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Articles in category: Cap and Trade
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The Global Carbon Market is Taking Shape - Triple Pundit
Read Full ArticleAustralia aims to transition from the carbon tax to a cap and trade system in 2015. As part of the new cap and trade system, the country plans to link with the EU ETS starting in 2015. The Australian legislature approved the linkage in December 2012 and a
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Europe’s Carbon Market Crisis: Why Does it Matter?
Read Full ArticleIn a blow for global efforts to mitigate climate change, the European Union’s eight-year-old carbon market is collapsing. Is this the death knell for cap and trade, or a useful lesson?
Mentions: Europe -
The Wall Street Journal Is Wrong Here: Low Carbon Permit Prices Are Just Great
Read Full ArticleThe Wall Street Journal tells us that the entire edifice of Europe's attempt at controlling carbon emissions has come tumbling down. They say this because the price of permits on the trading exchange has tumbled. But they seem to be unaware that low prices are just great, this is what we actually desire: One of the great policy bubbles of our times has been cap and trade for carbon emissions ...
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Why can't we give up fossil fuels?
Read Full ArticleDespite all the mounting scientific concern, the political rhetoric and the clean technology of the past decade, the growth rate in global carbon emissions has not reduced at all. Why? Because we continue to extract and burn fossil fuels more than ever before We have far more oil, coal and gas than we can safely burn. For all the millions of words written about climate change, the challenge ...
Mentions: Europe -
The Experts: Should There Be a Price on Carbon Emissions?
Read Full ArticleYes, there should be a price on carbon emissions. Directly pricing carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) provides a far better “bang for the buck” in mitigating climate change than many of the policies that have actually been put in place (such as feed-in tariffs or tax credits for wind and solar or fleet-averaged fuel efficiency standards for automobiles). Unfortunately, policies that dole out money and hide costs are often more politically palatable than policies that make costs explicit.
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Obama starts unveiling his plans for climate change, clean energy
Read Full ArticlePresident Obama starts to show his hand for how he'll keep support going for clean energy and greener vehicles, and also fight climate change, at a time when Congress won't likely approval major budget increases or aggressive policies.
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White House Appears Ready To Take On Coal Plants
Read Full ArticleSpeeches delivered by the president to a national television audience hew to this assumption: If the words and proposals survived vetting, the president must have wanted them there. So when, in his second inaugural and State of the Union addresses, President Obama devoted unexpectedly large passages to climate change, it did not go unnoticed.
Mentions: Barack Obama -
Who Should Share the Responsibility for Sustainability?
Read Full ArticleAbout two years ago, in December 2010, I addressed the different changes in our collective thinking that might usher in a sustainable world. It was argued that this depended to a great extent on folks “getting it” with respect to how people view sustainability and their responsibility (personal and corporate – although I understand some [...]
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Why taxing pollution deserves serious discussion
Read Full ArticlePrime Minister Stephen Harper and his party have recently attempted to demonize Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair for his alleged advocacy of a “job-killing carbon tax.” As has been widely noted, Mr. Mulcair and the NDP have, in fact, only called for a cap and trade system based on the broader principle of “polluter pay,” which would require major carbon polluters to purchase emission permits from the government or on a carbon market
Mentions: Netherlands -
Why 2012 hasn’t been such a bad year for cleantech
Read Full ArticleDespite a lot of hand wringing this year, various cleantech sectors are on the difficult path to market maturation, and not necessarily in a “crisis."
Mentions: Gartner -
Why Is DC Talking About a Carbon Tax Again?
Washington insiders at both ends of the political spectrum have begun talking about a carbon tax. The document "A Progressive Carbon Tax Will Fight Climate Change and Stimulate the Economy" by Richard Caperton of the Democrat-aligned Center for American Progress (CAP) is a little surprising because the assumption since 2009 has been that some version of a market-based cap-and-trade program was the only politically viable way to put a price on carbon emissions. Advocacy for a carbon tax by academRead Full ArticleMentions: Brookings Institution -
Relationships between Sustainability and Economics
Read Full ArticleWe’ve been discussing aspects of social impacts and sustainability in my last few articles. I’ve recently come across some excellent discussions on the interrelationship between sustainability and economics. The gist of the discussions is that there is not a trade-off between a sustainable business model or sustainable manufacturing and profit – one can minimize the [...]
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California Tackles Climate Change, But Will Others Follow?
Read Full ArticleCan California save the planet? The state that has instigated every key U.S. effort to curb fossil-fuel emissions since the 1960s now will tackle the greatest challenge of all—reining in greenhouse gases—with a cap-and-trade system launched this week. In a closed three-hour auction conducted online Wednesday, California's energy companies and large manufacturers placed their bids for 62 million permits that essentially give them the right to pollute. Using these chits and a healthy number of fre
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Renewables Growing Fastest But Can't Compete Without Help: BP
Read Full ArticleRenewable forms of energy are growing far faster than any other form of energy, a BP economist said in Chicago last week, but are unlikely to significantly impact the world’s reliance on fossil fuels without continued government interventions, such as a price on carbon. The world’s oil consumption grew by less than 1 percent in 2011, natural gas by 2 percent, coal by about 5 percent, and nuclear reactors contributed 4 percent less energy in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, according to Mark Finley, BP’s general manager for global energy markets.
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Obama Versus Romney On Energy -- In Depth This Time
Read Full ArticleCambridge, Mass.—Presidential debates are as much about style as they are about substance. But at a debate on energy at MIT on Friday, representatives from the Romney and Obama campaigns discussed the candidates’ views on energy in detail and drew clear differences between them on this issue.
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The Joy Of Green Energy: The Lights Go Out In 2015
Read Full ArticleIt's entirely possible to be convinced by the case about climate change and yet still believe that what we're doing about it is even worse than the original problem. It must be possible for that's the situation I find myself in. The latest little piece of news to underwrite this gloomy view is the news that the lights are likely to go out in my native UK, starting in only three year's time. Britain risks running out of energy generating capacity in the winter of 2015-16, according to the energy regulator Ofgem.
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Data Center Energy: Past, Present and Future (Part Two)
Read Full ArticleThis article is the part two of a three-part series on energy management in the data center. (See part one here.) Last week, I wrote about the past approaches to data center power management and the state of rising inefficiency. I presented a case for more accurately assessing current power consumption and explained why past approaches for calculating power requirements or manually measuring power were insufficient for establishing proactive energy-management policies.
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Green Blog: Obama and Romney Guardedly Address Climate Change
Read Full ArticleResponding to questions about science, Mitt Romney says he believes the world is getting warmer and "humans play a role in that warming."
Mentions: Barack Obama -
Renewable Energy in Today's Data Center
As Director of Mission Critical, Ron Vokoun, DBIA, LEED AP BD+C, leads the Mission Critical Division of Gray Construction. Ron is a 24-year veteran of the construction industry with a focus on mission critical facilities and design-build. You can find him on Twitter at @RonVokoun. His previous column covered Sustainability in Today’s Data Center. Much has been said about Greenpeace’s recent “How Clean is Your Cloud?” name-and-shame campaign where the advocacy group graded the top names in the daRead Full Article -
Renewable Energy in Today’s Data Center
Contrary to protests and reports from Greenpeace, a great deal of progress has been made in using forms of renewable energy by the leading companies in the data center industry, writes Ron Vokoun of Gray Construction. Items to consider when evaluating renewable energy, such as cost, the return on...Read Full Article -
Storytelling our energy future
Read Full Article“Cap and trade” was all the rage among Democrats a few years ago, but after careful consideration, I decided that it was too corruptible and ineffective, and decided to support a carbon tax instead. Breaking with my tribe on that point was ...
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China looking at carbon tax
China's lead negotiator on climate change says the world's largest emitter is considering imposing a tax on carbon to reduce the use of dirty energy as its economy grows. Su Wei, on a visit to Washington, said that the fast-developing Asian power was looking at the impact of an outright tax on carbon and whether it would overlap with China's plans for a pilot scheme on carbon emissions trading. "I think the carbon tax is one of the instruments that can be used," Su Wei told reporters on Wednesday during a visit to the World Resources Institute, a think-tank.Read Full Article -
40% of Firms Failing to Tackle Energy Efficiency, UK Says
More than 40 percent of companies ranked on their energy efficiency actions by the U.K. government failed to score a single point, it emerged yesterday. The Environment Agency’s Performance League Table ranks participants in the Carbon Reduction Commitment program, under which companies of a certain size have to purchase allowances for every ton of CO2 they emit. Unlike the EU cap and trade scheme, the CRC covers non-carbon-intensive sectors. Among the 22 organizations in joint first place on the CRC list were Manchester United, Johnson Wax, British American Tobacco, CB Richard Ellis, resort operator Center Parcs and several government agencies, including the Department of Energy and Climate Change. (Snapshot of the 22 organizations, above left.) Of the 2,103 companies ranked, 803 tied for last place, all with zero points. They included many major companies such as AstraZeneca, ConocoPhillips, Diageo, electronics retailer Dixons, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Kodak, Kraft ...Read Full Article
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