Carbon Trust offers trade groups funding for green schemes

Trade groups and professional associations have until early January to apply for up to £140,000 of Carbon Trust funding

James Murray, BusinessGreen, 23 Nov 2007

The Carbon Trust has called on trade groups to take advantage of a funding scheme that allows them to apply for up to £140,000 to support initiatives designed to limit carbon emissions.

Trade groups and professional associations interested in applying for the Networks Initiative funding now have until 9 January next year to submit a detailed plan outlining how the investment would help them deliver demonstrable and cost-effective CO2 emission savings.

The company said the funding could be used to support initiatives to highlight the cost of wasted energy and carbon emissions or accelerate the development of specific technical guidance and toolkits for firms keen to limit their carbon footprint.

The call for more applications was made at an event in London to assess the success of the 15 trade groups that received funding through the scheme last year, including the Institute of Hospitality, the UK Social Investment Forum and the Airport Operators Association.

"We believe that trade and professional bodies have an important role to play in championing carbon reduction measures among their member businesses and colleagues, and play an important part of our overall role in helping UK business and public-sector organisations cut CO2 emissions," said Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust. "We’d encourage anyone who wants to find out more to contact us."

The group said the scheme has already provided £2.5m of funding to support 41 different projects since it was launched in 2005, including an initiative to help landlords measure office buildings' carbon emissions from the British Property Federation and a project from the British Compressed Air Society to enhance the efficiency of compressed air systems.

India a new hub for climate change research
Sreelatha Menon in New Delhi

November 23, 2007

India has emerged as a hub for climate change research in Asia with UK emerging as a key partner.

While the Chief Scientific Advisor to UK David King has been on a lecture tour of India exhorting scientists to move fast on climate change, the government on its part is moving fast.

It is all set to announce the first research institute for climate change to be set up in the Indian Institute for Tropical Meteorology in Pune.

The proposal, which awaits Cabinet approval, is expected to boost studies into climate predictions and impacts.

This apart, the UK India Education and Research Initiative formed in 2005 is backing joint research activities with top institutions in the country, while the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), another arm of the British High Commission, is engaging in research with the ministry of environment and forests.

This week the UKERI launched its first ever climate change projects worth Pounds 1.5 million which are expected to help take forward work being done in IIT Delhi, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Indian Institute for Tropical Meteorology Pune on climate predictions and also impacts of climate change.

Prakash Rao researcher on climate change for World Wildlife Fund attributes the rush of interest in India to the presence of a good number of credible research institutes in India.

The fact that R K Pachauri, an Indian, heads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2001 may also have added to the attraction to India, he said.

According to Matthew Coyne, who works in the climate change impacts and adaptation division of DEFRA, India's large rural population and dependence of economy on climate makes it very vulnerable unlike a country like Mexico.

The DEFRA project with MoEF is yet to identify a research institute in India and the bidding process is to start now, Coyne added. However some green groups in India look at this rush for climate change research in India as a ruse to promote technologies like genetic engineering.

Devinder Sharma of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in New Delhi says the hype over climate change veils industrial designs to push technologies over unsuspecting people. It can be compared with the hype over HIV/AIDS.

Everyone wants to project the picture of an agriculture sector which is about to collapse. That will open windows for genetically modified crops, he said.

Coyne agrees with this concern and says that his own project would look at the direct effect of heat on agriculture and at options for adaptation which will include genetically modified crops too.

Climate change adaptation projects are also being funded by USAID and UNDP whose latest human development report is on the theme of climate change.

TERI, the NGO headed by R K Pachauri the chairman of the IPCC, is involved in most of the research projects backed by UK, the most key one being the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation funded by DFID and Natural Environment Research Council of UK .

NERC head Alan Thorpe said that the project funded by DFID will cover China, Brazil and Africa too and involves a funds of 30 million pounds altogether. The project has TERI as the main partner along with the IIT Delhi and University of Liverpool and is looking at strategies to cope with climate change.

Thorpe agrees that research will open windows to business which will lead to greener processes like carbon trade. He, however, denies that his project will have anything to do with GM crops. K Srinivas climate campaigner in Greenpeace says that all research on heat resistant crop need not be genetically engineered variety.

But there is definitely opportunity for industry of all type. And if GM crops are promoted in the guise of climate change, that will be a problem for us and we will oppose it.

Carbon Credits Finance New Approach to Large-Scale Conservation

Unprecedented Partnership Conserves Prairie Habitat Through Direct Payments to Landowners

MEMPHIS, Tenn., November 20, 2007 – It pays to conserve habitat these days. Literally. In an unprecedented conservation agreement, Ducks Unlimited, Equator Environmental, LLC and New Forests Inc. are helping landowners conserve grasslands and store carbon on their property – and make money doing it.

“This is a totally novel approach to habitat conservation,” said Jim Ringelman, Ducks Unlimited’s Director of Conservation Programs in the Great Plains. “DU’s highest priority is protecting the grasslands of the Prairie Pothole Region from destruction, and one way we do that is through conservation easements. When landowners agree to an easement that prohibits plowing that land, they’re also ensuring that the carbon in that soil won’t be released. So, we thought ‘What if DU could offer landowners money for the conservation easement, and money for the carbon credits on their land.”

It sounds complicated, but according to Dan Spethmann, Manager of Investment Programs for New Forests, it’s not.

“On the prairies of North and South Dakota, millions of acres of grassland plants are storing, or ‘sequestering,’ a huge reserve of soil carbon. If that land is plowed, the soil carbon is exposed to oxygen, decomposed and released as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. In the process, vital waterfowl breeding habitat is destroyed,” says Spethmann.

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Carbon trade may prove another IT sector for India: World Bank
19 Nov, 2007, 2134 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: The World Bank has said that with growing concerns for global warming and climate change, the carbon trade market, which is set to grow from the present level of $30 billion annually to $100 billion, can prove another IT sector for India.

With the growth in global carbon credit market to reach $100 billion, it can prove another IT sector for India. The country can garner a share of 15-16 per cent of this fast growing market, said Head Environment and Water Resources, World Bank Charles Cormier today.

He was speaking at a function, where memorandum of understanding was signed by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) with Ludhiana Hand Tools and Forging Envirocare - a special purpose vehicle (SPV) floated by about 300 steel forging units of Ludhiana.

The SPV would sell carbon credits to companies in the developed countries, who have to meet emission norms under Kyoto Protocol.

Cormier said the World Bank has so far pledged $2.2 billion fund to bring down carbon emissions in the industrialised world. This year so far, he said, four agreements have been facilitated by the bank with Indian companies, and about 20 are in the pipeline.

For the SIDBI funded project, he said, the World Bank has given its support by agreeing to buy minimum 9.9 lakh certified emission reduction (CER) units from the SPV. The CERs are also traded on the stock markets.

New Zealand Aims to be World’s First Carbon Neutral Nation

New Zealand announced ambitious plans for reducing the greenhouse gas impacts of its electrical, stationary manufacturing, and transport energy by 2025, 2030, and 2040. New Zealand initially declared it intentions in September in the release of its Emissions Trading Scheme. The following month New Zealand detailed its plans by launching its "Energy Strategy to 2050." New Zealand plans on increasing its national forest area by 250,000 hectares by 2020, as well as using renewable energy sources for 90% of its electricity by 2025.

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Korea to Start Carbon Credit Exchange Next Year

With climate change becoming a global issue, Korea is planning to set up its own carbon exchange as early as next year. The Korea Exchange (KRX) said Wednesday that it has launched a preparation team to establish a carbon exchange where businesses can trade in credits for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The idea has its roots in the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to prevent climate change, which requires countries that exceed their limit for greenhouse gas emissions to buy emissions credits from other nations that haven't reached their limits. Korea isn't on the Kyoto Protocol list of countries obliged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but it will almost certainly be in 2013. "The government will set the limit for greenhouse gas emissions for businesses, which can then sell carbon credits they have or buy ones they need on the exchange," the KRX said. "Financial institutions will also be able to engage in futures trading based on carbon credits.” Like a stock exchange, the carbon exchange will introduce price limits, clearance and settlement systems.

A Fixation on Standards: Another New Standard for Forestry Credits

CarbonFix, a non-profit German foundation, recently announced the latest standard for the voluntary carbon markets designed specifically to certify afforestation and reforestation projects generating carbon credits. CarbonFix claims it will fill a void in the voluntary market by providing an accreditation service that accounts for issues such as tree permanence and accurate calculation of credits. The standard was open for public review until November 15, 2007.

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Two New World Bank Carbon Facilities Will Help Fight Climate Change And Deforestation

Press Release No:2008/091/SDN

Contacts: Anita Gordon, 202-473-1799 agordon@worldbank.org Roger Morier, 202-473-5675 rmorier@worldbank.org

WASHINGTON, October 11, 2007—The World Bank is working to increase significantly the world’s ability to tackle global climate change and deforestation with two new carbon finance facilities to benefit developing countries.

An innovative Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) would prevent deforestation by compensating developing countries for carbon dioxide reductions realized by maintaining their forests.

Details are being finalized on that facility, as well as a new Carbon Partnership Facility (CPF). Both aim to support developing countries in their moves towards lower carbon development paths, by helping remove heat trapping gases from the atmosphere which are changing the climate.

“Developing countries will earn money and obtain clean technology in exchange for the greenhouse gas emission reductions they will sell to developed countries,” said World Bank Group President, Robert B. Zoellick. “Both facilities will pilot ways to ratchet up the fight against climate change by adopting a larger-scale, longer-term approach to greenhouse gas emission reductions. They will also build on the World Bank Group’s traditional relationship with developing countries, and the new relationships it has forged over the past decade as a pioneer in carbon finance.”

The Carbon Partnership Facility is expected to be used in areas such as power sector development, energy efficiency, gas flaring, transport, and urban development, including integrated waste management systems.

“The CPF is significant because instead of purchasing greenhouse gas emission reductions from one project at a time, say reducing methane emissions from a landfill, we will be able to work on 10 projects simultaneously across a country or a region,” said Katherine Sierra, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development. “We will also be able to purchase greenhouse gas emissions far beyond 2012, which will help to remove some of the uncertainty currently surrounding the post-Kyoto Protocol era.”

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NEW CARBON STANDARD GUARANTEES
ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY FOR GLOBAL OFFSET MARKET
- Global market confidence boosted by new Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) -
19 November 2007 (00.01hrs GMT), LONDON – A new global carbon offset standard launches today at the London Stock Exchange boosting business, consumer and government confidence in the voluntary carbon market. The Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) provides a new and much needed quality assurance for certification of credible voluntary offsets.
The rigour and transparency of the new VCS will boost market confidence for many companies and individuals keen to take a lead on tackling climate change by going carbon-neutral. The robust international standard will drive greater investment into credible offset projects certain to result in real and additional emissions reductions around the world.
Market analysts estimate that annual transactions in the voluntary carbon market could reach US$4billion in the next five years and that the VCS – already popular with buyers – will be instrumental to this future growth.
The new VCS marks the end of a two year consultation with the industry, NGOs and market specialists, led by The Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
Andrei Marcu, President of The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and co-chair of the VCS Steering Committee, says: “While the main action must be in regulatory approaches, voluntary actions and offsets have an important role to play, and the VCS will provide them with necessary credibility.”
Mark Kenber, Policy Director of The Climate Group and co-chair of the VCS Steering Committee, says: “The Voluntary Carbon Standard means business and consumer buyers can now trust the offsets they buy. Its robust quality assurance will trigger a new global confidence in the voluntary market from corporate buyers, consumers, and policy-makers. The VCS is vital for the environment and for growth of an important global market.”
Adam Kirkman, Program Manager, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, says: “Many WBCSD member companies already participate in emerging carbon markets or implement emission reduction projects on a voluntary basis. The Voluntary Carbon Standard provides additional incentive
- 2 -
to business to invest internationally in low carbon technologies, allowing companies to monetize the gains from their early voluntary actions via a robust standard supported by third-party verification that delivers environmental integrity, consumer confidence, and market credibility.”
About The Voluntary Offset Market
Although direct cuts in emissions should be the first step for any individual or business looking at minimizing its impact on climate change, the voluntary carbon market has an important role to play. Government regulation and appeals for people to change their behaviour will not be sufficient alone to achieve the carbon reductions needed at the speed required. Carbon offsetting is a valuable transition solution because it allows additional investment in carbon reductions over and above that which Government regulations have achieved, and makes those reductions wherever they can be made fastest and at the lowest cost.
Explaining the valuable role of the voluntary carbon market, Mark Kenber says: “Urgent and drastic action is required to stabilise climate change. The voluntary carbon market has an important role to play in bringing down emissions quickly and priming the pump of clean green innovation while the politics catches up.”

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U.N. panel: 'Urgent' action needed on global warming

(CNN) -- Climate change is real and is happening at an ever faster pace, a United Nations scientific panel said in a hard-hitting report issued Saturday on tackling global warming.

Exposed mud banks at a reservoir in Spain, November 2007.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was delivering its fourth and final report on the science of climate change and the impact of human-produced greenhouse gases at a conference in Valencia, Spain.

The report produced by the Nobel prize-winning panel warns of the devastating impact for developing countries and the threat of species extinction posed by the climate crisis.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, presenting the report, warned that some of the effects of rising levels of greenhouse gases may already be irreversible.

The U.N. head said the situation was already "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action" could head off the crisis.

He told the panel he was hopeful that the report's findings could help bring about "a real breakthrough" in climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia, next month.

The Bali talks will set the groundwork for the successor to the Kyoto treaty, which expires in 2012.

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Trade Me listing a first for NZ local authority

By KATIE CHAPMAN & NZPA - Manawatu Standard | Saturday, 17 November 2007

Three sets of carbon credits being sold by the Palmerston North City Council on TradeMe have already reached a combinedtotal of $2920.

The sale is thought to be a New Zealand first for a local authority.

The credits come from the Awapuni landfill gas project and are being offered on auctionsite Trade Me on behalf of the council by Carbon Market Solutions Ltd, a New Zealand carbon trading company.

The credits are being offered in two parcels of 20 tonnes and one of 200 tonnes.

This week, the 20 tonne parcels were up to $420 and $500 respectively.

Both had reached the reserve price. The 200-tonne parcel was up to $2000, but had not reached the reserve.

City council water and waste service manager Chris Pepper said the surplus credits "representa high profile and valuablecommodity".

Twenty tonnes represents the average emissions of a typical New Zealand household and 200 tonnes represents the averageemissions for a typical small business with five to 10 employees.

Proceeds from the impending sale will go back into the Awapuniproject , Mr Pepper said.

The two 20-tonne auctions close at 10pm on Monday, and the 200-tonne one closes at 9pm on Tuesday.

Africa: Paying Farmers to Protect the Environment?

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Rome)

PRESS RELEASE
15 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007

Carefully targeted payments to farmers could serve as an approach to protect the environment and to address growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss and water supply, FAO said today in its annual publication The State of Food and Agriculture.

Agriculture employs more people and uses more land and water than any other human activity," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf in his foreword to the report. "It has the potential to degrade the Earth's land, water, atmosphere and biological resources - or to enhance them - depending on the decisions made by the more than two billion people whose livelihoods depend directly on crops, livestock, fisheries or forests. Ensuring appropriate incentives for these people is essential."

Population growth, rapid economic development, increasing demand for biofuels and climate change are putting environmental resources under pressure throughout the world. For instance, agriculture is expected to feed a world population that will increase from six to nine billion by 2050.

One of the important reasons for environmental degradation is the perception that many of nature's services are free - no one owns them or is rewarded for them and farmers have little incentive to protect them. In addition, subsidies that encourage the production of marketed goods at the expense of other ecosystem services can aggravate their degradation.

Incentives

Current incentives tend to favour the production of food, fibre, and increasingly, biofuels, but they typically under-value other beneficial services that farmers can provide, such as carbon storage, flood control, clean water provision or biodiversity conservation.

Farmers can provide better environmental outcomes, but they need incentives to do so. Payments for environmental services represent one way of increasing incentives to adopt improved agricultural practices--and even to offset pollution generated in other sectors.

However, "payments may also have adverse impacts on poverty and food security in some cases, should they result in a reduction in demand for agricultural employment or increases in food prices," noted Dr Diouf.

Carbon sink

Farmers will need to play an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change, the FAO report said.

Agriculture plays an important role as a carbon "sink" through sequestering and storing greenhouse gases, especially as carbon in soils, plants and trees. Less deforestation, planting of trees, tillage reduction, soil cover increase and improved grassland management could, for example, lead to the storage of more than two billion tonnes of carbon in around 50 countries between 2003 and 2012.

"Well-designed payments for environmental services are one way to help farmers to change land-use practices and make farming more environmentally friendly," said Leslie Lipper, Senior Environmental Economist. "These are payments for real services farmers can provide, much like farmers are paid for the rice or coffee they produce."

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The report however cautions that payments for environmental services are not the best solution in all situations, and that significant implementation challenges remain.

Commodity bourses eye carbon trading
16 Nov 2007, 0000 hrs IST,Nitin Sethi,TNN

NEW DELHI: The carbon market is heating up and there is a race even among the commodity exchanges to grab a bit of the good thing going around. In what is turning out to be a battle of sorts, the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Ltd (NCDEX) and the Multi Commodities Exchange (MCX) have begun to lobby to snatch the early bird advantage of running the first official carbon credit market on the lines of other commodity markets.

Though MCX was the first mover, approaching Forwards Market Commission to allow trading, this week, NCDEX put in a proposal with the nodal environment ministry for setting up a separate exchange to trade carbon credits. But the government is still unsure about how to treat carbon credits - as a fiscal tool or a commodity.

"It is not a physical good, so we still have to sort out how to deal with it, the proposal is at a preliminary stage of evaluation," said a senior environment ministry official. Ditto for FMC which is also debating how to deal with an intangible like carbon trading.

Till date, the Income Tax Act also does not address the issue of receipts of money against carbon credits. But in coming years, with the carbon trade bound to grow, sources say the issue would come up before the government.
The NCDEX is supported by the Chicago Climate Exchange, a US-based market operator which has been keen to make an entry into the Indian market for almost a year now.

Till date, about 29 million credits have been generated in India but due to lack of an organized market are sold by brokers and multinational firms discreetly. "Price disclosure is an issue with the carbon market, one doesn’t know if the company or entity generating these credits by investing in carbon credits is getting a competitive price or being fleeced."

The two biggest markets for Indian credits today are EU and Japan but in coming years if US and Australia also join the international regime that regulates greenhouse gas emissions and allows trading in emission reduction certificates and emission allowances, then experts believe the market size could flourish in the coming years. But, that is long way off, not expected to come through before 2012 when the existing internationally negotiated agreement - the Kyoto Protocol - lapses.

A major chunk of traders in the carbon certificates are reluctant at the moment to see a formal market and claim the volumes are too low at present to allow such an exchange to work well. Where such exchanges are set up, like in EU, carbon allowances are sold like any other commodity in spot and forward markets.

US, which is not party to international trading regime, also has the Chicago Climate Exchange which does business on voluntary emission reduction certificates. The Indian exchange, experts predict could be handling both types of market - certificates under the Kyoto Protocol as well the certificates generated outside the protocol.