carbon markets

The issue of climate change as it relates to the Olympic Games has been largely overshadowed by Beijing’s poor air quality. Understandably, Olympic organizers have had their hands full in an attempt to decrease local pollution and improve local air quality over the short-term, leaving little resources for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is unfortunate given the scale of GHG emissions associated with the Olympics.

However, regulating the aggregated emissions at a utility-level makes sense from a regulatory perspective and quantifying indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity use makes sense to individual companies because it is so closely tied to cost-saving efforts from energy efficiency projects. This example should start to demonstrate how complicated GHG legislation can become when ownership of emissions is itself a difficult concept to grasp.

GHG management is most often still the domain of environmental professionals, but because GHG emissions may be viewed as potential liabilities, and present financial opportunities for some, in the near future, company executives are increasingly looking for greater visibility into the data.

This week let ’s consider the question, “Are offsets inspirational?” Here we examine offsets from the 'innovation' side, and highlight the potential for offset opportunities to motivate the development and widespread adoption of new and cleaner technologies.

In my previous role as Executive Director of LiveNeutral I regularly received emails from friends and colleagues sharing the website or videos developed by the “CheatNeutral” (http://cheatneutral.com/). They asked if I though it somehow damaged or diminished the objective of LiveNeutral which in part promotes the use of carbon offsets as a tool to help prevent catastrophic climate change. This pertains as much to the work of ClimateCHECK as it does to LiveNeutral and is an important concept to consider for those of us in or interested in the carbon markets industry.

While Mr. Ban Ki Moon, U.N.

Agriculture is a prominent topic in the current policy and market discussions regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. Crop practices and livestock management are scrutinized for energy intensity and GHG emissions and mitigation potential. Biofuels policies are criticized as a threat to food supplies. Food, the practices providing it, and the countryside from which it comes, continue to gain attention in the ongoing debate concerning economic and environmental sustainability.