmental sacred cows. It's worth a read and the assertion that climate change is too important to be left to environmentalists is not unhelpfully provocative or without some truth. But they went too far when they dismissed emissions trading as a tool to tackle the problem and argued instead in favour of carbon taxes.
EU emissions still rising
It's not really come as any great surprise but the European Commission's official press release on Friday confirmed that industrial emissions in the EU rose by 0.7% between 2006 and 07.
geekyoto08
I presented sandbag to the geekyoto conference today. The first public outing of the idea. Nerves aside it was an excellent day with a very diverse range of speakers and topics. Things that stuck in my mind were: someone (who's name I sadly didn't note, but whose presentation along with all the others will soon appear on the geekyoto website) installed a swing in my local bus stop, to explore ideas around how we can modify our environment to better meet our needs, sadly it's no longer there - such a shame....
Transport and emissions trading
Sooner or later things have got to change. It just can't carry on being the case that the companies posting record profits from selling a product that we now know is contributing to a potential climatic disaster, have so far escaped any firm policy to make them pay for their pollution.
From the Blog
The times they are a-changing (and other clichés)
So much will be written, has already been written, about this historic US election that it seems pointless to add to the cacophony, but there really is nothing else that warrants writing about right now. The EU carbon price may be elegantly swan-diving and the reasons are interesting, but if there is one thing that will positively affect the future of the global carbon market it’s tonight’s result.
If the US elects Obama and we witness the dawn a new era in international relations in the US then the chances of working out a new climate deal are substantially improved. But, as with the last one, with regard to the nature of that deal what the US wants it will almost certainly get – such is the importance that everyone – Europe, China, India, Africa - places on getting them back in the game. Not only because they are such a huge source of emissions but also because the US has such a fantastic track record in incubating and commercialising new technologies.