The Black Hole In Labor's Carbon Tax How much carbon pollution will actually be reduced by the Gillard Government's carbon tax? If you've been following the debate, you'll have the Prime Minister repeat the figure "160 million tonnnes" a number of times, which, she is keen to point out, is the equivalent of taking "45 million cars" off the road. The figure comes from the sophisticated economic modelling performed by Treasury for the carbon policy. The Treasury models suggests that to meet Australia's target of a 5 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, we're going to have to emit around 152 million tonnes less pollution. But it turns out that the majority of this abatement does not come from Australian industry or consumers — or from Australia at all. According to Treasury, 94 million tonnes of that 152 million tonnes will come from "internationally-sourced abatement" (see the graph, obtained from Treasury, below). Australian carbon abatement projections from domestic and international sources.
Blog « The #SciFund Challenge Each day we are going to highlight one of the amazing research projects seeking funding in Round 4 of the #Scifund Challenge. Today we meet up with the talented Erin Eastwood (she paints and sciences!) and she discusses the importance of understanding the movement patterns of fish in protected habitats in Fiji. Tell us about yourself, where you are from, and where you see yourself going. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, and have been a total ocean nerd since the very beginning. How did you get involved in your research project? I went to Fiji two years ago to help a friend with her research on marine protected areas. From that trip on, I have focused on the benefits of scientific research to nature AND to people. Why is your research important to you? Because our oceans need to be protected! Do you have a favorite story that came from working on your research project? Tell us something random.
Carbon credits market at point of collapse Unpopular ... carbon credits. Photo: Rob Homer THE international market in carbon credits has suffered an almost total collapse, with only $US1.5 billion of them traded last year - the lowest since the system opened in 2005, says a report from the World Bank. A fledgling market in greenhouse gas emissions in the United States also declined, and only the European Union's internal market in carbon remained healthy, worth $US120 billion. The international market in carbon credits was brought about under the Kyoto Protocol, as a way of injecting investment in low-carbon technology in the developing world. Under the system, known as the clean development mechanism, projects such as wind farms or solar panels in developing countries are awarded credits for every tonne of carbon avoided. Advertisement From 2005, when the Kyoto Protocol came into force, to 2009 the system generated a total of $25 billion for developing countries. Guardian News & Media
» Aligning Marine Management Institutions with Key Ecological and Economic Linkages in the Gulf of California, Mexico Marine Conservation Science Project Update, June 2013 Our project focuses on the coupled natural and human coastal marine systems of the Gulf of California, in northwest Mexico. By developing an interdisciplinary framework for understanding coastal marine environment-society connections in this region, we are generating information to help inform innovative marine management strategies in the Gulf and other coastal and marine areas worldwide. Guiding research questions include: What are the key ecological and economic linkages among the coupled natural and human systems of the region? Read our field notes, from Cabo Pulmo, Sinaloa, and La Paz. View our most recent publication (Reddy et al. 2013) on the coupled interactions between fishers and local economies and the influences of these connections on both people and nature. For more images from the project, please see our project’s photo album. Current Activities Project Team
Australia’s carbon price architecture explained « Climate Dilemma Funding « Of Dolphins & Fishers Generous support has allowed me to pursue my research interests, and I am incredibly grateful for the faith that my funding sources have demonstrated in my research ideas. Currently, my fieldwork is being funded by the Fulbright U.S. Students Program (for the Philippines), the National Geographic Society-Waitt Grants Program, and the Friends of the UCSD International Center’s Ruth Newmark Scholarship. Future research in Thailand and Indonesia will be supported by the Artisanal Fisheries Research Network‘s project, “Coordinating Research for Sustaining Artisanal Fisheries”, funded by the Waitt Foundation. Previous research during my PhD has been supported by the Mia J. This research is relatively low-budget, “muddy boots” work, and I strive to ensure that this funding yields quality information that contributes to conservation. So, I’d like to thank all of my funding sources for their support. Like this: Like Loading...
Smoke and Mirrors Bob Brown described Sunday as “great green action day for this nation”. But the carbon price scheme the Greens and Labor are pushing is really one great big exercise in passing the buck. Most importantly, this is an attempt to pass the costs of restructuring the Australian economy onto the working class in the long term (as Ben Hillier reports). But it’s also about reassuring polluting Australian businesses that they can keep polluting for a long time to come. Part of the package announced on Sunday was a target of cutting emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 (based on their level in 2000). But this isn’t what it seems. This market is notoriously dodgy. Almost all emissions reductions under the CPRS will be bought in from overseas – a case of smoke and mirrors, with offsets hiding the reality that Australia would be continuing with its highly polluting economy. But international offsets aren’t just a trick: they also screw over real people. So what’s the alternative?
Cove Guardians ***Watch our livestream from the Front Lines*** In the small coastal town of Taiji, hundreds to thousands of dolphins and small whales are captured and killed each year during the annual dolphin drive hunt. For a staggering six months of every year - September 1st until March - a group of dolphin hunters herd wild dolphins from the ocean’s open waters into a hidden shallow bay, now infamously known around the world as the cove. The hunters capture entire families, or pods, of various species of dolphins at a time in order to satisfy the international demand for captive dolphins in the entertainment industry. In 2010, Sea Shepherd launched its Operation Infinite Patience campaign. With your help, we will encourage Japan to end Taiji’s unnecessary hunt and capture of these incredibly intelligent, sentient beings. This may take time; this may not happen overnight, but this is Operation Infinite Patience. Other Cove Guardian videos
Smokescreen for inaction - Tad Liz Find More Stories The carbon price debate as smokescreen for inaction Tad Tietze and Elizabeth Humphrys What if one of the biggest debates in federal politics today - the increasingly hysterical and partisan debate on a carbon price - actually mattered very little in terms of the practical outcomes purportedly being sought: the de-carbonisation of the Australian economy? First some basic assumptions so that this doesn't get into a debate between "believers" and "sceptics". We are talking here to those, like us, who believe that climate change is real, human-driven, and poses a serious threat to ecology and society. Yet it is precisely the immediacy and magnitude of the threat that leads us to reject the argument put by Wayne Swan in his speech to the National Press Club this week, that the "only way to drive investment in [clean-energy] technology is to put a price on pollution. The size of the carbon problem also reflects the scale of existing business investment in high-carbon areas. x
MSP Workshop 2006 - UNESCO - IOC - Marine Spatial Management Why a Workshop on marine spatial planning? From 8-10 November 2006, UNESCO held the first International Workshop on the use of marine spatial planning as a tool to implement ecosystem-based, sea use management. The workshop was a cooperative initiative between UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and the Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) of the Ecological and Earth Sciences Division. About 50 participants from over 20 countries attended because of their practical experience in sea use management, marine spatial planning, and ocean zoning. The purpose of the workshop was to review and document the state-of-the-art and good practices of marine spatial planning through a series of thematic presentations and discussions on the various elements of the management process, e.g., authorization, research, planning, analysis, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, institutional arrangements, and capacity building. Presentations included: Publications from the workshop
The Carbon Tax We Had To Have BenE After five years of delay and division, our nation's leaders (well, a bare majority of them, anyway) have finally faced up to the devastating risks threatening our future, and done something about it. At long last we have a comprehensive, plausible and sound basis for reducing Australia's stunningly high levels of pollution. There is already plenty of excellent explanation and analysis of yesterday's announcement, and so I won't address the nitty-gritty details of the package directly. Rather, I'm going to examine it from a number of different angles: the policy mechanisms underlying the scheme's operation; why it's better than the CPRS; why it's a surprisingly fair and democratic policy; some of its weak spots; and finally its implications for the politics of climate. But firstly, "what's the point of all this?", as Tony Abbott asked in his press conference yesterday. Let's go back to first principles. This, in a nutshell, is why we need a carbon tax. And an achievement is surely is.
Is Cap and Trade a Dead Policy Walking? | NDN In his February 24 speech to Congress, President Barack Obama asked Members “to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution.” So yesterday, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman took the first step by introducing his cap-and-trade plan. Yet sometimes, the political sands shift underneath a policy approach that was once viable, even embraced broadly, and its chances of becoming law ebb away. Until the media and the public make the connection between the policy and the new environment, the approach becomes a dead policy walking. It happened to Social Security privatization and the flat tax -- good riddance to both -- and now it appears to be overtaking cap-and-trade. Cap-and-trade combines a regulatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions with a market-based scheme to trade as financial instruments the “permits” to produce those emissions. That’s not the only tricky problem facing cap-and-trade.
World’s Largest Derivatives Market – Subprime Carbon | Emerging Consensus Nathan Martin calls attention to the worlds largest derivatives market in the Carbon Cap and Trade system. He links to a great CNBC video on “The Carbon Challenge”, in which former Governor and DNC Chairman Howard Dean declares “I am terrified of a Bernie Madoff in the Cap and Trade business who is selling stuff that doesn’t exist”. Let me be clear that I believe effective energy and carbon policy is the single most urgent and important matter for government to address. The problem is that his proposed solution – creating a Cap and Trade Carbon Derivatives market is a bad idea. Michelle Chan, director of Friends of the Earth Green Investments and author of a FOE report called “Subprime Carbon“, cautions that there are already 130 Wall Street funded climate change lobbyists in Washington. According to Carbon Offsets Daily, the chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s energy subcommittee, Sen. The Carbon Tax Center offers a good summary of Carbon Tax vs.
Great Issues in Energy Symposium Great Issues in Energy Symposium is an annual event featuring experts on a variety of energy-related topics. 2nd Annual Great Issues in Energy Symposium: The Nuclear Option April 9, 2010 Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth presented the second annual Great Issues in Energy Symposium on the topic of "The Nuclear Option." Featured speakers were: Dr. 1st Annual Great Issues in Energy Symposium: Climate April 2, 2009 Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth presented the first annual Great Issues in Energy Symposium on the topic of Climate. Featured speakers were Jason Grumet, Founder and President of the Bipartisan Policy Center and Executive Director of the National Commission on Energy Policy and Dr.