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Growth & Climate
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China to Start Carbon Trading While U.S. Senate Fiddles Around |
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Go to Original July 23, 2010 Jake Schmidt | NRDC The irony could hardly be stronger: amid reports that an obstructionist minority has blocked US Senate action from moving on clean energy and climate legislation that would create real incentives for clean energy, news reports from China indicate that top government officials met this week to discuss how China can start its own carbon trading program. As NRDC’s Executive Director wrote, continuing obstructionism in the Senate is blocking the path forward on essential clean energy and climate legislation in the US that would create good clean energy jobs, reduce carbon pollution and protect our children’s and country’s future. Meanwhile, China keeps moving forward on clean energy and climate change action. New reports by the China Daily press agency confirmed today that China will include carbon trading in its 12th Five-Year Plan (the effective law of the land in China), which begins next year and ends in 2015 (as both the English and Chinese news outlets reported). China’s emissions trading system will most likely be implemented in specific economic sectors such as coal-fired power generation. As China Daily reports: “The country is set to begin domestic carbon trading programs during its 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015) to help it meet its 2020 carbon intensity target. The decision was made at a closed-door meeting chaired by Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and attended by officials from related ministries, enterprises, environmental exchanges and think tanks” The carbon trading program would help China meet its goal of reducing carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020. The story reports that the government of China sees carbon trading as a market-based, cost-effective supplement to current administrative measures to reduce emissions, such as requiring the Top 1000 energy consuming enterprises to sign agreements with the central government to improve their energy efficiency. |
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Trucking Toward Climate Change |
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Saturday 22 May 2010 by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Report The tar sands mining project in Alberta, Canada, is possibly the largest industrial project in human history and critics claim it could also be the most destructive. The mining procedure for extracting oil from a region referred to as the "tar sands," located north of Edmonton, releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production procedures and will likely become North America's single largest industrial contributor to climate change. Most of the oil produced by the project will likely be consumed by the United States, a country that, along with Canada, is already heavily invested, on many levels, in the project. The project is operated by Imperial Oil, whose parent company, ExxonMobil Canada, has a long-term production goal of more than 300,000 barrels of bitumen (extra heavy oil) per day. To do this, they will require new equipment to be shipped through the United States. Trucks and trailers moving specialized, nontoxic mining equipment from where it is manufactured in Korea to the Kearl oil sands project, located in the Athabasca oil sands in northeastern Alberta, are slated to use highways in Idaho and Montana to transport the gear. This would happen after it has been shipped across the Pacific Ocean to Portland, Oregon, where it would then be barged up the Hood and Snake Rivers to Lewiston, Idaho, from which it would be hauled over land into Canada. Pius Rolheiser, a spokesman for Imperial Oil, said this is the most cost-effective method of moving the equipment, much to the chagrin of many residents in these states. The basis of most opposition to this idea is that the tar sands project will contribute so heavily toward worsening climate change. There are other criticisms as well, like those aimed at the size of the equipment to be shipped along routes that are designated "wild and scenic" highways that wind precariously through fragile ecosystems. |
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Carbon tax likely, expert forecasts |
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Go to Original May 10, 2010 By Fu Jing | China Daily Measure aims to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions China may start levying a carbon tax and further boost prices of fossil fuel for the next five years as a crucial incentive to cut greenhouse gas emissions and help realize green targets, a government-affiliated expert forecast. "We expect China will start to levy various taxes only if they are helpful in mitigating greenhouse emissions and developing a low-carbon economy," Jiang Kejun, a senior researcher with the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Sunday. "I think a carbon tax is likely to be levied during the 12th Five-year plan (2011-15) period," said Jiang. The National Development and Reform Commission is a Cabinet department responsible for the country's mid- and long-term development plan. Apart from a carbon tax, Jiang said the government may begin to levy environmental and resource taxes. Meanwhile, China will greatly boost subsidies to support low-carbon technology research and development. At a weekend climate change forum organized by the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, Jiang told China Daily that the government is serious about realizing its target of cutting carbon intensity by 40-45 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels and the government will implement "tougher measures" in the coming five years to realize the green goal. Jiang said the taxation and fiscal incentives are just part of a portfolio of possible policy changes, which may turn into reality when China implements its low-carbon development pathway. |
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Cleantech thriving in California under AB 32, shows data |
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Go to Original April 5, 2010 by Dallas Kachan, Cleantech Group _qoptions = { qacct:"p-03EuZ32vOQaCE" }; <img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-03EuZ32vOQaCE.gif" style="display: none" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt="Quantcast" /> if(sr_adspace_width==300 && typeof(adify_bk_fired)=="undefined") { document.write('  '); adify_bk_fired=1; } Efforts to repeal California's progressive emissions reduction law are gaining steam heading into the state's general elections this November. The fate of the bill is likely to become a central issue in the elections. Already, both Republican gubernatorial candidates have called for suspending the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, first introduced as AB 32. It was signed into law September 27th, 2006. With the rhetoric intensifying, it begs the question of what effect the legislation has had on the state's clean technology sector and job creation. While the data below doesn't prove causality, figures tracked by the Cleantech Group show California—the blue segment of the bars below—became the clear dominant U.S. state for cleantech investment in 2006, when AB 32 was signed into law. Since then, in every quarter since 3Q06, just as the bill was about to be signed, cleantech companies based in California have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in venture financing, dramatically more than any other state. And the gap has widened over time. Venture capital has proven to be the fastest, most efficient driver of job creation. A Cleantech Group analysis in conjunction with environmental policy advocates Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), estimated that 2,700 direct jobs are created for every $100M in venture investment, or about $37,000 per job on average. |
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Low-Carbon Development is imperative for China: New report debates country’s green growth future |
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Go to Original 15 April 2010, Beijing According to the latest China Human Development Report entitled, China and a Sustainable Future, Towards a Low Carbon Economy and Society, China faces “no other choice” but to shift to a low carbon approach in shaping the country’s future social and economic development agenda. Commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with Renmin University of China, the publication asserts that the most strategic option for policymakers is to embark on a low-carbon development path that will preserve and increase its human development achievements in the years to come.
The report, launched today in Beijing, contends that the nation’s current growth model will be difficult to sustain for the long term. “China is at a critical juncture where the ‘business as usual’ growth model is insufficient in meeting the country’s emerging challenges and pressures,” said Khalid Malik, UN Resident Coordinator in China. “The shift to a low carbon development pathway is imperative as China balances further economic development with environmental sustainability and the need to respond to the threat of climate change,” he continued.
“As the country sits at a crossroads in preparing its 12th Five-Year (2011-15) Plan, implements valuable initiatives towards a 40-45 percent carbon intensity cut by 2020, and combats unprecedented drought conditions throughout southwest China, the report is released at a time where its conclusions and recommendations can play a significant role in shaping the nation’s rapidly evolving policies on sustainability,” said Malik.
Human development is not necessarily accompanied by increases in greenhouse gas emissions
The publication breaks new ground in linking economic growth, carbon emissions and human development in China. Finding that some of the more economically advanced provinces in China are the least carbon intensive while those which have lower income and lower human development indicators maintain higher carbon emission patterns, the report indicates that human development is not necessarily accompanied by increases in greenhouse gas emissions. A more sustainable and low carbon development path, and one which is compatible with advancing human development goals, is indeed possible. While past economic and social progress in China and elsewhere have come at a cost, including damage to the environment, future development can follow a different trajectory. |
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