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In a 3 year project, the RSA is exploring the idea for personal carbon trading, originally described by David Fleming in 1996. CarbonLimited is bringing together expertise from the commercial, social and financial sectors to subject ideas about personal carbon trading to rigorous analysis. The project has so far been investigating how a personal carbon trading scheme might function, as well as analysing its potential social and economic impacts.

WindLogics Announces Seminar in Conjunction with CanWEA Annual Conference and Trade Show

WindLogics Announces Seminar in Conjunction with CanWEA Annual Conference and Trade Show

The European Commission is pushing for the liberalisation of electricity markets as part of a wider attempt to forge an EU energy policy. EurActiv takes a closer look at the liberalisation drive, including power trading and challenges specific to the electricity sector.

It's called New Urbanism, and Christopher Leinberger, an urban planning professor at the University of Michigan, visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution   and author of The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream  , says the movement is changing the American dream:

The National Green Pages™ is a directory listing nearly 3,000 businesses that have made firm commitments to sustainable, socially just principles, including the support of sweatshop-free labor, organic farms, fair trade, and cruelty-free products. For every category of conventional consumer goods and services, there are green businesses that can meet your needs. The National Green Pages™ lists baby care products, organic, fair trade, flavored teas, and fuel-efficient cars for rent among the thousands of products. With each purchase you make through the National Green Pages™, you know you’re supporting truly green businesses.

Discredited strategy Increasing allegations of corruption and profiteering are raising serious questions about the UN-run carbon trading mechanism aimed at cutting pollution and rewarding clean technologies, writes Patrick McCully, executive director of US thinktank International Rivers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Trade in the world greenhouse gas credits market rose 80 percent last year as emissions rules became a concern for more companies, a carbon analysis group said on Friday.

This article demonstrates that the large feed-in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in Germany constitute a subsidization regime that, if extended to 2020, threatens to reach a level comparable to that of German hard coal production, a notoriously outstanding example of misguided political intervention. Yet, as a consequence of the coexistence of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) and theEUEmissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the increased use of renewable energy technologies does not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ETS alone. Similarly disappointing is the net employment balance, which is likely to be negative if one takes into account the opportunity cost of this form of solar photovoltaic support. Along the lines of the International Energy Agency (IEA 2007:77), we therefore recommend the immediate and drastic reduction of the magnitude of the feed-in tariffs granted for solar-based electricity. Ultimately, producing electricity on this basis is among the most expensive greenhouse gas abatement options.

According to David Victor, a leading carbon trading analyst at Stanford University, as many as two-thirds of the supposed "emission reduction" credits being produced by the CDM from projects in developing countries are not backed by real reductions in pollution. Those pollution cuts that have been generated by the CDM, have often been achieved at a stunningly high cost: billions of dollars (or pounds) could have been saved by cutting the emissions through international funds, rather than through the CDM's supposedly efficient market mechanism.

The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will: Watch the Video Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future. Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined. Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America. Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025. Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Bank of America says it has decided to start factoring a cost of carbon-dioxide emissions into its decisions about whether to underwrite debt for new coal-fired plants. Specifically, the bank says it anticipates a federal cap that would require a utility to pay between $20 and $40 for every ton of CO2 its power plants emit. Today in Europe, which already has imposed caps, a permit to emit a ton of CO2 is trading at about $29. Bank of America’s announcement comes a week after three other big banks – Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley – announced their own “Carbon Principles” – voluntary standards those banks say will make them less likely to underwrite financing on conventional coal-fired power plants.

growth is being slowed by insufficient electricity grid infrastructure, hesitant investors, and rising raw material costs, notably for copper and steel

People power

A lack of trained technicians and engineers also weighs heavily on the minds of the industry. Finding enough skilled workers "is an enormous challenge in Europe," according to Kjaer, who cited examples of companies that are simply unable to fill dozens of vacancies for qualified engineers technical staff.

WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - The World Bank on Monday launched a new carbon credit trading guarantee that will allow private-sector firms in developing countries to tap the growing 40 billion euro ($63.11 billion) global carbon market, a senior official said.