Carbon Footprints

One of Australia’s most brilliant economists, Professor Ross Garnaut, answers questions after a speech on the economics of climate change at ANU last year.
I recently had the opportunity to write a couple of guest posts for the Brisbane based Courier Mail’s Green Blog. (See Part 1 and Part 2). Some of the comments [...]

I’ve been comparing climate change to the Y2K bug for a long time, but not in a climate change denying way, more in a, ‘Look we actually got our acts together and solved the Y2K bug, and patched or upgraded pretty much every computer in the world,‘ kind of way. Take this story in [...]

There is a special parliamentary screening of the cinematic release of the film The Burning Season at Parliament House in Sydney tonight. The film’s narrator, Hugh Jackman, will be there apparently. I’ll be there too, happy to share what I know about the technicalities of REDD projects and filmmakers Cathy Henkel and Trish [...]

I love Greenpeace and donate regularly but sometimes they come out with some terrible ideas and today’s is a doozy. Business eZine FastCompany is reporting that “Forest Credits Could Crash The Price of Carbon, Greenpeace Says“. They of course neglect to explain that, even if it were true, and I doubt it, lower [...]

The Global Canopy Programme is covering the discussions in Bonn where the topic of avoiding deforestation is on the table. In a blog post called “Forests & the Future Climate Regime” they cite a speech by Johan Eliasch, the UK Prime Minister’s special representative on deforestation and clean energy, and Frances Seymour, Director-General of [...]

In the UK The Guardian is reporting “UK climate policy not up to scratch, warns CBI“.
Business leaders have delivered a surprise attack on the government’s environmental policy, arguing that ministers are not doing enough to cut global warming emissions or make sure the UK does not run out of power.
The CBI says billions of pounds [...]

Reuters is running a story “Australia wants forest CO2 trade in Copenhagen pact” about a proposal Australia has submitted to U.N. climate negotiators that outlines a scheme to use carbon credits to protect rain forests.
“We think a post-2012 agreement will need to include forests in some way,” [Climate Change Minister] Wong told Reuters in an [...]

The BBC is reporting “Forests ‘facing a testing time’“, citing a new study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) called “State of the World’s Forests 2009” and published on Monday, timed to coincide with the start of UN World Forest Week.
CTS Nair, one of the report’s lead authors and the FAO Forestry Department’s [...]

Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald is running a story today “Polluters could shift greenhouse burden to poor countries, say critics“, that I really need to take to task.
AUSTRALIA’S biggest greenhouse polluters will be given carte blanche to shift the burden of cutting their emissions to poorer countries under the Federal Government’s proposed climate change laws.
Lawyers examining [...]

In the UK the BBC News is reporting “Earth warming faster than thought“.
The worst-case scenarios on climate change envisaged by the UN are already being realised, say scientists at an international meeting in Copenhagen.
Indeed there is very little good news coming out of Copenhagen this week. But the main point that everyone, from McKinsey [...]