UK Announces New Department for Energy & Climate Change

Britain's Labour Government on Friday announced the creation of the Department for Energy and Climate Change. The new department, to be headed by Minister Ed Milliband, is the result of a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Many environmental groups have hailed the formation of the new government department, noting that until now one agency had responsibility for sourcing the nation's energy and a separate agency was responsible for dealing with the resultant emissions. The hope is that putting both priorities under one roof will help to align incentives and spur faster action towards a lower-carbon future.

I share their hope, but the simple fact is that climate change is not just an energy issue. Nearly every activity generates greenhouse gas emissions - transport, construction, farming, and the like. One could just as easily argue for a Department for Transport and Climate Change tasked with helping to ensure that the development of the nation's transport infrastructure (third runway at Heathrow, anyone?) was aligned with government greenhouse gas emission targets.

At Carbon Clear, we've found that the most effective approaches to climate change build emissions reduction strategies into every aspect of business or household activity. Our aim is to help companies reduce greenhouse gas emissions wherever it makes sense.

Preparing for the Future

When we discuss the impacts of climate change, most people have visions of melting glaciers, polar bears, and shifting dunes. These are serious problems, to be sure, but they seem for the most part to be something that will happen to someone else, far away.

Few people consider effects that will hit much closer to home. Take weeds, for example.

Lewis Ziska, an ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wanted to understand how weeds are affected by a warmer world. Short on funds to expand his research lab, he hit on an ingenious solution:

"Then it occurred to Ziska that the complaints made by residents of nearby Baltimore about summer in their city — the exhaust-laden air and the way in which buildings and pavement soak up solar energy to create an abnormally warm “heat island” — could be put to good use. When he checked, he found that in fact the temperatures in Baltimore run 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average than those of the surrounding countryside, and the concentration of CO2 in the local atmosphere (440 to 450 p.p.m., or parts per million by volume) is well above the current global average. This, coincidentally, matched almost exactly what the panel on climate change predicted for the planet as a whole 30 to 50 years in the future in its “B2 scenario,” a middle-of-the-road projection that envisions continuing greenhouse gas increases but also some success in abatement programs."

Ziska collected soil with weed seeds from an organic farm and created identical growing beds on the farm, in a nearby suburb with moderately higher temperatures and CO2 levels, and in the high-temperature, high-CO2 heat island. Then he let the weeds grow. The results over the next five growing seasons were breathtaking.

In nearly every case, Ziska found that weeds benefit much more from increased CO2 concentrations than do agricultural crops and domesticated plants. In the high-CO2 plot, the weeds grew much faster and up to twice as large as the weeds on the farm. Many were more resistant to common herbicides. And when trees eventually began growing on the untended plots, the high-CO2 plot was dominated not by oak and maple, but by stubborn invasive species like ailanthus and mulberry.

What's more, the weeds produced more pollen in a high-CO2 environment. When Ziska grew ragweed at the CO2 concentrations predicted for the end of the century, they produced twice as much pollen as they do today, and of a form more likely to cause allergic reactions. Poison ivy grew faster and produced a more intense form of rash-inducing oil. This means that climate change is bad news if you're an allergy sufferer, if you're a farmer, or if you simply enjoy having a weed-free lawn or vegetable plot. The future may look a bit brighter if you manufacture herbicides or produce anti-allergy medications, but it looks there will be more losers than winners. There are, of course, many other implications to the rise of the weeds, which I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

The growth of weeds in a warmer world is rarely discussed, and yet the potential impacts on people, farmers, corporations, and local ecosystems is huge. And this is only one of many interlocking impacts.

My team at Carbon Clear spends a lot of time helping companies understand how climate change can affect their business over the coming years and decades. We do this in part to help our clients prepare for the future. But we also look at these impacts to help people understand that greenhouse gas emissions can impose a high price - both at home and abroad. Faced with massive global change, early action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is often the most sensible investment we can make.

The Power of Feedback

About twenty years ago I came across an electrical engineering textbook entitled Feedback Control Systems. It was a highly technical piece about how to design thermostats, automatic doors, alarms and the like. The key to such devices, of course, is that they monitor local conditions and adjust their operation when those conditions change. These feedback systems can be surprisingly simple, but imagine our lives if they didn't work properly. Imagine the waste and frustration if the automatic door at the supermarket had to guess when a trolley was approaching, or if the heating unit in your home couldn't detect the temperature.

One of the things I like about my five year-old hybrid car is that it includes the driver in an energy efficiency feedback system. In everyday terms, there's a simple but informative fuel economy display mounted in the dashboard. This system doesn't take control - the petrol and electric motors will work together and provide a boost if I need to out-accelerate the huge truck bearing down on me. But the feedback is always there, and I can use it to change my behaviour. If I get caught up in the rush-hour road rage, the display shows my fuel economy dropping - 48 mpg, 45 mpg, 43 mpg... And that's my cue to take action. By maintaining a steady speed, coasting on the downhills or slowing down gradually at traffic lights, I can see the numbers go up - 50 mpg, 60 mpg or more. Since my last tank of fuel, I've been averaging 57.2 mpg. Getting regular, visible feedback on my performance gives me a strong incentive to change behaviour and reduce waste.

When Carbon Clear measures your company's carbon footprint, we are helping you design a powerful feedback tool for tracking environmental and financial performance. Our standards-compliant analysis identifies those activities - flights, vehicle fleet, outsourced manufacturing, etc. - that make up the lion's share of your carbon footprint - and are probably costing you money. Of course, knowledge alone is not enough. We help companies take action, developing plans to tackle those emissions sources that will give the fastest or most cost-effective reductions. And we'll help measure progress over time.

Every company has the potential to achieve significant, absolute reductions in their carbon footprint. At Carbon Clear we'll help you get there. Measuring your carbon footprint is the first step.

Will High Oil Prices Save the Planet?

The scientific academies of thirteen countries yesterday issued an unprecedented joint statement urging faster, more decisive action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon reduction specialists at Carbon Clear applaud that sentiment, and are committed to helping businesses and individuals, measure, reduce, and offset their carbon emissions. And yet more remains to be done.

Many pundits are hoping that help will come from the rising cost of fuel. With oil prices skyrocketing, firms around the world have a strong incentive to reduce consumption. Emissions reductions are sure to follow - won't they?

At first glance, the signs are encouraging. Fuel purchases in the U.S. are down 7% from a year ago, and consumers can't seem to ditch gas guzzling cars and trucks fast enough. Last week, auto giant General Motors announced that it was closing four truck and SUV production lines and was considering abandoning its signature Hummer SUV brand. Meanwhile, the company has announced the launch of two new small cars, and a new electric-hybrid vehicle called the Volt.

The airlines are economising, too. Northwest Airlines is parking its workhorse DC-10 airplanes, in favour of newer A330 models that are 38% more efficient. Southwest Airlines claims to have saved millions in fuel costs simply by cleaning its engines more frequently, and Delta is flying its planes 20 mph slower to save fuel.

To be sure, high oil prices strengthen the economic case for demand reduction in the form of increased fuel efficiency or fewer journeys. But they also strengthen the economic case for increasing supply - in the form of oil substitutes. While some substitutes, like biofuels, show promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when used correctly, others are the stuff of environmental nightmares.

In the remote regions of Canada's Alberta province lie vast deposits of thick, tarry sand and soil. These tar sands hold the equivalent of 175 billion barrels of oil - nearly as much as Saudi Arabia. The challenge has been getting to it. In order to convert the oil in the tar sands to usable form, the solid granules must be mined, crushed, diluted and cleaned - and then manufactured into synthetic oil in an energy-intensive refining process. According to an estimate reported by the Financial Times, this process means that oil from the tar sands has five times the carbon intensity of conventional fossil fuels. On an individual level, while a round-trip flight from London to New York might normally result in 1.3 tonnes of CO2, a flight fuelled by tar sands-derived kerosene would result in a whopping 6.5 tonnes of CO2. Driving 10,000 miles in a car would result in a 15-tonne carbon footprint. And this says nothing of the vast tracts of forest wilderness that must be cut up to reach these fuel resources.

But the global implications are even more serious. Alberta's 175 billion barrels of oil equivalent, if it were all consumed, would result in the release of about 35 billion tonnes of CO2.

That's 30% more than all the CO2 released from fossil fuels worldwide last year.

Extracting oil from the tar sands is dangerous and expensive work. So long as oil was relatively cheap, the tar sands were safe. But at $120 a barrel, $200 a barrel, or even more, the tar sands begin to look like a viable option. Six million hectares of oil sands - 43% of the total - have already been leased to oil companies for exploration and development. The oil majors are lobbying regulators to include these resources on their balance sheets, signaling their intent to exploit them.

With high oil prices likely here to stay, more energy efficiency measures will be pursued, but the tar sands are more likely to be tapped as well.

And that's bad news for the environment.

A high oil price can be a mixed blessing. We need to bring other tools to bear in the fight against climate change. We'll present some more ideas in subsequent posts.

(Carbon Clear website)

Carbon Management Providers Unite to Promote Rigorous Standards

Carbon Clear and seven other leading carbon reduction and offset providers yesterday announced the formation of the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA). The organisation has been created to build support for the carefully crafted standards that now exist for the voluntary offset market. In addition, the group will provide a unified voice in promoting credible carbon management strategies, which use a ‘reduce-and-offset’ approach. ICROA intends to be active in policy discussions, push for high standards and advocate greater transparency in the carbon reduction industry.

Jamal Gore, Managing Director, Carbon Clear said: "Carbon Clear is delighted to be a founding member of ICROA. As a company that leads by example, it was important that we lend our expertise to the development of a rigorous Code of Practice that will raise the bar for the entire carbon management industry. We look forward to continuing to help environmentally responsible companies develop a sound carbon management strategy and achieve significant greenhouse gas emission reductions."

Climate change and the greenhouse gases driving it are an international concern so of ICROA’s eight founding members, five have headquarters in the United Kingdom, two in the United States, and one in Australia.

ICROA founding members currently serve thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of individuals and are:

• Carbon Clear, London, UK
• The CarbonNeutral Company, London, UK
• ClimateCare, Oxford, UK
• Climate Friendly, Sydney, Australia
• co2balance, Somerset, UK
• Native Energy, Charlotte, VT, USA
• targetneutral, London, UK
• TerraPass, San Francisco, CA, USA

The key elements of the ICROA Code of Best Practice include:

• Measure carbon footprints according to accepted international standards
• Set emissions reduction targets based on scientific assessments
• Assess and implement both internal and external emissions reduction opportunities, the ‘reduce and offset’ approach
• Use credible offset projects, where offsetting is appropriate to meet emissions reduction targets
• Be transparent in communicating emissions reductions strategies and practices
• Use offsets that meet the following principles: real, measurable, permanent, additional, independently verified, and unique
• Submit annual report demonstrating compliance with the Code

Carbon offsets are designed to complement the measures that individuals and corporations undertake to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and GHG that result from their daily activities and operations. Carbon offsets result from projects that reduce, avoid, or capture the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other GHG. Offsets are measured in metric tons of CO2.

Initially the ICROA Code of Best Practice recognizes three standards for offsets as being of sufficient quality: Voluntary Carbon Standard, Gold Standard, and Clean Development Mechanism/ Joint Implementation. The Climate Group, an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing business and government leadership on climate change, is currently responsible for the day-to-day operations of ICROA, under the direction of the organization’s Executive Committee.

We Can Do More

Tackling climate change requires large reductions in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. The popular idea is that reducing emissions to the extent required - sixty percent or more - will be so painful and difficult that we need to phase the changes in gradually over the next four or five decades.

But is this true? Do we really have to wait until 2050 to get to a low-carbon economy?

In my last blog post we discussed the idea of "climate wedges" - a range of modest measures that rely on existing technology. Taken together these small "wedges" can cut society's carbon footprint by a massive amount.

It doesn't have to take long. When an avalanche near Juneau, Alaska in April destroyed the city's main electricity transmission lines, the utility switched to expensive backup generators. Residents' utility bills soared 400% and the switch began immediately.

The local library realised there was no need to keep to elevators (lifts) running, and took one out of service. The local hardware store quickly ran out of clothes pins as people abandoned their clothes dryers in favour of line-drying their laundry - even though it rains over 200 days per year. Households replaced every incandescent bulb they could with low-energy compact fluorescents. For show-and-tell, schoolchildren give presentations about how much energy they are saving at home.

The city of Juneau, Alaska cut its electricity consumption by more tha 30% in just a few weeks.

Weeks, not years. With existing technology and no earth-shattering lifestyle changes.

The residents of Juneau are no different from anyone else. If they - and we - can achieve this type of carbon reduction in less than a month, imagine what we can do in forty years.

U.S. Declares Polar Bears an Endangered Species

It's official.

After years of wrangling, the U.S. Department of the Interior has declared polar bears an endangered species. As climate change causes the polar ice to dwindle, the bears' natural habitat has come under increasing pressure and it becomes more difficult for them to hunt for food.

This ruling was not a knee-jerk response to public affection for large, furry mammals. The current Interior Department leadership has not been keen to extend the Endangered Species Act to new contexts, nor to acknowledge the need for immediate action on climate change. As Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne remarked days earlier,
“When the Endangered Species Act was adopted in 1973, I don’t think terms like 'climate change' were part of our vernacular.”

However, when forced by a judge to make an objective assessment of the polar bears' predicament, the choice was clear. Again quoting Kempthorne:

“This has been a difficult decision...But in light of the scientific record and the restraints of the inflexible law that guides me, [it was] the only decision I could make...”

The new ruling by itself won't lead to faster action on greenhouse gas reductions. The Endangered Species Act requires immediate remedial action if, for example, a construction site threatens the habitat of a rare plant or animal. But the link between greenhouse gas emissions and habitat loss are more indirect, and longer term. It is difficult to point to a smokestack or tailpipe and prove that cutting those specific emissions will protect the polar bears' habitat.

Nevertheless, this ruling is important. It is a formal acknowledgement from a particularly sceptical source that climate change is having a real and measurable impact on the world around us.

The debate is over. Now it's time to achieve significant carbon reductions. The Carbon Clear team will help you get started.

The Myth of the 'False Solution'

In the old black and white horror movies, a werewolf would terrorise hapless villagers. Impervious to normal weapons, the werewolf would shrug off their attacks until the hero arrived and slew the beast with the only thing that could kill it - a silver bullet.

The old werewolf movies were just harmless entertainment, but real threats stalk the global village - and climate change is right near the top.

Unfortunately, many people are still looking for a silver bullet to make the threat go away, and rejecting any measure that doesn't promise an instant fix:

• Biofuel a 'false solution'

• Green taxes are not the solution to a better world

• PR smokescreen lifts on coal industry's false solution

• Nuclear is not the solution to climate change

• Why planting trees is not the solution to global warming

The critics are right, of course. No single solution available today will solve the problem.

However, it is a mistake to argue that partial solutions are useless. In fact, they're all that we have. A 2004 paper published by Princeton University researchers S. Pacala and R. Socolow introduced the concept of "climate stabilisation wedges". In short, the researchers estimated the worldwide greenhouse gas reduction potential of energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage, tree planting, renewables, and other measures. They found that each of these measures could save about a billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2050. Here's one illustration of how these figures could stack up:





Taken together, these "climate wedges" could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 200 billion tonnes - enough to stave off the worst climate change impacts.

That's it, problem solved. No technological breakthroughs. No silver bullets. Just lots of partial measures, enacted at the same time. This means support for renewables AND energy efficiency AND tree planting AND carbon capture AND etc., etc.

Climate change isn't a horror movie from the golden age of cinema. Just because a measure isn't "the solution" does not mean we should reject it outright. There is no silver bullet that can solve the problem of climate change. A number of short-sighted actions have combined to cause this problem - deforestation, coal-fired power stations, trains, planes and automobiles. We'll solve it the same way, by working together, on a hundred small solutions.

(Carbon Clear homepage)

Carbon Clear in Top 30 Global offset providers according to ENDS Report

Carbon Clear has been formally recognised as a global leader in the carbon offset market for the high quality of its offsets and carbon management consultancy. Out of all the organisations ENDS investigated world-wide, only 30 were recognised in its list of Quality Offset Providers, with 140 failing to make the grade.

The top 30 quality providers came from a range of organisation types across the globe but were united in their ability to meet the following criteria:

• The quality of the offset: all investments should be traceable to specifically named offset projects.
• Timing of delivery: carbon credits should have already been generated or be guaranteed to be delivered in the short-term.
• Emissions calculation: emissions savings are calculated and verified by official standards, for example ISO 14064 or from official DEFRA figures.
• Transparency: quality providers were judged to be transparent with regards to the credit source, quality of the offset, the timeline of its projects and pricing.
• Engagement and advice: the ENDS Guide also recognised the importance of broader climate change strategies and praised those carbon offset providers that also offer advice and management processes to reduce clients’.
• Other considerations included the breadth of projects in the organisation’s portfolio, levels of engagement with the projects and overall experience.

The respected environmental publisher created its guide to carbon offsets to provide readers an understanding of the offsetting process and how to identify providers that are committed to offering a quality service and operating responsibly.

Commenting on Carbon Clear’s inclusion, Mark Chadwick, CEO of Carbon Clear said: “I'm delighted that the ENDS Report has recognised Carbon Clear's commitment to high quality projects and advisory services. From the outset we have focused on delivering the highest standards and we're immensely gratified to see this hard work has been acknowledged by an industry leader such as the ENDS Report.”

Even MORE "Buy One Grow One Tree" Goodness from Innocent and Carbon Clear

Following the success of last year’s "Buy One Get One Tree" campaign, innocent is teaming up with Carbon Clear again for its bigger and better Buy One Grow One Tree scheme. Throughout May, for each carton of smoothie sold and registered, innocent will grow a tree in one of Carbon Clear’s projects in India. Each carton has a unique code which when registered on the dedicated website will see a tree planted.

The innocent smoothie drinkers across the UK who participated in the last BoGoT project are responsible for a whopping 164,020 trees now growing in rural India, absorbing carbon dioxide and supporting local communities. The trees planted provide food and medicine, shelter for secondary crops and reduce soil erosion. If that’s not enough of an incentive there’s also a little something extra for those who register lots of trees, like a ‘grow your own’ herb box, an extra night in an organic B & B in the countryside or the chance to win a year’s supply of smoothies thanks to the lovely people at innocent.

This year innocent is also supporting The Tree Council’s Walk in the Woods Month to encourage everyone to visit their local forest or parkland during May. At events across the country kids are being encouraged to complete the innocent tree trail and enjoy the UK’s trees and woodlands. For more information visit: www.innocentkids.co.uk/trees.

Carbon Clear joins the UN’s Climate Neutral Network

At yesterday's Global Business for the Environment (B4E) Summit in Singapore, representatives from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) welcomed Carbon Clear as the first carbon management company to join its Climate Neutral Network (CN Net). Established in February of this year, CN Net’s aim is to inspire leaders in business and government by sharing success stories and best practice in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change is now a major global issue and a rapidly growing number of individuals, companies, cities and even countries are pledging to become climate neutral as part of CN Net.

As one of the largest independent carbon management companies, Carbon Clear is fully committed to achieving carbon neutrality and supporting the shift to a low-carbon economy. The company applies the same “measure, reduce, and offset” approach to controlling its own greenhouse gas emissions as it uses when helping clients reduce their carbon footprint. In 2007 Carbon Clear worked with over 70 businesses worldwide to help them plan and implement carbon reduction strategies. Clients who work with Carbon Clear to demonstrate their commitment to environmental responsibility include Eurostar, Innocent Drinks, 3M, Multimap and Computer Cabs.

Mark Chadwick, CEO, Carbon Clear, said: “At Carbon Clear we believe that achieving climate neutrality can be an immensely positive experience. We are passionate about helping others to see sustainable business as both necessary and desirable. It is important that we share best practice and success stories in order to inspire others; through the Climate Neutral Network we can create a community that illustrates how good a sustainable future can be.”

In a statement welcoming Carbon Clear as a new CN Net participant, UNEP said: “We believe that the expertise of pioneering carbon management companies like Carbon Clear will benefit not only CN Net participants but also the broader private sector community, by helping businesses ‘kick their carbon habit’.”

In Memoriam: Energy Expert Alex Farrell

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 17 April 2008

BERKELEY – Alexander E. Farrell, an associate professor in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked closely with state government over the past year to chart a course to reduce California's carbon emissions, died earlier this week at his home in San Francisco. He was 46.

Farrell, who joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 2003 and became director of the campus's Transportation Sustainability Research Center in 2006, was recognized internationally as a leading expert on transportation fuels and the role of transportation in climate change. His research interests included biofuels, hybrid electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles, the low-carbon fuel standard and transportation sustainability.

"He was one of the leading lights in the area of low-carbon fuels and energy systems, and his career was on a dramatic rise," said colleague Dan Kammen, a professor in the Energy and Resources Group and of public policy who helped recruit Farrell to UC Berkeley and co-authored many papers with him, including a just-released report on plug-in hybrid vehicles. "The trajectory of his career and his contributions were both impressive. Alex was a great mentor to the graduate students in the group as well as to students from across campus working on energy and sustainability."

...

"Alex was brilliant, energetic, supportive, insightful and caring, and he had a way of challenging his colleagues and students to think more critically even when they thought they already were," said Tim Lipman, a UC Berkeley colleague and the founding research director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center. "His career had reached a point where his loss is an enormous one, not just for the Energy and Resources Group and the transportation center, but also for the global transportation and energy community."

UK Government Considers Mandatory Carbon Footprints for Business

I attended a carbon footprinting discussion at the UK Houses of Parliament last year on behalf of Carbon Clear. At that session, Christian Aid and other organisations were calling for standardised corporate carbon footprinting and a Defra representative mentioned that they were setting aside funding to research the issue.

It was therefore no surprise to read in yesterday's Independent on Sunday newspaper that the UK Government has moved closer to requiring publicly listed companies to disclose their corporate carbon footprints along with the other data included in their annual reports.

There are many reasons why diferent actors would want companies to report this information. First, it makes it easier to benchmark the performance of individual firms. This enables government, shareholders and activists to identify and praise the environmental leaders and criticise the laggards. Such pressure, it is hoped, will pressure companies faster voluntary action to reduce emissions.

The second, and to my mind more important rationale, is that mandatory carbon footprints provides greater access to a very powerful management tool for large and small companies alike. Carbon footprinting provides an opportunity for managers to look at their company from a new perspective. In addition to helping benchmarking against the competition, understanding and tackling your corporate carbon footprint provides five key benefits:

1. Reducing costs: As a company, your biggest sources of carbon emissions are often items that cost you money: fuel, electricity, raw materials, and waste disposal. Using these resources more efficiently can trim your carbon footprint while helping your bottom line.
2. Developing new business opportunities: The "green and ethical" consumer market was worth £30 billion in 2006 and continues to grow rapidly. Companies that can respond to this opportunity new lower-carbon products and services stand to gain competitive advantage.
3. Engaging staff and customers: As I pointed out in an earlier post, employees expect their companies to be good environmental citizens. Developing a carbon footprint reduction strategy is a way to involve a cross section of staff in an exciting new initiative, secure a visible commitment from senior management, and strengthen morale.
4. Strengthening the brand: A report by the Carbon Trust indicates that climate change has put over £20 billion pounds of brand equity at risk. Communicating your low-carbon credentials in an effective manner can help companies protect and strengthen their brand in a low-carbon economy. For example, Walkers gained a tremendous amount of free publicity when it put carbon footprint labels on its potato chips. More and more companies are joining in.
5. Increasing peace of mind: Climate change creates winners and losers. Government policies, customer buying behaviour, investment criteria and business costs all change when we shift to a low-carbon economy. Measuring and analysing the corporate carbon footprint is the first step in understanding how climate change affects the company. That knowledge helps managers increase the likelihood that their company is a winner.

It's a shame that the Independent article doesn't mention any of these benefits. The main response they highlight from a business spokesperson is a negative one:

"The CBI said on Friday in response to the news that although it endorsed mandatory reporting and would like to see it implemented by 2013, the definition of carbon emissions was not sufficiently developed for the move to be introduced this year."

In fact, Carbon Clear and major corporations around the world have been using an international standard, ISO 14064-1, to measure carbon footprints for years. That standard was released two years ago and has been used by hundreds of governments, small businesses and multinational corporations. Other listed companies around the world are already reporting their emissions under a variant of this standard for the Carbon Disclosure Project. So the main objection to mandatory reporting - that there's no standard definition - goes away.

We'll keep watching as government policy evolves. After all, at Carbon Clear, we help companies and individuals take action to tackle climate change and gain as much benefit as possible from the shift to a low-carbon economy. The more tools we can give our partners, the better.

(Back to the Carbon Clear website)

Climate Change: Mitigate, Adapt or Suffer

My former grad school professor, John Holdren, is working with the United Nations Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. His task is to harness the best scientific minds to recommend options for addressing the threat of climate change.

Late last year, John gave a speech where he summarised the main choices available to us:

• Mitigation - taking steps to cut our carbon emissions and reverse deforestation;
• Adaptation - investing in flood protection, shifting agriculture and other measures to adjust to a changing environment; and
• Suffering the consequence that we cannot otherwise avoid.

As Holdren points out, "We're already doing some mitigation, some adaptation, and some suffering...the question is what the future mix will be." You can see his entire presentation here.

Nicholas Stern has pointed out that mitigation provides the biggest bang for the buck - transitioning to a low-carbon economy would only cost 1-2% of global GDP. The advantage of mitigation is that it can keep us below a climate "tipping point", where we enter a runaway cycle of rising temperatures and emissions. So we can't just adapt our way out of the problem.

However, some adaptation will be inevitable as well - even if we could magically stop all our greenhouse gas emissions today, the temperature would still increase another 0.6 degrees C, thanks to all the extra heat stored in the oceans over the past century.

As a society, we have a choice of how much mitigation, adaption and suffering we will accept. Our job at Carbon Clear is to help companies and individuals make the right choice and take action.

UK CO2 Emissions Down in 2006

The UK Government yesterday released the results from its 2006 national greenhouse gas emissions inventory. The emissions inventory measures both greenhouse gas emissions from energy use, transport, agriculture and other activities, and absorption of CO2 by trees in the forestry sector. At 652 million tonnes CO2 equivalent, the total represents a 0.5% decrease from the 655 million tonnes recorded 2005.

0.5% is quite a bit below the 2-3% target that many experts want included in the national Climate Change Bill. Some sectors of the economy made significant reductions, while others actually saw their emissions increase. Energy emissions have increased 1.5% as rising gas prices stimulated a shift to coal-fired power generation. Other residential emissions have fallen 4%. On the aviation front, emissions from domestic flights have fallen 2.8%, while international aviation emissions rose 1.5%.

Interestingly, the Government also tracked the effect of carbon credits traded on the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). The UK was a net buyer of these credits, purchasing 34 million tonnes of carbon offsets, 4% of total emissions.

A good start, but much more is needed.

What Success Means

Late last night I listened to the news reports from the Iowa Caucuses. Senator John Edwards, a democratic candidate, was making a commitment to the American people to focus on making them successful. Of course, this is par for the course for any candidate for office.

Something he said made me sit up and listen. He defined the promised success in an interesting way. He talked about the many generations of Americans who had improved their country for their children. Implicit in this was the idea of leaving our children better off than us. From my perspective, this is an excellent definition of success.

Unfortunately, to many of us today our definition of success is short-term. Success means a job with higher pay and more status. Success means several expensive holidays to far flung locations. Success means the large and luxurious car. In short, we define our success by the accumulation of consumer goods and by our ability to purchase yet more of them.

In a world that is resource constrained and that is suffering significant environmental damage due to our consumption, there may be a case for a new definition.

Perhaps John Edwards hit the nail on the head. Perhaps we should start to consider the future prosperity of our children when we think about success. For sure, we need to do all we can to maintain a stable environment and ample resources to allow our children and children's children to enjoy a peaceful and long life. Success for them will be impossible without this.

Following on from Jamal's challenge to reduce our carbon footprint, I'd like to issue this challenge; use the beginning of 2008 to re-evaluate your personal definition of success. Look at your decisions with a longer time frame in mind and make choices based on a balance of success now, and success in the future. Many businesses and individuals have already taken this challenge and are finding that change isn't painful, and very often brings huge benefits.

Time to take the challenge?

Carbon Clear Resolutions

The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reports that only 15% of Britons resolved to reduce their carbon footprint in 2008. That number seems surprisingly low; perhaps many people simply felt this resolution - like most - would be difficult to keep.

One reason that New Year's resolutions are hard to keep is that they are often phrased as overall goals instead of specific, easy to accomplish tasks. I recommend taking a relatively vague resolution like "reduce my carbon footprint", and breaking it up into easy-to-accomplish physical actions.

Defra provides a laundry list of typical lower-carbon measures that can reduce your carbon impact. These include riding your bike to work instead of driving, installing low-energy lightbulbs, and turning the thermostat down by one degree. This list is a good start, but may not be enough to help everyone keep those resolutions.

The problem is that we often face a series of barriers that must be overcome before we can do the thing we want. In other words, that action (ride bike to work), is actually an entire project. In order to ride my bike to work, I may need to:

1. Take the bike to the local shop for a tune-up;
2. Buy a rain jacket, waterproof gloves, and a bike light;
3. Identify a safe cycling route between home and work; and
   
4. Find a secure place to lock the bike during the day.

And "ride my bike to work" was not even the main New Year's resolution! No wonder these resolutions are so hard to keep.

In order to make progress on the transition to a low-carbon future, we have to set realistic and creative goals, and then lay out the specific steps to achieve that goal.

So here's a challenge: look at Defra's list of suggestions for a low-carbon New Year's Resolution and break it into manageable chunks. Sketch out the specific, tangible steps that you will need to take in order to make each one happen.

Next, take out a calendar and write each of those steps in for a specific date. Before you know it, you'll be ticking off those steps and making real progress towards keeping your New Year's Resolution.

At Carbon Clear, we're dedicated to helping you control your carbon impact, in 2008 and beyond. Visit our website to learn what else you can do at home and at work.

Happy New Year from Carbon Clear

Welcome to 2008.

For a long time, the climate change debate seems to have been about whether or not there is a problem, and whether humanity has caused it. Thankfully, 2007 saw even steadfast global warming skeptics acknowledge that this debate is over.

Now a new debate is underway.

On the one hand is a faction that claims we have already reached a "tipping point", and that it's too late to prevent serious climate change. Some people making this claim argue that we should shift our focus to adaptating to the impacts of living in a warmer world.

On the other hand are people who say that it's not too late, and who applaud the future-oriented targets of the recent Bali climate negotiations, the UK Climate Change Bill and elsewhere - with targets that reach to 2050 and beyond.

Either way, this debate means not enough effort right now to reduce our carbon impact.

Choosing to tackle climate change isn't an "either-or" decision, it's a matter of degree. We have a lot of choices to make:

• We have a choice over how much we want to fight global warming;
• We have a choice over how much energy we use, what type, and at what cost;
• We have a choice about how we want to work, travel, live and play;
  
• We have a choice over what kind of world we want to leave for our children, our friends, and the rest of humanity.

These are not difficult choices. Taking the carbon out of our lives does not have to be painful. On balance, the benefits - of which there are many - far outweigh the costs.

The Carbon Clear team is determined to speed businesses, governments, and individuals on the path to a low-carbon future. Everyone needs to control his or her carbon impact. Carbon Clear is here to help.

(To the Carbon Clear homepage)

US Senate Passes Major Carbon Reduction Bill

The tide is turning.

First Australia signed Kyoto. Now the U.S. Senate has approved a bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions 70 percent by the year 2050. Carbon Clear is committed to bold action to fight climate change, and looks forward to seeing this measure turned into law.

The Senate bill, which calls for emission reductions of 70% below 2005 levels, must also be approved by the House of Representatives before the President signs it into law. It would affect virtually every sector of the U.S. economy, and signal decisive leadership in the effort to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Like the emissions caps under the Kyoto Protocol, the proposed U.S. rules would allow trading and carbon offsetting between polluters, so that emissions take place at the lowest possible economic cost to society.

According to the New York Times, Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer called the measure "the greatest accomplishment of her 30-year career."

A 70% emissiosn cut would be great news. To be sure, it goes farther than the 60% cut originally proposed in the UK's own Climate Change Bill, and is a huge improvement on the original 12% overall cuts in the original Kyoto Protocol. And because the US is one of the world's largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, cuts of this magnituded will make a tangible difference in the fight to tackle climate change.

However, many scientists and activists think we need to reduce emissions by 80%. That's one reason Carbon Clear works with companies to help them achieve the maximum internal reductions possible, and then use carbon offset credits to achieve a 100% reduction.

In the fight against climate change, half measures aren't enough. Everyone needs to take bold action. Carbon Clear is here to help.

(Carbon Clear homepage)

Australia Joins the Fight Against Climate Change

Australia's new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, ratified the Kyoto Protocol today. It was his first official action after taking the oath of office.

According to the New York Times, "This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change," Rudd said in a statement.

The previous government refused to back legally binding emisssions targets, arguing that they would harm the economy. The Times reports that this view has now shifted:

But a new report from the environment think tank the Climate Institute, written by government and university scientists, found that Australia's economy could easily cope with strong cuts in greenhouse emissions.

It said growth would fall by only 0.1 percent of gross domestic product annually if Australia set a target of 20 percent cuts in emissions by 2020 and aimed to be carbon neutral by 2050.

"Leading the way on climate is an affordable, prudent and achievable investment," Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said on Monday.

Australia's move means that the U.S. is the only industrialised country yet to endorse the global climate change agreement.

It would be interesting to see how this new commitment affects the existing carbon offsetting scheme set up under the previous government.

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