Category: Cap and Trade

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.

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 ...

The IndypendentWhat it Will Take to Make Renewable Energy a Reality in the USThe IndypendentStill, its main initiative on global warming has been an unsuccessful attempt to enact a “cap and trade” system–essentially, “in exchange for being allowed to operate a coal-fired power plant in Tennessee, we'll buy a forest in Brazil and not cut it ...and more »

Since the Kyoto Protocol was developed in 1997, an unlikely new global partnership of bankers and environmentalists has emerged. I call it the Carbon Coalition, and while it seems like a very 21st century development, I actually trace its emergence back to the arrival of Reaganism in the 1980s. Under Ronald Reagan, Americans began to see the market itself as a potential tool of government, something politicans could work with, rather than simply against (on the left) or for (on the right). With this shift, Reagan made it possible for Democrats, and their traditional constituencies, to change: It's safe to say that it was Reagan who begat Bill Clinton, who then begat Tony Blair. For better or worse, the political right, through success, made the left become more attendant to the values of market capitalism. This affected everyone in the Democrats' tent, including environmentalists.

Australia introduces carbon taxDatacenterDynamicsSingapore Telecom (Optus), Telstra, IBM, Fujitsu and Vodafone are a part of this list but some companies, including Fujitsu, said energy efficiency measures put in action in recent years have saved it from the top 500 list. ...and more »

The Australian Federal Government has announced a carbon tax of $23 per tonne effective from July 1 next year. Designed to slash the nation’s carbon emissions by 159 million tonnes a year, the tax will apply to Australia’s top 500 polluters under a two-phase fixed and flexible scheme. Under the first phase, carbon emitters will be able buy as many permits as required at the fixed price, which will rise 2.5 per cent each year until 2015 to $25.40.

UK businesses are calling for the government to scrap the its controversial carbon tax scheme The government is facing more ... The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme is a cap and trade scheme, started in April 2010 , which forces large organisations to monitor ...

Scrap CRC or restore it back to what it was, says CBIGreenwise BusinessWarning that the CRC was "untenable" as carbon tax, the CBI said the Government should get rid of it altogether and introduce a simpler mechanism or return it to back to being a 'revenue recycling' scheme. "We now have a carbon reduction scheme that ...and more »

The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) continues. However, amongst this uncertainty there may be an opportunity to make the scheme work better for public sector participants. The CRC was on the drawing board for a long time before finally coming into force last year. Almost as soon as the deadline for registration passed, at the end of September, fundamental changes were announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).

Nearly nine out of ten Fortune 1000 senior executives feel a moral responsibility to make their companies more energy efficient – but only 13 percent say environmental concerns are their main motivator to save energy. A poll by Harris Interactive, on behalf of Schneider Electric, found that 88 percent of executives feel a moral responsibility to [...]

GreenWise polled 25 firms, NGOs, business groups and commentators for their views on the outlook for the low carbon economy and green business in 2011. We asked them: Will 2011 be a significant year for the low carbon economy and green business, and if so, why? Green business Paul Turner, head of Sustainable Development, Lloyds Banking Group: There are a number of forces at play which leads me to believe 2011 will be a good year for the ’green economy’ and hopefully a significant one too.

It was no surprise to see the halls filled when speakers presented talks on the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) at DatacenterDynamic’s London conference in November. The UK Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme has been a hot topic. (If you are a regular reader of FOCUS, you will already know this). The rest of the world is also keeping a close eye on what happens with the new ‘carbon tax’, as it has been called, seeing as the UK Government is one of the first to introduce set guidelines on how carbon emissions will be managed. And more governments, in future, are sure to follow.

High unemployment may have bumped concern about the environment and worries about climate change off the front pages. But Roy Thilly, president of Sun Prairie-based WPPI Energy and former co-chair of the Governor’s Global Warming Task Force, says he believes interest in clean energy remains strong and will rebound with the economy. “And as that happens, the climate change issue will again become front and center because there is such a strong scientific consensus that it would be imprudent not to take action,” said Thilly during an interview covering his 30-year tenure in the power industry. “So I think we’ll see something, whether it is cap and trade with a new name or a tax, I really can’t say. Whatever the policy is, it will push us to much heavier reliance on conservation and efficiency.”

The Obama administration is changing the way wind energy projects in the American Midwest are financed by "spreading the costs" to consumers and businesses in other states, possibly doubling or perhaps tripling energy bills in the region in the coming years, experts are telling WND. Obama's team at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates much of the coal, gas, hydroelectric and oil industries, late last month approved a scheme long sought by environmentalists that links windmills and windmill farms to conventional energy transmission grid lines in the nation's heartland.

There are two types of lawsuits facing Renewable Energy projects around the country. The first involves the same issue faced by all major developments, siting and location. The second type of lawsuit facing the Renewable Energy sector is over the cost of its energy or what the ratepayer must pay for the price of kilowatt hour of energy from wind or solar. The siting or location issue has been handled by many states in the same way the cell phone tower debate was handled, the establishment of a state siting board. Most states allow some kind of home rule, allowing a specific town or city to opt out of a Renewable Energy project. Some states do not allow this. Many of the states use the local jurisdiction opt out as way for property owners and abutters to air their grievances against a project at the local town planning board hearings ...