In this edition, The Globe and Mail’s Canadians are ready for a carbon tax. Is anyone listening?. Bloomberg reports Japan May Revive Carbon Trading Discussion After Election. Climate Change Is the Biggest Threat in the Pacific, Says Top U.S. Admiral, to the Boston Globe over the weekend, and picked up in Wired and several major media outlets.
Quote of the Day:
“Given the dense web of personal connections between government and the finance and fossil fuel industries, we have to ask whether the government’s failure to tackle climate change is down to the influence of ministers’ friends in banks and oil companies.”
–World Development Movement Director Deborah Doane in Business Green’s “Report: Ministers’ links to energy companies limiting climate action”
Lead Stories
Japan May Revive Carbon Trading Discussion After Election
Bloomberg
The Japanese government may revive discussions about a carbon market that would reduce pollution levels after elections for the Upper House of parliament due in July, a government adviser said.
http://jlne.ws/YWqazj
Climate Change Is the Biggest Threat in the Pacific, Says Top U.S. Admiral
Wired
North Korea just annulled the 1953 armistice ending its war with South Korea. China and Japan are locked in a dispute over an island chain. But the greatest long-term threat to the peace of East Asia and Pacific Ocean — the part of the world at the heart of the Obama administration’s aspirational defense strategy — is climate change, according to the admiral in charge of U.S. military operations there.
http://jlne.ws/ZEs4qs
Climate Change: Even Worse Than We Feared
National Journal
Back in 1999 Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann released the climate change movement’s most potent symbol: The “hockey stick,” a line graph of global temperature over the last 1,500 years that shows an unmistakable, massive uptick in the twentieth century when humans began to dump large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It’s among the most compelling bits of proof out there that human beings are behind global warming, and as such has become a target on Mann’s back for climate denialists looking to draw a bead on scientists.
http://jlne.ws/W2j152
Report: Ministers’ links to energy companies limiting climate action
Business Green
Close ties between top ministers and the fossil fuel and finance industries is keeping the UK on the “oil hook” and intensifying climate change, a report claims today.
http://jlne.ws/YUH98d
Opinion: Californians Want Oil’s Tax Revenue Without the Oil
Bloomberg
The only thing California’s environmentally friendly Democratic legislators prefer to regulating private industry is spending public dollars. So it’s fascinating to watch them struggle with an unfolding dilemma.
http://jlne.ws/15IjX05
Abuse pollutes state environmental law
LA Times
tate Sen. Jerry Hill grew up in San Francisco and vividly remembers the rare suffocating days of late summer when the fog fled and people sweltered.
http://jlne.ws/XEcSvF
Evidence grows of rainforest resilience to global warming
Reuters
The world’s tropical forests are less likely to lose biomass, or plant material, this century due to the effects of global warming than previously thought, scientists said in a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday.
http://jlne.ws/WiDx03
Can the world fight climate change and energy poverty at the same time?
The Washington Post
The United Nations has set two huge energy-related goals for the coming century. The first is to bring electricity to the 1.3 billion people who still don’t have it. The second is to curtail fossil fuel use and keep global warming below 2°C.
http://jlne.ws/Y6IFlw
Events
Wall Street Green Summit XII
March 18, 2013
Center for Architecture, New York
http://jlne.ws/V9knZX
Navigating the American Carbon World (NACW) 2013
San Francisco April 16-18
http://jlne.ws/11SrgTF
Carbon
Energy giants again urge Chancellor to back decarbonisation target
Business Green
Six major energy companies have once again urged the UK government to back a target to decarbonise the electricity sector by 2030, warning a failure to do so now could see the UK lose out on investment to France and Germany.
http://jlne.ws/Y5Kh2b
Canadians are ready for a carbon tax. Is anyone listening?
The Globe and Mail
Climate change is once again emerging as a pressing global issue, and it is becoming increasingly clear that substantial actions will need to be taken. What to do?
http://jlne.ws/W31REo
Natural Gas/Coal/Alternative Fuels
Bills seek more disclosure, oversight of fracking
AP
The growing concern over hydraulic fracturing, the technology that has led to an oil and gas boom in many parts of the country, has caught the attention of California lawmakers as companies seek to expand production in the San Joaquin Valley oil fields.
http://jlne.ws/10F4AGL
KLM debuts weekly transatlantic biofuel-powered flight
Business Greens
The fast-evolving market for aviation biofuels has reached another important milestone, after Dutch airline KLM announced one of its weekly flights from New York to Amsterdam will now be made using a sustainable biofuel made from old cooking oil.
http://jlne.ws/ZCdAtp
‘Tempered optimism’ for the oil and gas industry
Politico
In speech after speech at a cavernous hotel here, top oil and gas executives telegraphed the same message: Life is good.
http://jlne.ws/XEfI3W
Share of power from coal drops
The Age
The change in how Australia generates electricity has been illustrated by the share coming from coal falling below three-quarters for the first time – a shift that has helped cut carbon dioxide emissions.
http://jlne.ws/X0Tu8l
Power
Nuclear Industry Withers in U.S. as Wind Pummels Prices
Bloomberg
A glut of government-subsidized wind power may help accomplish a goal some environmentalists have sought for decades: kill off U.S. nuclear power plants while reducing reliance on electricity from burning coal.
http://jlne.ws/13PVaZB
Canadian Solar Falls as Loss Widens on Lower Panel Prices
Bloomberg
Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ), the Ontario- based solar-panel company with manufacturing operations in China, fell to the lowest in more than two months after reporting quarterly losses widened 75 percent on declining prices.
http://jlne.ws/14ONeEc
Low demand, weak prices hit new CEE power plant projects
Reuters
Central European utilities, facing weakening wholesale power prices and uncertainty about future demand in slumping economies, have scuppered or suspended coal and gas projects with total capacity over 5,000 megawatts.
http://jlne.ws/XjTF4w
Water
Banks to raise funds for water scarcity-hit areas
The Times of India
PUNE: The state cooperation department has decided to raise funds for people in the water scarcity-hit areas from cooperative banks and credit societies. The total contribution would be close to Rs 150 crore, said officials from the state cooperation department.
http://jlne.ws/Y5IMRj
Reports
The State of Green Business 2013 (Posted February 12, 2013)
GreenBiz.com
http://jlne.ws/12K3WYL
Can the US Get There from Here? (Posted February 6, 2013)
WRI
http://jlne.ws/X5PgyQ
The Billion Euro Aviation Bonanza – Aviation’s Participation in the EU ETS (Posted January 22, 2013)
http://jlne.ws/WHQez7
Power Forward: Why the World’s Largest Companies are Investing in Renewable Energy (Posted Dec. 11, 2012)
http://jlne.ws/S5HNAg
Stock Exchange Benchmark On Non-Financial Reporting Rules (Posted Dec. 6, 2012)
Verdantix
http://jlne.ws/QM1A6f