Commentary by Doug Boucher, special to www.mongabay.com
December 15, 2010Guest commentary by Doug Boucher, director of the Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative at the Union of Concerned Scientists
Amid the whirlwind of climate change news before and after the Cancún climate conference, including a landmark agreement on REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation, and related pro-forest actions), an important story seems to have passed by with little notice. Over the past two months, several new analyses have given clear evidence that deforestation has gone down over the past several years. In fact, the drop is quite impressive, and shows that of all the approaches to avoiding the worst consequences of global warming, reducing tropical deforestation is the one that has contributed by far the most to date.
The first analysis to come out, in October, was the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) for 2010. This compendium of data from all the countries on the planet is released every five years, and provides the broadest look at the state of the world’s forests. The new FRA data showed that tropical deforestation in the first decade of the 2000s was down 18% from the level of the 1990s, dropping from 11.33 million hectares per year in the 1990s to 9.34 million hectares per year in the 2000s. Furthermore, the rate dropped from the first 5 years of the decade to the second five years, principally due to a dramatic decline in Brazilian Amazon deforestation. The FRA 2010 data also showed that the rate of primary forest loss, not just total forest loss, has declined. …
Thursday, December 16, 2010
New data shows REDD+ is succeeding
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Global firms applaud new greenhouse gas yardsticks
BusinessGreen.com staff, BusinessGreen, Friday 20 August 2010 at 00:15:00
More than 60 companies complete road testing of new global standards for measuring carbon footprint of products and supply chains
More than 60 leading global firms have finished testing two new greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting standards, taking industry a step closer to a universal approach for measuring and managing emissions.
Sixty-two firms from 17 countries, including household names such as 3M, Deutsche Telekom and IKEA, tested blueprints for two new GHG protocol reporting and accounting standards.
The first protocol, dubbed "Product Lifecycle", provides a standardised approach for measuring the greenhouse gas emissions associated with individual products, while the second protocol, known as "Scope 3 (Corporate Value Chain)" , covers emissions from a business's supply chain.
The standards were developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which said the new benchmarks should help firms and public sector organisations measure, analyse and manage GHG emissions through their wider value chains.
"Companies, policymakers and individuals are looking for ways to reduce their contribution to climate change, but do not always have the tools they need to make informed decisions," the partners said. "Increasingly, companies are looking beyond their own boundaries and developing strategies to reduce emissions in their supply chains and in the products they make and sell."
According to WRI and WBCSD, the majority of firms involved in the testing encountered little difficulty when using the protocols and were able to produce reports detailing their supply chain, or Scope 3, emissions. …
Global firms applaud new greenhouse gas yardsticks
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Live-blogging Al Gore at Microsoft today
If the campus wifi permits, I’ll be live-blogging today’s presentation by Al Gore, starting at noon. Got my copy of An Inconvenient Truth for autographing, just in case.
11:29: Off to Building 33!
11:52: At Building 33, after some wifi fear, we seem to be up and running.
12:04: And we’re off.
12:05: Standing O – “I used to be the next President of the US!”
12:06: I am streaming Gore live at http://qik.com/galasyn
12:08: Mentions ocean acidification right out of the gate. Awesome.
12:12: I’m not in a favorable location for my Qik stream. :(
12:15: The new book is 99% about solutions.
12:17: Solar PV drives a new, distributed energy production system, similar to the internet for information.
12:18: Chapter Two is about wind. US wind production is expanding rapidly.
12:20: Geothermal is widely misunderstood. Now dominated by new drilling tech from the oil and gas industry.
12:21: Gore: The geothermal system for his house completely eliminated his nat. gas bill.
12:22: 35,000-year supply of energy in the US from enhanced geothermal.
12:23: Biofuels are controversial, but corn-based ethanol has been a disappointment. Competition with food prices is more perceived than real.
12:25: Nuclear and CCS have a limited benefit. Cost is prohibitive.
12:27: CCS carries a "burden of implausibility."
12:28: Gore used to represent oak Ridge, TN, where everybody is immune to radiation. "Homer sometimes makes mistakes."
12:29: Nuclear plants come in only one size: Extra large.
12:31: Gore sees nuclear weapons proliferation as a big drawback for nuke power.
12:32: We are burning and cutting and destroying so many of the forests, that 20% of CO2 emissions come from deforestation.
12:34: Industrial agriculture serves to decarbonize the soil.
12:35: Shout out to Bill and Melinda Gates, for funding a new global soil survey.
12:37: How many in this room had grandparents with five or six siblings? All hands go up. How many here have that many children? One. "Congratulations, sir."
12:38: Gore favors both a revenue-neutral carbon tax and cap-and-trade.
12:40: We have the capacity for multi-generational planning -- Medieval cathedrals, for example.
12:41: This is not a political issue. It is fundamentally a moral issue.
12:44: Q & A now: "Developing nations are following our bad development example. What can be done?" Gore answer: Developed nations must assist in "leap-frogging" to clean technologies.
12:45: China plants 2.5 times more trees than all the world together.
12:47: Steady stream of nonsense from one cable network in the US.
12:50: US in the only country where there's still doubt about climate science.
12:55: "What advice have you given Pres. Oama on climate change, and is he following it?" Gore laughs.
12:56: Praises Obama's and EPA's efforts so far. The US record on international negotiations has not been as stellar.
1:00: And now I’m trapped behind the book-signing line.
Friday, October 2, 2009
IT industry to finalise global carbon footprinting standard
BusinessGreen.com Staff, BusinessGreen, Friday 2 October 2009 at 00:15:00
UN-backed agency to agree carbon measurement methodology next month
The global IT and communications industry is on track to release a new methodology for measuring the carbon footprint of a vast array of IT products designed to provide a standardised approach for tracking the sector's carbon emissions.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency that represents the global IT and communications industry, will next month host a meeting of one of its standardisation study groups where it expects to finalise the new standard.
"At the moment the carbon figures you see from IT companies differ as everyone is using different methodologies," said Malcolm Johnson, director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. "This will give the industry the credible figures it needs – we are aiming to finalise it as an ITU standard next month." …
Johnson insisted technologies such as online meeting systems and smart-grid systems demonstrated that IT had a key role to play in delivering deep cuts in overall emissions. "We recently undertook some research which showed that IT could help cut global emissions 15 per cent by 2020," he said. " We are going to Copenhagen to highlight that IT can play a key role in cutting emissions."
IT industry to finalise global carbon footprinting standard
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Papua New Guinea suspends carbon chief amid reports of dodgy deals
Yvonne Chan in Hong Kong, BusinessGreen, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 09:45:00
Foreign firms allegedly paid millions of dollars for unauthorised carbon credits
Theo Yasause, Papua New Guinea's Office of Climate Change (OCC) director, was suspended earlier this week following reports that he issued unofficial carbon credits worth millions of dollars from 39 different forestry projects.
The OCC has been accused of hiring two international brokers to sell carbon credits without the consent of landowners. Moreover, Papua New Guinea does not currently have a legislative framework to issue carbon credits and ensure they are properly verified.
The Economist magazine has obtained documents that suggest a series of multimillion-dollar carbon trading deals were made with foreign companies under the proposed Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanism.
Additionally, the Australian Associated Press news agency claims it has obtained documents showing that Adelaide-based carbon credit broker Carbon Planet paid A$1.2m (£588m, $968m) for projects in Papua New Guinea.
A government investigation was launched last month over the allegations. At the time, Yasause said that stolen "sample" documents, which appear to bear his signature, were leaked to the media.
He has denied any suggestion of wrongdoing, telling Australia's Canberra Times newspaper: "I have not sold or made any money out of this process. I have done no deals, nor sold any credits." …
Papua New Guinea suspends carbon chief amid reports of dodgy deals
Monday, May 25, 2009
Groundbreaking proposals unveiled for the inclusion of climate change data in annual reports
(Carbon Disclosure Project) The Climate Disclosure Standards Board today proposed a global framework to guide corporations on which climate change-related data to include in annual reports. Unveiled at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, proponents say the standardized inclusion of such data in annual reports will enhance corporate transparency for the benefit of shareholders and prospective investors alike. …
Groundbreaking proposals unveiled for the inclusion of climate change data in annual reports
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