BOSTON, Mass. and LONDON, United Kingdom -- The carbon footprints of the nation’s largest mutual funds vary wildly, with the fund with the biggest footprint 38 times more carbon-intensive than the fund with the slimmest footprint. Environmental research firm Trucost hopes the results of its just-released report “Carbon Counts USA” will close the gap now that fund managers can access the data to measure financial risk exposure from future carbon constraints, such as climate change legislation and a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program. The company ranked the country’s 91 largest mutual funds, with holdings worth $1.55 trillion, based on their carbon footprints. “The data hasn’t been available before, so in a sense, they’ve been flying blind,” Simon Thomas, Trucost’s chief executive, said during a conference call Wednesday. Mutual funds with large carbon footprints will likely become big losers in a carbon-constrained economy because a price on emissions will increase operating costs for companies with intensive fuel sources and processes. Most, if not all, companies will see their energy costs grow. Funds with the smallest footprints are will be impacted the least. Carbon-intensive funds like the Fidelity Capital Appreciation Fund, for example, could be subject to costs of nearly $125 million, or 3.32 percent of revenue, if the price of carbon is factored in, Trucost said. The company used a cost of $28.24 per metric ton as the basis for this calculation. In comparison, the most carbon-efficient fund, the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, would be subject to $8.3 million in carbon costs under the same scenario.There is no correlation between carbon footprint and performance, Trucost said. Rather, such a correlation won't materialize until a global carbon market is put in place.The study analyzed the funds based on eight investment styles: core, growth, value, index, country/regional, equity income, sector and sustainability/Socially Responsible Investment funds. As a whole, the portfolios of the 91 funds generate about 615 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon footprint of the combined 91 funds measured in at 335 tons of carbon dioxide per million dollars of revenue. The carbon footprints of the S&P 500 and MSCI Europe funds were virtually identical: 384 and 383 tons of emissions per million dollars of revenue. Surprisingly, the Sentinel Sustainable Core Opportunities Fund -- an SRI fund -- had the fourth largest carbon footprint of the funds analyzed, with 692 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent produced per million dollars of revenue. Overall, however, the aggregated SRI funds had portfolios that produced just 226 tons of emissions per million dollars of revenue.The top five most carbon-efficient funds don’t invest in the utilities and oil and gas sectors. Instead their holdings are concentrated in lower-carbon financial services, banks and health care. Trucost declined to publish the full rankings of all 91 funds but said it may do so in the future.
The most carbon-efficient funds are:
Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund -- 40 tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) per million dollars in revenue
Vanguard Health Care Fund -- 48
PowerShares QQQ Trust -- 69
Ariel Appreciation Fund -- 98
Oppenheimer Global Fund -- 111 The most carbon-intensive funds are:
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund -- 1,549 tCO2e per million dollars in revenue
Fidelity Capital Appreciation Fund -- 758
Janus Fund -- 744
Sentinel Sustainable Core Opportunities Fund -- 692
Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund -- 613
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Investors eye forestry, water opportunities in tough markets New York,
9 April: US investors have deserted the green investment space, according to analysts and investors speaking at a recent environmental markets conference in New York. But forestry offset projects are poised to be a major source of investment opportunities amid indications that they will be included in a federal carbon cap-and-trade programme, market participants said, while water projects are set to benefit from major investments from the US economic stimulus package.
“The truth is [the market is] still contracting,” said Hilary Kramer, managing director of Greentech Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It’s a very difficult time.”
This is an unfortunate development because there are numerous businesses and technologies that need a relatively small investment to proceed, Kramer said, speaking at the Wall Street Green Trading Summit in New York on 1 & 2 April.
Wind energy – tipped as the most scalable and the most cost-competitive renewable technology – is a good investment, although it continues to be hobbled by lack of financing, said Rob Romero, portfolio manager for investment advisor Connective Capital Management in Palo Alto, California.
“The US is a great long-term opportunity because it has high wind speeds and nice locations, but certainly project finance is a near-term obstacle,” he said. “China is fantastic for wind right now. They need the power strategically. They have the money to pay for it and they have a very dependable government. They don’t have a Congress that has to debate things. They just make it happen. From an investment perspective, we do look at that as a very attractive opportunity.”
The solar sector probably has the fastest growth potential, but still has a major inventory overhang so the market will be challenging for the next few quarters, Romero said. Because of the supply issues, Connective looks for companies such as Phoenix Solar that have “a nice pipeline of well-funded customers”, he said.
But the fundamentals for the renewable energy sector remain strong and there are signs of a pickup, said Mark Cox, chief executive officer of New Energy Fund in New York. For example, there are two banks competing to finance a $40 million, 3.5MW solar project in the Mojave Desert. “This is the first crack in credit,” he said. “Whether it is widespread, I don’t know.”
Water projects represent another good investment opportunity, said William Brennan, managing principal of Brennan Investment Partners in Wayne, Pennsylvania, a firm that specialises in analysis of and investing in the water sector. Spending on water infrastructure increased to $550 billion in 2008, from $250 billion in 2003 , a number that could rise to $1 trillion by end of 2012 due to predictions of a dramatic decline in water resources over the next decade. “There still is an acceleration of spending in this space,” he said.
Spending will rise 6% to 8% in developed countries and 15% or more in emerging countries – with the US economic stimulus package including $14 billion for investments in water infrastructure and technology, he added.
Meanwhile, the cap-and-trade proposal issued last week by Congressmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, signals that forestry offsets will be included in a federal programme.
Radha Kuppalli, a Washington, DC-based director of New Forests, a forestry investment firm that manages $150 million in forest assets in the Asia-Pacific area, has met with potential investors over the past several weeks trying to raise funds for forestry projects in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. “What we’re finding is that there’s been just an evaporation of liquidity and it’s a total buyer’s market for those with capital,” she said. “They’re really seeking hard assets with cash yields.”
Some investors are still seeking out long-term opportunities related to climate change, natural resource and energy usage, and changing consumer preferences around environmental issues, she said. Forest projects fit these investment scenarios because they can address major environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss and water management while generating substantial public and private sector revenue streams, Kuppalli said.
In the US carbon space, the signals in California, regional and federal programmes are “all pointing in a positive direction”, she said. California has been strengthening its forest protocols to bring more private investment and private landowners into its programme while Waxman-Markey signals forestry credits in the US and abroad will be included. “We really see some significant strides in this area,” Kuppalli said.
“The truth is [the market is] still contracting,” said Hilary Kramer, managing director of Greentech Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It’s a very difficult time.”
This is an unfortunate development because there are numerous businesses and technologies that need a relatively small investment to proceed, Kramer said, speaking at the Wall Street Green Trading Summit in New York on 1 & 2 April.
Wind energy – tipped as the most scalable and the most cost-competitive renewable technology – is a good investment, although it continues to be hobbled by lack of financing, said Rob Romero, portfolio manager for investment advisor Connective Capital Management in Palo Alto, California.
“The US is a great long-term opportunity because it has high wind speeds and nice locations, but certainly project finance is a near-term obstacle,” he said. “China is fantastic for wind right now. They need the power strategically. They have the money to pay for it and they have a very dependable government. They don’t have a Congress that has to debate things. They just make it happen. From an investment perspective, we do look at that as a very attractive opportunity.”
The solar sector probably has the fastest growth potential, but still has a major inventory overhang so the market will be challenging for the next few quarters, Romero said. Because of the supply issues, Connective looks for companies such as Phoenix Solar that have “a nice pipeline of well-funded customers”, he said.
But the fundamentals for the renewable energy sector remain strong and there are signs of a pickup, said Mark Cox, chief executive officer of New Energy Fund in New York. For example, there are two banks competing to finance a $40 million, 3.5MW solar project in the Mojave Desert. “This is the first crack in credit,” he said. “Whether it is widespread, I don’t know.”
Water projects represent another good investment opportunity, said William Brennan, managing principal of Brennan Investment Partners in Wayne, Pennsylvania, a firm that specialises in analysis of and investing in the water sector. Spending on water infrastructure increased to $550 billion in 2008, from $250 billion in 2003 , a number that could rise to $1 trillion by end of 2012 due to predictions of a dramatic decline in water resources over the next decade. “There still is an acceleration of spending in this space,” he said.
Spending will rise 6% to 8% in developed countries and 15% or more in emerging countries – with the US economic stimulus package including $14 billion for investments in water infrastructure and technology, he added.
Meanwhile, the cap-and-trade proposal issued last week by Congressmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, signals that forestry offsets will be included in a federal programme.
Radha Kuppalli, a Washington, DC-based director of New Forests, a forestry investment firm that manages $150 million in forest assets in the Asia-Pacific area, has met with potential investors over the past several weeks trying to raise funds for forestry projects in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. “What we’re finding is that there’s been just an evaporation of liquidity and it’s a total buyer’s market for those with capital,” she said. “They’re really seeking hard assets with cash yields.”
Some investors are still seeking out long-term opportunities related to climate change, natural resource and energy usage, and changing consumer preferences around environmental issues, she said. Forest projects fit these investment scenarios because they can address major environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss and water management while generating substantial public and private sector revenue streams, Kuppalli said.
In the US carbon space, the signals in California, regional and federal programmes are “all pointing in a positive direction”, she said. California has been strengthening its forest protocols to bring more private investment and private landowners into its programme while Waxman-Markey signals forestry credits in the US and abroad will be included. “We really see some significant strides in this area,” Kuppalli said.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Taking Logging Into the 21st Century-carbon, biofuels
Source: Copyright 2009, New York Times
Date: March 29, 2009
Byline: William Yardley
Booming timber towns with three-shift lumber mills are a distant memory in the densely forested Northwest. Now, with the housing market and the economy in crisis, some rural areas have never been more raw. Mills keep closing.
People keep leaving. Unemployment in some counties is near 20 percent.
Yet in parts of the region, the decline is being met by an unlikely optimism. Some people who have long fought to clear-cut the region’s verdant slopes are trying to reposition themselves for a more environmentally friendly economy, motivated by changing political interests, the federal stimulus package and sheer desperation.
Some mills that once sought the oldest, tallest evergreens are now producing alternative energy from wood byproducts like bark or brush. Unemployed loggers are looking for work thinning federal forests, a task for which the stimulus package devotes $500 million; the goal is to make forests more resistant to wildfires and disease. Some local officials are betting there is revenue in a forest resource that few appreciated before: the ability of trees to absorb carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that can contribute to global warming.
Pragmatism drives the shifting thinking, but a critical question remains:
can people really make a long-term living off the forest without cutting it down?
“I run into people all the time who think we’re lying and trying to go back to old logging ways,” said Jim Walls, director of the Lake County Resources Initiative in southeastern Oregon, a nonprofit agency that is trying to create jobs for rural residents in fields like biomass energy production and wildfire prevention. “It’s just not true.”
One new believer is Harold Jones. Hear him repent and reposition in the new economy.
“The only money I’ve ever made is cutting down trees,” Mr. Jones, 75, said just after coming in from thinning the stand of Douglas firs he has planted on 125 acres he owns here in Lowell. “So what I’ve tried to do in my retirement is to try to bring back and repay the Earth for a lot of the devastation I’ve caused it.”
Mr. Jones started logging in 1948 and has long rolled his eyes at “countercultural types” who protest timber sales. Yet in front of his property now are signs saying “Certified Family Forest.”
The certification process, supervised by the American Tree Farm System, requires Mr. Jones to manage and replant his land under the supervision of a professional forester. It is intended in part to give small tree farmers some credibility within the sustainable forestry movement, which promotes forest health, and to help them market their product as “green lumber.”
“It’s quite a process,” he said.
Restrictions on logging have prompted entrepreneurial thinking about the forest for years, but efforts have increased as states like Oregon and Washington have emphasized renewable energy and jobs that support it. In turn, the plummeting housing market has forced some timber companies to try to diversify — and even collaborate with environmentalists to protect forests from wildfires, disease and development.
“There’s been recognition in the last several years that we need the industry to carry out the restoration work we want accomplished,” said Jonathan Oppenheimer, a senior conservation associate for the Idaho Conservation League, which is negotiating with loggers and others with the goal of getting Congress to preserve parts of the Clearwater National Forest as wilderness.
For loggers and other rural workers, survival in the future might mean abandoning fights to cut older trees in exchange for being able to salvage smaller timber from burned forests. It might mean removing or rebuilding roads and structures on federal land, whether to reduce erosion or to improve recreational access. For the Forest Service, the stimulus money for thinning reflects an increasing emphasis on preventing wildfires, rather than simply fighting them, by removing smaller trees and brush from overgrown forests.
The work may be less profitable for big timber companies than clear-cutting a hillside, but it can create jobs in places accustomed to losing them.
In Lane County, Ore., on the wet west side of the Cascade Range, the county commission is looking for revenue to replace dwindling federal payments set up a decade ago to help governments in timber regions. Lane County received about $47 million this year, but the subsidies are declining and are scheduled to expire in 2012.
Now Lane County commissioners are asking the Legislature to draft a resolution urging Congress to pay counties that have large amounts of federal forest land for the carbon that their forests trap. Such a plan would depend on Congress’s developing a system for buying and selling so-called carbon offsets.
Not everyone likes the idea. Some loggers say it would be the final blow to their efforts to restore more logging on federal land. Jobs that have disappeared, they say, will never return.
“It puts us at risk,” said Robbie Robinson, president of Starfire Lumber in Cottage Grove, about 20 miles south of Eugene. Pyramids of Douglas fir rested outside his office window, no buyers to be found. “What I sense is another whole business being built, and the real problem is being able to harvest old trees.”
Forest economists say government spending, beginning with the stimulus package but also extending to any program to buy and sell carbon offsets, will be necessary to build a new economy in the rural Northwest.
Some supporters of sustainable forestry are concerned that, despite assurances by the Forest Service, the stimulus package will create only short-term jobs in the woods and miss the chance to invest in a complete “waste chain,” in which small timber and brush from thinning projects are put to use for lumber, biomass fuel and other purposes, potentially strengthening rural economies on many levels.
“We’re doing a lot of things here that nationally we say we want to do — biomass, fuels reduction, forest health, green jobs — we’re doing all of it now,” said Josh Anderson, the timber resource manager for Vaagen Brothers Lumber in Colville, Wash., which has worked with environmental groups to preserve wilderness land but has had to lay off about half of its 200 employees in recent months.
“We want to be here to be able to do that when things improve,” Mr. Anderson said. “We need to see something that moves a long-term trend toward work on these projects. It’s got to be pretty integrated.”
Mr. Walls, of the Lake County Resources Initiative, said a planned biomass energy plant in Lakeview, near the Nevada-California border, would generate 150 construction jobs, 50 to 75 permanent jobs in the forest and 15 at the plant. The plant would generate 13 megawatts of electricity, enough to power every home in the town of 2,300 and to contribute to the broader power grid.
But for the plant to operate, Mr. Walls said, it would need a steady flow of fuel, in the form of wood byproducts, from federal forest thinning and wildfire prevention, a pipeline that may or may not become permanent. The plant is seeking about $5 million in grant money under the stimulus package.
Mr. Walls said he was told by the Forest Service’s regional office in Portland that the project was a top prospect and that a decision was expected any day. He said its chances might have improved this month when Oregon’s governor, Theodore R. Kulongoski, appointed him to a committee to help oversee stimulus spending.
Even if the Lakeview project and others like it do fall into place, Mr.
Walls said, many other struggling timber towns still will need the demand for lumber to rebound. “In the end,” he said, “the housing market does have to turn back.”
Date: March 29, 2009
Byline: William Yardley
Booming timber towns with three-shift lumber mills are a distant memory in the densely forested Northwest. Now, with the housing market and the economy in crisis, some rural areas have never been more raw. Mills keep closing.
People keep leaving. Unemployment in some counties is near 20 percent.
Yet in parts of the region, the decline is being met by an unlikely optimism. Some people who have long fought to clear-cut the region’s verdant slopes are trying to reposition themselves for a more environmentally friendly economy, motivated by changing political interests, the federal stimulus package and sheer desperation.
Some mills that once sought the oldest, tallest evergreens are now producing alternative energy from wood byproducts like bark or brush. Unemployed loggers are looking for work thinning federal forests, a task for which the stimulus package devotes $500 million; the goal is to make forests more resistant to wildfires and disease. Some local officials are betting there is revenue in a forest resource that few appreciated before: the ability of trees to absorb carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that can contribute to global warming.
Pragmatism drives the shifting thinking, but a critical question remains:
can people really make a long-term living off the forest without cutting it down?
“I run into people all the time who think we’re lying and trying to go back to old logging ways,” said Jim Walls, director of the Lake County Resources Initiative in southeastern Oregon, a nonprofit agency that is trying to create jobs for rural residents in fields like biomass energy production and wildfire prevention. “It’s just not true.”
One new believer is Harold Jones. Hear him repent and reposition in the new economy.
“The only money I’ve ever made is cutting down trees,” Mr. Jones, 75, said just after coming in from thinning the stand of Douglas firs he has planted on 125 acres he owns here in Lowell. “So what I’ve tried to do in my retirement is to try to bring back and repay the Earth for a lot of the devastation I’ve caused it.”
Mr. Jones started logging in 1948 and has long rolled his eyes at “countercultural types” who protest timber sales. Yet in front of his property now are signs saying “Certified Family Forest.”
The certification process, supervised by the American Tree Farm System, requires Mr. Jones to manage and replant his land under the supervision of a professional forester. It is intended in part to give small tree farmers some credibility within the sustainable forestry movement, which promotes forest health, and to help them market their product as “green lumber.”
“It’s quite a process,” he said.
Restrictions on logging have prompted entrepreneurial thinking about the forest for years, but efforts have increased as states like Oregon and Washington have emphasized renewable energy and jobs that support it. In turn, the plummeting housing market has forced some timber companies to try to diversify — and even collaborate with environmentalists to protect forests from wildfires, disease and development.
“There’s been recognition in the last several years that we need the industry to carry out the restoration work we want accomplished,” said Jonathan Oppenheimer, a senior conservation associate for the Idaho Conservation League, which is negotiating with loggers and others with the goal of getting Congress to preserve parts of the Clearwater National Forest as wilderness.
For loggers and other rural workers, survival in the future might mean abandoning fights to cut older trees in exchange for being able to salvage smaller timber from burned forests. It might mean removing or rebuilding roads and structures on federal land, whether to reduce erosion or to improve recreational access. For the Forest Service, the stimulus money for thinning reflects an increasing emphasis on preventing wildfires, rather than simply fighting them, by removing smaller trees and brush from overgrown forests.
The work may be less profitable for big timber companies than clear-cutting a hillside, but it can create jobs in places accustomed to losing them.
In Lane County, Ore., on the wet west side of the Cascade Range, the county commission is looking for revenue to replace dwindling federal payments set up a decade ago to help governments in timber regions. Lane County received about $47 million this year, but the subsidies are declining and are scheduled to expire in 2012.
Now Lane County commissioners are asking the Legislature to draft a resolution urging Congress to pay counties that have large amounts of federal forest land for the carbon that their forests trap. Such a plan would depend on Congress’s developing a system for buying and selling so-called carbon offsets.
Not everyone likes the idea. Some loggers say it would be the final blow to their efforts to restore more logging on federal land. Jobs that have disappeared, they say, will never return.
“It puts us at risk,” said Robbie Robinson, president of Starfire Lumber in Cottage Grove, about 20 miles south of Eugene. Pyramids of Douglas fir rested outside his office window, no buyers to be found. “What I sense is another whole business being built, and the real problem is being able to harvest old trees.”
Forest economists say government spending, beginning with the stimulus package but also extending to any program to buy and sell carbon offsets, will be necessary to build a new economy in the rural Northwest.
Some supporters of sustainable forestry are concerned that, despite assurances by the Forest Service, the stimulus package will create only short-term jobs in the woods and miss the chance to invest in a complete “waste chain,” in which small timber and brush from thinning projects are put to use for lumber, biomass fuel and other purposes, potentially strengthening rural economies on many levels.
“We’re doing a lot of things here that nationally we say we want to do — biomass, fuels reduction, forest health, green jobs — we’re doing all of it now,” said Josh Anderson, the timber resource manager for Vaagen Brothers Lumber in Colville, Wash., which has worked with environmental groups to preserve wilderness land but has had to lay off about half of its 200 employees in recent months.
“We want to be here to be able to do that when things improve,” Mr. Anderson said. “We need to see something that moves a long-term trend toward work on these projects. It’s got to be pretty integrated.”
Mr. Walls, of the Lake County Resources Initiative, said a planned biomass energy plant in Lakeview, near the Nevada-California border, would generate 150 construction jobs, 50 to 75 permanent jobs in the forest and 15 at the plant. The plant would generate 13 megawatts of electricity, enough to power every home in the town of 2,300 and to contribute to the broader power grid.
But for the plant to operate, Mr. Walls said, it would need a steady flow of fuel, in the form of wood byproducts, from federal forest thinning and wildfire prevention, a pipeline that may or may not become permanent. The plant is seeking about $5 million in grant money under the stimulus package.
Mr. Walls said he was told by the Forest Service’s regional office in Portland that the project was a top prospect and that a decision was expected any day. He said its chances might have improved this month when Oregon’s governor, Theodore R. Kulongoski, appointed him to a committee to help oversee stimulus spending.
Even if the Lakeview project and others like it do fall into place, Mr.
Walls said, many other struggling timber towns still will need the demand for lumber to rebound. “In the end,” he said, “the housing market does have to turn back.”
Thursday, February 26, 2009
West blamed for rapid increase in China's CO2
Exports to Europe and US behind 15% of emissions• Campaigners suggest new criteria for climate deal
Duncan Clark
The Guardian, Monday 23 February 2009
The full extent of the west's responsibility for Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases has been revealed by a new study. The report shows that half of the recent rise in China's carbon dioxide pollution is caused by the manufacturing of goods for other countries - particularly developed nations such as the UK.
Last year, China officially overtook the US as the world's biggest CO2 emitter. But the new research shows that about a third of all Chinese carbon emissions are the result of producing goods for export.
The research, due to be published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters, underlines "offshored emissions" as a key unresolved issue in the run up to this year's crucial Copenhagen summit, at which world leaders will attempt to thrash out a deal to replace the Kyoto protocol.
Developing countries are under pressure to commit to binding emissions cuts in Copenhagen. But China is resistant, partly because it does not accept responsibility for the emissions involved in producing goods for foreign markets.
Under Kyoto, emissions are allocated to the country where they are produced. By these rules, the UK can claim to have reduced emissions by about 18% since 1990 - more than sufficient to meet its Kyoto target.
But research published last year by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) suggests that, once imports, exports and international transport are accounted for, the real change for the UK has been a rise in emissions of more than 20%.
China, as the world's biggest export manufacturer, is key to explaining this kind of discrepancy. According to Glen Peters, one of the authors of the new report at Oslo's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, about 9% of total Chinese emissions are the result of manufacturing goods for the US, and 6% are from producing goods for Europe.
Academics and campaigners increasingly say responsibility for these emissions lies with the consumer countries.
Dieter Helm, professor of economics at Oxford University, said "focusing on consumption rather than production of emissions is the only intellectually and ethically sound solution". "We've simply outsourced our production," he added."
By contrast, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc), argues that these "embedded emissions" in Chinese-produced goods are not the UK's."The UK calculates and reports its emissions according to the internationally agreed criteria set out by the UN," it says.
However, the Decc admitted to the Guardian that "the footprint associated with the UK's consumption has risen".
Even if world leaders did agree a deal based on consumption rather than production of CO2, it is unclear how national figures would be calculated.
Jonathon Porritt, head of the Sustainable Development Commission, said: "Ultimately, the only place to register emissions is in the country of origin - in this case, China. Otherwise, the whole global accounting system for greenhouse gases will be undermined by the complexity of double-accounting."
The difficulty of measuring exported emissions is reflected in the fact that the new research focuses on the years 2002 to 2005. Relevant trade data is not yet available for subsequent years.
However, Dieter Helm believes these challenges can be overcome with political will. "It's complicated but there are ways of taking consumption into account, such as a border tax on carbon transfer," he said.
Duncan Clark
The Guardian, Monday 23 February 2009
The full extent of the west's responsibility for Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases has been revealed by a new study. The report shows that half of the recent rise in China's carbon dioxide pollution is caused by the manufacturing of goods for other countries - particularly developed nations such as the UK.
Last year, China officially overtook the US as the world's biggest CO2 emitter. But the new research shows that about a third of all Chinese carbon emissions are the result of producing goods for export.
The research, due to be published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters, underlines "offshored emissions" as a key unresolved issue in the run up to this year's crucial Copenhagen summit, at which world leaders will attempt to thrash out a deal to replace the Kyoto protocol.
Developing countries are under pressure to commit to binding emissions cuts in Copenhagen. But China is resistant, partly because it does not accept responsibility for the emissions involved in producing goods for foreign markets.
Under Kyoto, emissions are allocated to the country where they are produced. By these rules, the UK can claim to have reduced emissions by about 18% since 1990 - more than sufficient to meet its Kyoto target.
But research published last year by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) suggests that, once imports, exports and international transport are accounted for, the real change for the UK has been a rise in emissions of more than 20%.
China, as the world's biggest export manufacturer, is key to explaining this kind of discrepancy. According to Glen Peters, one of the authors of the new report at Oslo's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, about 9% of total Chinese emissions are the result of manufacturing goods for the US, and 6% are from producing goods for Europe.
Academics and campaigners increasingly say responsibility for these emissions lies with the consumer countries.
Dieter Helm, professor of economics at Oxford University, said "focusing on consumption rather than production of emissions is the only intellectually and ethically sound solution". "We've simply outsourced our production," he added."
By contrast, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc), argues that these "embedded emissions" in Chinese-produced goods are not the UK's."The UK calculates and reports its emissions according to the internationally agreed criteria set out by the UN," it says.
However, the Decc admitted to the Guardian that "the footprint associated with the UK's consumption has risen".
Even if world leaders did agree a deal based on consumption rather than production of CO2, it is unclear how national figures would be calculated.
Jonathon Porritt, head of the Sustainable Development Commission, said: "Ultimately, the only place to register emissions is in the country of origin - in this case, China. Otherwise, the whole global accounting system for greenhouse gases will be undermined by the complexity of double-accounting."
The difficulty of measuring exported emissions is reflected in the fact that the new research focuses on the years 2002 to 2005. Relevant trade data is not yet available for subsequent years.
However, Dieter Helm believes these challenges can be overcome with political will. "It's complicated but there are ways of taking consumption into account, such as a border tax on carbon transfer," he said.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Investors targest Exxon and Massey
A coalition of U.S. investors put companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and coal miner Massey Energy Co on a "Climate Watch" list on Wednesday, claiming the long-term competitiveness of the firms could be hurt by their lack of action on climate change. Skip related content
"For a company in a major emitting sector ... to not be thinking about how they are going to address a regulated environment creates red flags for investors," Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors and environmentalists, said in an interview.
Lubber said the companies have lagged in taking action on climate change even though U.S. President Barack Obama plans to regulate emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet.
"Companies that miss this trend will be setting themselves up to fail in the 21st century low-carbon economy," she said.
Ceres, whose institutional investors associated with the Climate Watch report manage a total of $1.9 trillion in assets, said the companies lag behind their peers who have taken actions including moving into alternative energy markets like wind and solar power or assessing their climate change risks.
Ceres said Exxon Mobil Corp has been "unresponsive to investor requests for a decade," on strategies on growing demand for diversified clean energy sources.
Exxon spokesman Chris Welberry said in a email, "We reject this criticism," and that the company has led in energy efficiency investments to reduce emissions.
Ceres put Massey Energy on the list, saying it had resisted shareholder resolutions requesting the company develop and disclose a strategy for responding to climate change. The company did not immediately return a request for comment.
Investors at Ceres, which also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a group of 75 institutional investors including the California State Teachers Retirement System, and financial firms focused on the business impacts of climate change, have filed 63 global warming resolutions with the nine companies on the climate list, and others.
TAR SANDS
The group also targeted companies investing in Canada's tar sands, including Chevron Corp, which owns part of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, and Canadian Natural Resources, one of the largest producers in oil sands.
Alberta's oil sands rival Saudi Arabia's conventional oil reserves in size, but environmentalists say mining and processing them releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
When Obama visits Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa on Thursday, energy will be a key topic in the talks. About 75 percent of Canada's oil sands output is shipped to the U.S. market.
"Extraction of oil from oil sands is a risky proposition and will likely in the long term be a disaster for both investors and inhabitants of an increasingly warming planet," said Margaret Weber, board chair of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which coordinates shareholder filings with Ceres.
Canadian Natural management could not be immediately reached and Chevron did not immediately return phone calls about the investments.
(Additional reporting by Scott Haggett in Calgary; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
"For a company in a major emitting sector ... to not be thinking about how they are going to address a regulated environment creates red flags for investors," Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors and environmentalists, said in an interview.
Lubber said the companies have lagged in taking action on climate change even though U.S. President Barack Obama plans to regulate emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet.
"Companies that miss this trend will be setting themselves up to fail in the 21st century low-carbon economy," she said.
Ceres, whose institutional investors associated with the Climate Watch report manage a total of $1.9 trillion in assets, said the companies lag behind their peers who have taken actions including moving into alternative energy markets like wind and solar power or assessing their climate change risks.
Ceres said Exxon Mobil Corp has been "unresponsive to investor requests for a decade," on strategies on growing demand for diversified clean energy sources.
Exxon spokesman Chris Welberry said in a email, "We reject this criticism," and that the company has led in energy efficiency investments to reduce emissions.
Ceres put Massey Energy on the list, saying it had resisted shareholder resolutions requesting the company develop and disclose a strategy for responding to climate change. The company did not immediately return a request for comment.
Investors at Ceres, which also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a group of 75 institutional investors including the California State Teachers Retirement System, and financial firms focused on the business impacts of climate change, have filed 63 global warming resolutions with the nine companies on the climate list, and others.
TAR SANDS
The group also targeted companies investing in Canada's tar sands, including Chevron Corp, which owns part of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, and Canadian Natural Resources, one of the largest producers in oil sands.
Alberta's oil sands rival Saudi Arabia's conventional oil reserves in size, but environmentalists say mining and processing them releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
When Obama visits Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa on Thursday, energy will be a key topic in the talks. About 75 percent of Canada's oil sands output is shipped to the U.S. market.
"Extraction of oil from oil sands is a risky proposition and will likely in the long term be a disaster for both investors and inhabitants of an increasingly warming planet," said Margaret Weber, board chair of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which coordinates shareholder filings with Ceres.
Canadian Natural management could not be immediately reached and Chevron did not immediately return phone calls about the investments.
(Additional reporting by Scott Haggett in Calgary; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
Forests absorb 20 percent of fossil fuel emissions: study
Wed Feb 18, 2009 2:16pm EST
By Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - Tropical trees have grown bigger over the past 40 years and now absorb 20 percent of fossil fuel emissions from the atmosphere, highlighting the need to preserve threatened forests, British researchers said Wednesday.
Using data collected from nearly 250,000 trees in the world's tropical forests over the past 40 years, their study found that tropical forests across the world remove 4.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
"To get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a ton of carbon, should be valued at around 13 billion pounds per year," said Lee White, Gabon's chief climate change scientist, who co-led the study, said in a statement.
The researchers do not know exactly why trees are getting bigger and mopping up more carbon but they suspect that extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be acting like a fertilizer.
While nature has provided a free subsidy for dealing with carbon emissions, it is one that won't last forever because trees can only grow so much bigger, said Simon Lewis, an ecologist at the University of Leeds who led the study.
"The trees are growing just a bit bigger but they make a big difference because there are so many trees and half their mass is carbon," Lewis said in a telephone interview.
"Our study gives us another reason why it is really important to conserve tropical rain forests."
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that human activity produces 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide worldwide each year, but only about 15 billion tons actually stays in the atmosphere and affects climate change.
Human-produced greenhouse gases are blamed for warming temperatures, which experts say will spark heat waves, droughts, more powerful storms, species extinctions and higher sea levels.
Knowing what exactly what happens to the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere will help researchers better
understand future climate change, Lewis added.
The team analyzed data on 250,000 tree records collected from the world's tropical forests over a 40-year period and found that the total mass of trees -- which is mostly in their
trunks -- was getting bigger on average.
As a result, tropical forests absorb more carbon emissions and now make up about half the world's land carbon sink, the researchers said in the journal Nature.
"This is all about what is happening with the trees but we still don't know what is happening with the soils," said Lewis, who noted that oceans absorb about 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year.
(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Will Dunham and Richard Williams)
By Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - Tropical trees have grown bigger over the past 40 years and now absorb 20 percent of fossil fuel emissions from the atmosphere, highlighting the need to preserve threatened forests, British researchers said Wednesday.
Using data collected from nearly 250,000 trees in the world's tropical forests over the past 40 years, their study found that tropical forests across the world remove 4.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
"To get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a ton of carbon, should be valued at around 13 billion pounds per year," said Lee White, Gabon's chief climate change scientist, who co-led the study, said in a statement.
The researchers do not know exactly why trees are getting bigger and mopping up more carbon but they suspect that extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be acting like a fertilizer.
While nature has provided a free subsidy for dealing with carbon emissions, it is one that won't last forever because trees can only grow so much bigger, said Simon Lewis, an ecologist at the University of Leeds who led the study.
"The trees are growing just a bit bigger but they make a big difference because there are so many trees and half their mass is carbon," Lewis said in a telephone interview.
"Our study gives us another reason why it is really important to conserve tropical rain forests."
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that human activity produces 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide worldwide each year, but only about 15 billion tons actually stays in the atmosphere and affects climate change.
Human-produced greenhouse gases are blamed for warming temperatures, which experts say will spark heat waves, droughts, more powerful storms, species extinctions and higher sea levels.
Knowing what exactly what happens to the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere will help researchers better
understand future climate change, Lewis added.
The team analyzed data on 250,000 tree records collected from the world's tropical forests over a 40-year period and found that the total mass of trees -- which is mostly in their
trunks -- was getting bigger on average.
As a result, tropical forests absorb more carbon emissions and now make up about half the world's land carbon sink, the researchers said in the journal Nature.
"This is all about what is happening with the trees but we still don't know what is happening with the soils," said Lewis, who noted that oceans absorb about 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year.
(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Will Dunham and Richard Williams)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
CO2 signs 50-year deal on forest carbon with Vic utility
CO2 signs 50-yr deal with Vic utility 18-February-09 by Edited announcement-->
-->Carbon sequestrian company CO2 Group has signed a 50-year management agreement to build and operate a carbon offset project with a regional water corporation in Victoria. The announcement is below: CO2 Group Limited's wholly owned subsidiary, CO2 Australia today announced it has signed a fifty-year management agreement to build and operate a carbon offset project with the Wannon Regional Water Corporation (Wannon Water).CO2 Australia will establish and manage the carbon sink to help Wannon Water meet its commitments to reducing carbon emissions, by establishing a permanent forest carbon sink using Mallee trees.CEO of CO2 Australia, Andrew Grant, said: "Wannon Water is another example of a utilities provider determined to address its impact on the environment proactively and well ahead of the introduction of the formal emissions trading program."We are pleased to be working with a corporation that is committed to all aspects of sustainability and that we can provide part of the solution to Wannon Water addressing its impact on the environment."Wannon Water Managing Director Grant Green said: "Sustainability is a key driver to the way we do business at Wannon Water. We take our obligations to the environment very seriously and we want to lead by example."We work very hard to educate our community about water sustainability and we pride ourselves on going above and beyond the environmental standards required by law and regulation."As a significant user of energy, we know that we have an obligation to address our carbon emissions profile," Mr Green said."The carbon offsetting project with CO2 Australia is one part of Wannon Water's approach to addressing climate change. We are committed to significantly reducing Wannon Water's greenhouse footprint and to improving energy efficiency."Like Wannon Water, CO2 Australia is a company focused on sustainability. It is able to provide us with real solutions to help address our carbon emissions profile. We have partnered with CO2 Australia because it has the proven ability to deliver certified carbon abatements on a large scale," said Mr Green."As the major provider of water to south west Victoria, Wannon Water is responsible for one of our most precious resources - water - and its use in the region. Carbon emissions, climate change and water are intrinsically linked so it makes sense that we work on all aspects of sustainable practice," Mr Green added.Wannon Water is a regional water corporation operating 5 catchments over an area of 24,000 sq kms in South West Victoria. Wannon Water provides over 15,000 megalitres of water to customers per annum.CO2 Australia is the largest provider of dedicated carbon sink plantings in Australia. It was the first organisation to achieve accreditation for reforestation projects under both the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme and the Federal Government's Greenhouse Friendly™ Program.CO2 Australia is a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange and is positioned to establish carbon sinks recognised under the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. CO2 Australia's carbon offset program has won numerous prestigious international and domestic environment and sustainability awards.
-->Carbon sequestrian company CO2 Group has signed a 50-year management agreement to build and operate a carbon offset project with a regional water corporation in Victoria. The announcement is below: CO2 Group Limited's wholly owned subsidiary, CO2 Australia today announced it has signed a fifty-year management agreement to build and operate a carbon offset project with the Wannon Regional Water Corporation (Wannon Water).CO2 Australia will establish and manage the carbon sink to help Wannon Water meet its commitments to reducing carbon emissions, by establishing a permanent forest carbon sink using Mallee trees.CEO of CO2 Australia, Andrew Grant, said: "Wannon Water is another example of a utilities provider determined to address its impact on the environment proactively and well ahead of the introduction of the formal emissions trading program."We are pleased to be working with a corporation that is committed to all aspects of sustainability and that we can provide part of the solution to Wannon Water addressing its impact on the environment."Wannon Water Managing Director Grant Green said: "Sustainability is a key driver to the way we do business at Wannon Water. We take our obligations to the environment very seriously and we want to lead by example."We work very hard to educate our community about water sustainability and we pride ourselves on going above and beyond the environmental standards required by law and regulation."As a significant user of energy, we know that we have an obligation to address our carbon emissions profile," Mr Green said."The carbon offsetting project with CO2 Australia is one part of Wannon Water's approach to addressing climate change. We are committed to significantly reducing Wannon Water's greenhouse footprint and to improving energy efficiency."Like Wannon Water, CO2 Australia is a company focused on sustainability. It is able to provide us with real solutions to help address our carbon emissions profile. We have partnered with CO2 Australia because it has the proven ability to deliver certified carbon abatements on a large scale," said Mr Green."As the major provider of water to south west Victoria, Wannon Water is responsible for one of our most precious resources - water - and its use in the region. Carbon emissions, climate change and water are intrinsically linked so it makes sense that we work on all aspects of sustainable practice," Mr Green added.Wannon Water is a regional water corporation operating 5 catchments over an area of 24,000 sq kms in South West Victoria. Wannon Water provides over 15,000 megalitres of water to customers per annum.CO2 Australia is the largest provider of dedicated carbon sink plantings in Australia. It was the first organisation to achieve accreditation for reforestation projects under both the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme and the Federal Government's Greenhouse Friendly™ Program.CO2 Australia is a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange and is positioned to establish carbon sinks recognised under the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. CO2 Australia's carbon offset program has won numerous prestigious international and domestic environment and sustainability awards.
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