Commodity Online
Emissions from companies covered under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme has fallen by 11.2% in 2009 helped largely by economic downturn, The Guardian reported (www.guardian.co.uk). This has resulted in minor gains in price of carbon credits as uncertainty over the market has been remeoved.The preliminary data revealed that carbon emissions fell right across the EU with emissions falling 12.5% in Britain, 8.4% in Germany, 16.3% in Spain and 16.4% in Italy.However, Alessandro Vitelli, director of strategy and intelligence at analyst firm IDEAcarbon, said that gaps in the data made it difficult for carbon traders to get a clear picture about potential demand for EU emission allowance credits (EUAs), The Guardian report said.

Any increase in the price of EUAs is likely to increase pressure on energy prices, strengthening the case for energy efficiency investments while also helping to stimulate spending on low carbon energy sources

Asia's first carbon credits scheme launched
Japan has launched Asia's first carbon credits trading scheme, Times of India reported. The nation has pledged to cut green house gas emissions by 25% by 2020 from 1990 levels.In Tokyo, in the shorter term, the businesses will have to cut Carbon Dioxide emissions by six percent during the 2010-2014 period compared to their average emissions of recent years.

Under the scheme starting in 2011, companies that cannot meet the target will have to buy "right-to-pollute" credits from those that can, or will face fines and the bad publicity of having their names published, Times of India report added.

Tokyo's Governor Shintaro Ishihara, known for his strong nationalist and ecological ideas, led the city's unsuccessful bid to host a green 2016 Olympic Games, which he promised "would save planet Earth". Rio de Janeiro beat Tokyo, Chicago and Madrid to host the Games.

Spain steps up action as carbon trading fraud
Spanish police have arrested nine people on charges of avoiding Euro 50 mn in tax linked to trading in carbon credits, according to Businessgreen.com.

The Spanish investigation is part of a wider EU probe into VAT fraud that is estimated to have cost governments €5bn in lost revenue.Carousel fraud occurs when goods, in this case greenhouse gas emissions credits – known as EUAs – are bought and imported tax-free from other EU countries, then sold to domestic buyers, charging them VAT. The sellers then disappear without paying the tax to governments. The practice can be repeated numerous times, hence the name carousel fraud.

However, police forces across Europe are now cracking down on the fraud and increasingly working together to track the perpetrators, Businessgreen.com report said.

Elsewhere in Europe, Norwegian police this week charged five men with similar tax fraud offences relating to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Although Norway is not part of the EU, it operates its own carbon market that integrates with the EU's wider emissions trading scheme.A number of arrests have been made in France and the Netherlands in the past year.

Big Four advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has valued the global carbon market at $125bn (£82bn) in 2009, a figure that it expects to grow significantly. But according to PwC's fraud risk report published in February, alongside burgeoning business opportunities, there are growing opportunities for criminals to engage in fraudulent activities

IPR Global Whey to fight global warming
International Protein Research (IPR)(tm) will be launching Global Whey with a partial charitable purpose. IPR has announced that up to 5% of net profit for every sale of Global Whey Protein will be donated to various green charities that fight global warming and encourage green sustainable living. Bradley D. Fountain, President of IPR, explained that Global Whey(tm) is "more than just a protein, its an agent of change." Whether it’s melting glaciers, deforestation, or other environmental threats, global warming impacts the world we inhabit. Fountain asks "Why just buy any protein when your purchase can actually support a cause that affects our families and generations to come."

IPR intends to donate this money to charities that promote green communities and environmental policy. One such recipient, Global Green, USA, works to educate millions of people through programs such as their Global Solar Report Card that grades the effectiveness of solar technology in countries worldwide. Global Green helps protect water supplies from agricultural runoff and pesticides and also promotes building greener schools and cities around the country and world. These communities learn to efficiently use local and natural resources while maintaining their quality of life. Other charitable projects are more local such as Solar One, an organization that educates New York City residents on environmental responsibility. IPR and Global Whey wants to be a positive force in an both an individuals health and the greater planet that everyone inhabits, a press release said.

SSV effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions
Sustainable Silicon Valley (SSV), a collaborative association of organizations including leading businesses, governments and non-profits throughout Silicon Valley aimed at producing significant regional environmental improvement and resource conservation, is partnering with SSV member Ennovationz, a provider of free, expert and independent guidance to help make homes more energy efficient and green.

The partnership launches with The Ennovationz Greenathon, a year long, group competition starting Earth Day (April 22, 2010) to reduce residential CO2 emissions of employee and member organization households. Besides bragging rights as the ‘Greenest of the Green’ almost $20,000 in cash and prizes will be awarded to groups and individual participants.

“The Silicon Valley region is playing an increasingly critical and visible role in the battle to combat climate change and we see Ennovationz as a valuable partner in that fight,” said Marianna Grossman, Executive Director of Sustainable Silicon Valley. “What’s unique about Ennovationz is that it adds tracking and accountability into the home, in strong alignment with our goal of demonstrating carbon reduction outcomes. Ennovationz empowers residents to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of their homes.”

And it’s not just Sustainable Silicon Valley joining up. Local companies and organizations including Echelon Corporation, SolutionSet and Astia have also pre-launch signups to the challenge. Clean Energy Associates, a provider of corporate green fairs, has partnered with Ennovationz and Sustainable Silicon Valley for employee outreach.

Ennovationz provides free-of-charge, tools and resources to groups and individuals to track energy consumption and carbon emissions including secure, automatic updates based upon actual utility bills. Groups and individuals can make commitments, create a personalized plan and monitor their actual progress toward meeting their goals.

“Twenty-percent of our nation’s energy consumption and carbon emissions come from our homes,” said Martha Amram, founder and CEO of Ennovationz.com. ''And what is alarming is that half of that energy is wasted. Overwhelmingly people are interested in improving their home energy efficiency and reducing their carbon footprint. By providing free expert advice and providing a fun, competitive environment with the Ennovationz Greenathon, we can make a measurable, positive impact.''

Global warming mitigation efforts not enough
Though 75 nations signed commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, it isn't enough to limit global warming, U.N. officials said in Germany.

The United Nations said 75 nations pledged to limit their greenhouse gas emissions following a December climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said those pledges, however, fell short of his expectations.

"It is clear that while the pledges on the table are an important step toward the objective of limiting growth of emissions, they will not in themselves suffice to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius," he said in his latest report. Germany hosts the next round of UNFCCC talks starting April 9 followed by two weeks of negotiations.

Get geopolitical analysis to spot trends

De Boer called on world leaders to take the initiative at the next major climate conference November in Mexico.
"The climate conference at the end of this year in Mexico ... needs to put in place effective cooperative mechanisms capable of bringing about significant acceleration of national, regional and international action both to limit the growth of emissions and to prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change," he said.

US to fund 17 projects on climate change
The U.S. government says it is funding 17 projects to better understand future climate change conditions and their effects on fish and other wildlife.

Officials said the projects include studies of alterations in Florida's ecosystems, potential impacts on Great Lakes fish, sea-level rise impacts on San Francisco Bay marshes, and the effects of melting glaciers on Alaska's freshwater coastal systems.
The U.S. Geological Survey funded the projects through the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center.

"Our future holds new climate conditions and new habitat responses, and managers need projections based on sound science to assess how our landscapes may change and to develop effective response strategies for species survival," said Susan Haseltine, USGS associate director for biology.

The National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and other USGS scientific programs will work closely with eight regional Climate Science Centers being established by the Department of the Interior. Officials said those centers will provide scientific information, tools and techniques needed to manage land, water, wildlife and cultural resources in the face of climate change.

Environmental processes reach tipping points
A U.S. scientist says people need to pay more attention to all of Earth's environmental processes because many of them are reaching critical tipping points.

University of Minnesota Professor Jon Foley, director of the university's Institute on the Environment, said climate change is the focus of much of today's political debate, but other indicators of Earth's health are just as important.

Foley argues that while climate change gets ample attention, species loss and nitrogen pollution exceed safe limits by greater degrees. And he says such environmental processes as ocean acidification and stratospheric ozone depletion are also moving toward dangerous thresholds.

The professor says swift action is needed to address developments that move the global environment and human life into dangerous new territory. He said the first steps should include promptly switching to low-carbon energy sources, curtailing land clearing and revolutionizing agricultural practices.
The research is featured as part of the cover story of Scientific American magazine's April issue.

Ocean acidification to affect marine eco systems
British researchers say ocean acidification, the result of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, could significantly affect marine ecosystems. Newcastle University scientists say they performed experiments in which they simulated ocean acidification and found the decrease in ocean pH (increased acidity) resulted in a sharp decline of a biogeochemically important group of bacteria known as the Marine Roseobacter clade.

"This is the first time that a highly important bacterial group has been observed to decline in significant numbers with only a modest decrease in pH," said postgraduate researcher Michael Maguire.
The Marine Roseobacter clade, the scientists said, is responsible for breaking down a sulfur compound that's produced by photosynthesizing plankton. This end product is taken up and used by numerous bacteria as an important source of sulfur, the researchers said.
A fraction of the sulfur compound is turned into dimethylsulfide -- a naturally occurring gas that encourages the formation of clouds that reflect solar radiation back into space leading to a cooling of the Earth's surface.

The scientists hypothesize the decline of the Marine Roseobacter clade through ocean acidification might alter the release of dimethylsulfide into the atmosphere and affect the amount of available sulfur. That, they said, will have a significant impact on the ocean's productivity and the overall global climate system. The study is being presented this week in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the spring meeting of the Society for General Microbiology.

China planting programs to fight deforesation
Planting programs in China is slowing the rate of deforestation but the global rate is still high, a report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said. The FAO in its 2010 report on the rate of deforestation shows a steady decline each year during the past decade, though the rate "is still alarmingly high."

The "Global Forest Resources Assessment" showed around 13 million hectares of forest were lost to other uses or natural causes since 2000. During the 1990s, that figure was closer to 16 million hectares, the report said.

South America and the rest of Africa had the highest rate of deforestation for the assessment's reporting period with 7.4 million hectares lost.

Brazil and Indonesia reversed course from the 1990s and slowed their rate of deforestation "significantly." Asia showed a net gain of around 2.2 million hectares annually, the report said. Programs to replant trees in China, Vietnam, India and the United States have added more than 7 million hectares of forest each year. Forests store nearly 290 gigatons of carbon in their biomass and cover more than 30 percent of the world's land area.

The report reviewed forest information from 233 countries and areas

Tornados strike North Carolina
Tornados struck near Belmont, N.C., and in Florida's Broward County and rainfall records fell from North Carolina to Massachusetts, weather officials said. The North Carolina tornado damaged businesses and a mobile home community, WCNC-TV, Charlotte, N.C., reported. Weather officials said the tornado carried winds of about 90 mph.

More than 2 inches of rain fell along the eastern seaboard, with some areas reporting nearly 4 inches, AccuWeather.com reported, noting at least 12 daily rainfall records were broken.

More rain was expected Tuesday in already saturated southern New England, forecasters said. Rough surf was forecast along the Northeast coast.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency Monday for the second time in March, activating National Guard units to help the waterlogged state, The Boston Globe reported .

Patrick said all rivers in the state are in danger of flooding. The Charles and Sudbury rivers were above flood stage, and officials were watching the Blackstone in Northbridge, the Neponset in Norwood, the Assabet in Maynard and the Shawsheen in Wilmington.

Forecasters warned travelers along the Interstate 95 corridor from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine, to expect delays on the ground and in the air because of rainy conditions.

In North Carolina, residents of the mobile home community said the metal roofing from nearby Parkdale Mills punched a hole in the side of a mobile home. No injuries were reported.

NWS officials said the Florida tornado uprooted trees, wrecked fences and downed power lines, the South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale reported. Weather officials said winds were about 80 mph. No injuries were reported, the newspaper said. Thousands of Florida Power and Light customers were without power for several hours last Monday

Thousand year Freeze may have caused glaciers to advance killing 35 families of N.American mammals.
A thousand-year freeze that began in 11,000 B.C. may have been caused by thousands of atomic-force chunks from a disintegrating comet, a British scientist said.

The fragments, each hitting with the force of a 1-megaton nuclear bomb, triggered fires that covered whole continents and filled the atmosphere with smoke and soot that blotted out the sun, said Bill Napier, a professor at Cardiff University Astrobiology Center.

Napier said Earth may have strayed into a dense trail of fragments being shed by a large comet.

The resulting freeze caused glaciers to advance, disrupted human cultures and wiped out an estimated 35 families of North American mammals, The Daily Telegraph reported last week.

There is "compelling evidence" the main comet has been breaking apart ever since, leading to meteor streams known as the Taurid Complex, Napier wrote in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (With inputs from EUNewsNet & Officialwire, PRNewswire, PRWeb)

Post your comment  (0)

Connect:

Post to Twitter

Post to Facebook