Group items tagged

The first crop-land agricultural credits were introduced to the carbon market this summer, but the biggest functioning U.S. cap and trade market - California's - hangs in limbo.

Mexico will launch a pilot cap-and-trade program with voluntary participation from up to 60 power companies, according to media ...

Despite a recent auction that left many emissions permits unsold, the California cap and trade system has been a big success, helping the state reduce emissions back to just about 1990 levels while growing its economy.

China is planning to put an absolute cap on its carbon emissions, according to He Jiankun, the chairman of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change. The cap -- the first of its kind -- will be announced in China's next five-year plan and will come into force in 2016, He said. 

After trepidation about adding transportation fuels to the cap-and-trade mix, analysts say the latest carbon auction by California and Quebec could have ripple effects for companies and the economy.

A huge swath of the Antarctic ice cap is already crumbling, and preventing the thawing of the ice caps might now be impossible, a major new study suggests. The melting of the area studied alone would raise the world's sea level by nearly four feet, and total thawing could lead to up to a 12-foot surge in sea levels. Still, that probably won't happen for a century or two, since the ice is melting slowly, researchers say

Nestle's half-liter bottles of water sold in the US under the Deer Park, Pure Life, Poland Spring, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Arrowhead and Zephyrhills brands now feature the new How2Recycle label. The label reminds consumers to replace the cap before recycling the empty bottle.

Carbon markets are working, but challenges remain for making carbon markets work to support forest owners and businesses.

Unregulated carbon pollution from aviation is the fastest-growing source of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change. In fact, if the entire aviation sector were a country, it would be one of the top 10 carbon-polluting nations on the planet. The good news is that we now have a process in place to curb international aviation's skyrocketing emissions. For the first time ever, the United Nations' civil aviation body agreed last week to put a cap on the emissions for an international sector rather than a country. International aviation already accounts for over 2% of global carbon emissions. But this number will soar as demand for air travel continues to rises. In 2010, the aviation industry carried 2.4 billion passengers; in 2050, the number is forecast to rise to 16 billion.

While national leaders spout optimistic platitudes celebrating the great achievement of the globally unifying Paris Agreement on climate, environmentalists note that there is little in the way of substantial action plans behind the many promises made last December. Meanwhile, the most intense El Niño in history is leaving in its wake a world gripped by 7 months of record high temperatures; drought, water shortages, and famine (especially in India and Africa); wildfires (Fort McMurray, Canada); record coral bleaching; and a fast shrinking Arctic ice cap that set stunning early melt records this winter and spring.

Climate change is already taking a serious toll on the planet, leading to heat waves, water shortages, melting ice caps, dying coral reefs and the extinction or migration of fish stocks, according to a report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Decisions made -- or left unmade -- by policymakers in the immediate future will shape global society for the rest of the century, the panel's report warns. "Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change," said Rajendra K. Pachauri, the panel's chairman

The US Federal Trade Commission has taken action against six companies - ECM Biofilms, American Plastic Manufacturing, Champ, Clear Choice Housewares, Carnie Cap and AJM Packaging - for making false environmental marketing claims.

Coca-Coca, Dow Chemical and a slew of other players are teaming up with the nonprofit giant to attack a problem that has been explored very little up to now. 

Lawmakers in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont aim to introduce carbon pricing legislation, including carbon taxes and market-based carbon cap-and-trade measures,

A cap-and-trade bill proposed last month by California state Sen. Bob Wieckowski also would set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for the California Climate and Clean Energy Research Fund. The bill is headed to a Senate committee hearing, which hasn't yet been scheduled.

Trudeau (Chris Jackson/Getty Images) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will implement nationwide carbon emissions pricing in 2018. According to Trudeau's plan, provinces will be charged CA$10 per metric ton of carbon emissions produced, which will increase to CA$50 per metric ton during 2023.

When we first heard of green roofs, they sounded like a great idea, but one that would have a hard time gaining traction. Today, they are one of the great successes of green building, with more than 10,000 green roofs in the United States.

Increasingly common in Europe, municipal "waste-to-energy" incinerators are being touted as a green trash-disposal alternative. But critics contend that these large-scale incinerators tend to discourage recycling and lead to greater waste.