Environmental Finance (EF) is a monthly magazine which covers the ever-increasing impact of environmental issues on the lending, insurance, investment and trading decisions affecting industry. Each year EF runs the largest survey of leading brokers, traders and service providers in the environmental markets. This year, they have decided to spin out a survey on the global voluntary carbon market, to run with a special report which is to be published in February 2010. EF is therefore polling their readership and contacts database to vote in a number of categories relating to the voluntary carbon markets.

 

If you have direct experience in the voluntary carbon market why not click this link to have your say: Environmental Finance Voluntary Carbon Markets Survey

 

Deadline for voting is: 31st December 2009

 

 

Find out the events from COP15 over the last two weeks via these daily bite size ClimateBiz blogs.

 

07 Dec - COP15 Negotiators Face Daunting Task. Well, 192 nations need to reach a common consensus and that historically has been a considerable challenge.

08 Dec - Climate Change and Christmas Cake. According to Yvo De Boer's visual "Christmas cake" analogy given in the opening plenary session, there are three layers to this negotiation: 

 

09 Dec - COP15, BINGO and the Leaked Danish Text. After the BINGO, controversial draft texts, requests for suspension and mini-demonstrations, all that remains to be seen is what will we wake up to tomorrow.

 

10 Dec - Chinese Windmills and the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. Let’s see if this fairytale has a happy ending!

 

11 Dec - It’s Good to Talk. Let's hope that this time lessons will be learned and the EB will recognize the advantages offered by communication bodies such as the PDF. In the words of Bob Hoskins...”It's good to talk!”

 

14 Dec - The Pressure Builds in Copenhagen. The world has every right to expect nothing less.

 

15 Dec - Gordon Brown, the Governator and Others Desecnd on Copenhagen for the ‘Big Push’. We shouldn't be struggling to reach 25 percent, we should be supporting a different type of "big push" and discussing how much further than 25 percent we can go.

 

16 Dec - The Road to Mexico? Let’s hope that now we are almost at the eleventh hour in the COP15 negotiations that sense prevails and all the countries do what is necessary to ultimately get a deal.

 

17 Dec - Many Businesses Left Out in the Cold By Stricter Limits on Access to COP15 Talks. Today access to COP15 was denied to the vast majority of the Business and Industry community(known by the acronym BINGO) after having been allocated a total of 75 passes, which were non-transferable. 

President Obama is to make his second trip to Europe this week as he travels to Copenhagen for the United Nations conference on climate change. Earlier this month the President formally accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. In a unanimously lauded speech, the President spoke briefly on the issue of climate change, stating that, “There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades…the world must come together to combat climate change.”

 

The President is due to arrive in Copenhagen on December 18th for the 15th UN Conference of Parties (COP15). Obama’s attendance marks the first time a U.S. president has attended the annual climate conference since George H.W. Bush’s trip to Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Originally, Mr. Obama planned to attend the Copenhagen meetings on December 9th before accepting his Nobel Peace Prize on December 10th. Instead he has decided to delay his trip until the end of the conference when other world leaders will be present and U.S. leadership will be more influential. Read more...

In U.S. climate policy, the past six weeks on Capitol Hill have brought both promise and frustration. Senators have essentially halted debate on the House-passed climate legislation due to mounting pressure to finish health care reform by year end. Amidst growing fears that the Kerry-Boxer bill in its current form will not secure the 60 votes required to pass in the Senate, two new bipartisan measures have emerged in the last week. Additionally, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation of greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act is eminent as the agency finalizes its controversial “endangerment finding.”

 

A bipartisan trio of Senate leaders released a new framework for comprehensive climate change and energy independence legislation in a press conference on December 10th. In their blueprint sent to President Obama, Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) backed an emissions cut "in the range of" 17% by 2020 for the first time together publicly, a target matched earlier in legislation passed by the House and supported by Obama. Read more...

 

“The Earth’s vegetation and soils currently contain the equivalent of almost 7500 Gt CO2, more carbon than that contained in all remaining oil stocks, and more than double the total amount of carbon currently accumulated in the atmosphere. The carbon presently locked up in forest ecosystems alone is greater than the amount of carbon in the atmosphere”. (Stern Report, Chapter 25, page 604)

In addition to the above statement, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that deforestation contributes to approximately 20% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, to put this into perspective this is the equivalent of emissions released by the United States or China. This means that for climate change to be successfully addressed, legislation needs to include a strong and effective framework to halt deforestation around the world. Something which hasn’t as yet come into fruition!  Read more...