Archive for the ‘Carbon Conferences’ Category

Emerging national positions leading into Copenhagen

Written by Karla Bell on Monday, 12 October 2009

Recently in Go-Media. The U.S position on Climate Change is overshadowing all other discussions in the lead up to Copenhagen, even at a conference I recently attended in Melbourne Australia - the 5th Australia-New Zealand Climate Change & Business Conference, August 24-26th. The Australian position requires global consensus for a greenhouse gas emissions target by 25% with a successful Post 2012 Agreement in place, but only 5% if that is not concluded. It all depends on what the U.S does in Copenhagen according to their minister Penny Wong

The European Union is the only group that will continue with strong commitments independent of the U.S position with a 20% reduction of greenhouse gases on 1990 levels by 2020 and 30% if a global agreement is concluded.

Katy Cecys of the Pew Centre on Climate Change,  stated that, the American Clean Energy and Security Act sets a target to reduce GHG emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83% below by 2050. Offsets (project-based reductions) are limited to 2,000 million metric tons equivalent per year, or 30% of U.S. emissions reductions, split evenly between domestic and international offsets.

Ms Cecys said, “President Obama has the right to expand the international offsets flowing into the U.S. to 1.5 billion tons of offsets”. This means that due to the U.S position international offsets will continue under the Post 2012 agreement - it may not be called CDM in the new agreement.

In fact expanded offset provisions are anticipated as the U.S has also included provisions for an additional 5% set aside to import REDD credits (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). There is also 1% set aside for adaptation and 1% set aside for Technology transfer.

Ms Cecys, raised two other issues, which will help the U.S Senate pass the Bill - the first is finding a strong advocate like Waxman in the House to drive the Bill through the Senate - the proposed champions are Senator Barbara Boxer or Senator John Kerry with a moderate republican yet to be nominated. The second point is that if the Senate fails to pass the legislation the U.S EPA can legislate as greenhouse gases have now been nominated as noxious substances, such that some fear the U.S EPA may rule even more strongly than the Senate. So there is a view the Senate will pass the Bill either before or after Copenhagen.

The Pew Centre assessment is that a fully ratified Post 2012 agreement is unlikely, rather an interim agreement with a post 2012 architecture in place including a range of developed world targets and indications of advanced developing levels of support, which will be developed in follow up meetings similar to the Marrakesh accords that followed the Kyoto Protocol.

Developing nations should take responsibility

The U.S and EU has stated all economies should take on commitments as China is set to be the largest greenhouse gas producer in the future.

The developing world response

Alex Wyatt from Climate Bridge, articulated the fundamental approach of the developing world. China and India believe that historical emissions are the way to allocate the burden of responsibility, as they did not create the problem. ” It is a human rights issue - they have the right to lift their people out of poverty,” said Wyatt. He indicated that the developed nations are asking countries to take on responsibilities for greenhouse gas reduction, in nations where 40% of the population live on less than $1.25 per day and 50% on less than $2 per day.

China is not doing nothing, it is quite proactive and recognises the problem of growing greenhouse emissions. It has adopted renewable energy targets of 20% by 2020 and of the $586 billion stimulus package to be spent in the next 2 years, $260 billion is going to the Clean Tech sector according to Wyatt.

A compromise position is one whereby, ‘emerging’ developing countries would ‘graduate’ in terms of their greenhouse gas reduction responsibility.  Some least developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh concur.  LDCs like Africa should not be treated on the same basis as the emerging nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC nations). They should be assessed in the post-2012 period on the basis of their level of economic development; capacity to act; contribution to global GHG emissions per capita; GDP per capita; current OECD membership and mitigation potential.

Advanced developing countries measures could include national emission caps; intensity targets; energy efficiency commitments; and sectoral intensity targets. India, Saudi Arabia, and China are firmly against reclassification, rejecting the idea of differentiation based on contemporary levels of development, rather seeing differentiation based on historic responsibility.

National caps are unlikely, but the compromise could be that sector caps will be applied to the BRIC nations. If this occurred the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) would remain outside the capped sectors in the BRIC nations but remain intact in the least developed countries like Africa, Bangladesh and the Pacific. ACES provisions allow for the purchase of international offsets (CDM) from developing countries in order for the U.S to reach its targets at the least cost of abatement.

A new program called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) will assist the advanced developing countries move into the Post 2012 Agreement as well as adaptation measures, technology transfer, and finance. A REDD mechanism means developed countries pay developing countries to reduce deforestation, as de-forestation in the tropics represents about 50% of forest-related greenhouse gas emissions.  Brazil and Indonesia will be major beneficiaries of REDD credits. Brazil has also developed a large-scale hydro and bio-fuels industry such that sector caps are not taboo. It is moving towards the developed world position as a result.

The need for continued improvement in the offset market

The Conference also dealt with an evaluation of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and a number of speakers like Michael Wiener of Perennia and Martijn Wilder of Baker and McKenzie  in Sydney recommended changes to the management of the CDM and advice for creating new mechanisms like NAMAs and REDD going forward under Copenhagen.

Martijn indicated that there had been a lot of criticism of the CDM but reminded everyone that it is the only instrument that drives private sector development and is the global carbon currency. The CDM rulebook has established the global benchmark for offset projects and has become the de-facto standard for all offset projects in the compliance and voluntary markets. The criticism is that the system is too complex with rules from the United Nations CDM Executive Board and in some cases additional host country rules as in China. Michael Wiener noted the lack of sustainability outcomes also. Complaints about the length of time the process takes from project origination to registration through validation and verification, including host country approvals were made by Mina Guli of Peony Capital, who finances CDM projects in China. “Two hundred days for a completeness check is too long - and that is just one part of the chain of getting a project through and a certified emsission reduction (CER) sold into the market’ she said. Additionally, in the first phase China dominated the CDM market with industrial gas projects such as HFC 23 and N20. On the plus side there are 1700 carbon project entrepreneurs in India.

The criticism of CDM by Wiener and Wilder can be summarised as too few countries participated; not a broad enough range of project types were represented; a backlog of projects to be assessed in the CDM pipe-line; a lack of auditors and consistency of decision-making; lack of sustainability outcomes and Post 2012 uncertainty.

Michael Wiener stated that all these criticisms are process issues that need to be solved as the Post 2012 agreement will be relying heavily on the international revised CDM and REDD offset market to reach global greenhouse gas reduction targets. As a founder of Carbonflow Corp, I think technology can assist these markets evolve and adapt, become more reliable faster and efficient, more transparent and user-friendly.

Recently published in Go Media

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ABCCarbon - Australian ETS could follow U.S proposed Senate Bill

Written by Karla Bell on Sunday, 11 October 2009

A recent article by ABC Carbon on the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme. Ken Hickson of ABC Carbon did this interview and Profile of me: Karla Bell.

The driving force for “greening” the Olympic Games, Fiji-born, Australian educated Karla Bell wants to see voluntary carbon offsetting incorporated into emission trading schemes, more use of agricultural offsets, as well as green building retrofitting for energy efficiency and job creation. She’s the co-founder of Carbonflow Corp a software company based in San Francisco, the only multi-party software company in the CDM markets under the Kyoto Protocol.

The insight of this initiative was that policy drives the technology and technology can be used to reduce cost and speed up the transaction process involved in creating a carbon credit or CER (certified emission reduction) from the origination of a project, the validation, registration, verification and on-going monitoring process.

Karla is speaking at Carbon Forum Asia in Singapore in the end of October on the innovators panel, another initiative that is to include Green Building offsets into the offset market in the U.S but more generally in the offset market globally particularly in the developed world, as it already exists in CDM.

Karla had this to say to ABC Carbon on the concerns expressed in Australia about lack of Government recognition for  the Voluntary Carbon Market:

“I would support the Voluntary Carbon Market being grand-fathered into an Australian Emissions Trading scheme as the U.S national draft Kerry-Boxer Bill has proposed. The Voluntary Carbon Standard follows the same architecture as the current CDM mechanism under the Kyoto protocol, the current de-facto standard for the development of the global offset market.

“Additionally, I would support, as the proposed U.S Kerry- Boxer Senate legislation does, the wide-ranging use of offsets in both the proposed international and domestic offset market. The U.S bill has a proposed 75% domestic and 25% international split, whereas the majority of offsets being considered in Australia are international offsets, most likely REDD credits.

“The method of creating offset project types is positive in that anyone from the President to an individual project developer can propose a project type by creating a methodology and have it approved. The following project types have been so far named, including Coal mine and landfill methane collection and combustion; the capture of venting, flaring and fugitive emissions from oil and natural gas.

“From Australia’s point of view, if we are to adopt any similar parts of the proposed U.S. Bill, we should definitely consider the range of agricultural offsets that are proposed, which are wide-ranging from Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) activities: including Afforestation/Reforestation, Improved Forest Management, agro-forestry, reduced deforestation, altered tillage (no-till farming), changes in animal management practices, among others.

“My own particular interest in Green Building offsets is not included but under the process of nominating a project type, submitting it for approval, there would be nothing to stop a project developer taking that path under the Bill.

More words from Karla Bell from two recent articles which appeared in Sustainable Industries publication:

The real issue is the US bill does not go far enough. It needs to create an “energy-efficiency and renewable energy set aside” – or green building carbon offset program – which rises above the regulatory approaches to energy efficiency. The Waxman-Markey bill provides for an economy-wide cap-and-trade program. The cap reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83% below by 2050. Offsets (project-based reductions) are limited to 2,000 million metric tons CO2 equivalent per year, or 30% of U.S. emission reductions, split evenly between domestic and international offsets. Domestic offsets do not include offsets from green buildings.

However, federal regulators are closely watching California, which is holding public hearings about AB32 implementation. Members of the San Francisco Carbon Collaborative, including Carbonflow, have made significant progress with the regulators on getting an “energy efficiency set aside” into the discussion for possible inclusion in AB 32. This is an important first step, as California is known as a global leader in energy related legislation.

Simultaneously, at the recent CarbonExpo in Barcelona, many expressed interest in a Global International Protocol on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy set asides. Under the Waxman-Markey bill, energy efficiency would be achieved through a renewable electricity standard, a low-carbon fuel standard, and energy efficiency programs and standards for buildings, lighting, appliances, as well as vehicles and stationery sources and fuels.

These are all good initiatives. But according to Anne-Marie Warris, author of the Voluntary Carbon Standard, “the problem is that it relies on energy efficiency measures to be applied as the natural turnover of building stock takes place,which is estimated to take anything from 500 to a 1,000 years….which is time we simply do not have to prevent climate change,” Warris says.

Indirect sources of emissions

The Waxman-Markey bill relies on capping direct sources of emissions such as power plants and other smokestack industries. The bill’s definition of domestic offsets includes agriculture, landfill, waste-to-energy projects and biomass. But, it does not include green building offsets. The conventional wisdom is that cap-and trade should be restricted to direct industrial sources, because there are fewer of them and they are already heavily regulated. The bill follows the reliance on reductions from direct sources and forecloses on the possibility to achieve reductions from indirect sources, such as buildings that consume electricity despite their cost effectiveness.

“As a result, a valuable incentive for voluntary GHG reductions is lost, the low-hanging fruit of increasing energy efficiency in buildings goes unpicked, and industrial sources are required to shoulder a greater share of required GHG reductions, all of which increase the societal cost for addressing climate change and makes it less politically feasible to accomplish,” says Donald Simon, an attorney for Wendel, Rosen, Black and Dean.

Huge potential with existing buildings

Existing regulation leading to emissions reductions through “green” construction techniques usually comes in the form of building codes that reach only new construction and substantial renovations. Yet the majority of GHG in the built environment come from existing buildings. Current government incentives “are helpful but inadequate because they do not achieve sufficient market penetration and rely on limited government funding that can disappear in lean budget years,” Simon says. Domestic green building offsets would allow regulated industries to choose between reducing their own emissions or purchasing offsets from others who are able to reduce theirs at lower cost.

This would reduce the overall cost of climate change regulation for consumers because the market would exploit the lowest cost GHG reductions. Green building carbon credits would provide a large funding source that partially finances energy efficiency improvements. Poorer communities would benefit, as credits would fund energy efficient and renewable energy upgrades to existing building stock at a more accelerated rate than building codes currently create.

Making energy upgrades affordable

Moderate House Democrats and Republicans say that under a cap-and-trade program, ordinary people would incur higher energy costs over time because most have not upgraded their homes and small  businesses with energy-efficient technologies.

However, by allowing green building offsets into the federal cap-and-trade system, subsidies to poorer communities for increased energy costs would not be necessary. Their buildings would be retrofitted by the private sector using the dollars from green building offsets. Ultimately, these people would consume up to 50 percent less energy, with no net energy cost increase. Green building offsets would allow construction companies, project developers, engineers and architects to initiate energy efficiency and renewable energy building projects. And, revenue from the sale of the credits would fund projects and create new “green” jobs. Without this small inclusion to the Waxman-Markey bill, the Democrats may miss a chance to pass sweeping climate change legislation in 2009.

Creating more green-collar jobs

Two complementary recent reports prepared by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (PERI), Center for American Progress (CAP), Green For All, and the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) outline how investment in a clean-energy economy will produce significant economic and job creation benefits. These include the generation of roughly three times more jobs than would be generated by the same investment in the existing fossil fuel infrastructure.

NRDC reports the American Clean Energy and Security bill will create 1.7 million jobs throughout America, 614,000 of which will be available to people without college degrees or extensive work experience. This will lead to a tripling of gross domestic product by 2050 and even opponents of the bill predicted a doubling of GDP by 2050.

“Clean-energy jobs are more labor intensive and require more domestically made material than the fossil-fuel industry,” says Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC. “In fact, for every $1 million spent on clean energy, we can create 3-4 times as many jobs as the same money spent on fossil fuels,” she claims.

A few states have been singled out in these reports: Almost 70,000 jobs could be created in Ohio for wind turbine manufacturing, solar panel installation and building retrofitting. In Missouri, 25 moderate-scale wind farms would result in 550 permanent construction jobs and $75 million in ongoing economic impact and in Missouri locally grown biomass would create 11,000 jobs.

These jobs are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the green jobs potential of ACES, which is expected to kick-start the U.S. economy and drive the world economy. Follow up work on a state-by-state basis should occur concerning the green-collar job opportunities across the 50 states.

State-by-state forecast

New York, California and Texas are likely to continue to be hubs for carbon technology jobs, as the states are rich in venture capital funding, high-tech workers and smart-grid, initiatives. However California and Texas can develop manufacturing and installation jobs with solar wind, wave and tidal plants. In Texas, old oil rigs could be converted to wave or tidal power.

Manufacturing jobs can re-energize existing industrial towns. Installation jobs will follow solar, wind and wave power resources. Solar, wind and wave mapping is a new science, which will help dictate where solar, wind and wave farms or bio-fuels plants will be located.

Other states could offer opportunity. Coal states, such as Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Southern Ohio and Southern Indiana, could innovate in carbon capture (clean coal).

Energy-efficiency projects across the United States will create jobs and are potentially more attractive to conventional coal states where energy has historically been inexpensive and standards lower than the west or east coast.

If passed by the Senate before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, the Waxman-Markey bill could pressure other resource-rich nations to conclude their climate legislation before Copenhagen.

Source: www.carbonflow.com and www.sustainableindustries.com

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San Francisco hub for Global Carbon Markets

Written by Karla Bell on Wednesday, 18 March 2009

The San Francisco Carbon Collaborative was coordinate by David Pascal, Clean Technology and Green Business advocate for the City of San Francisco. The meeting was hosted by law firm Morrison and Forester on the 18th and 19th of February 2009. David Pascal thanked everyone who participated for “their enthusiasm and willingness to explore the possibility of anchoring the US environmental markets here in San Francisco”.

David has said that the City of San Francisco has a number of advantages including, “our legacy as a financial and IT centre, our position as an environmental leader, and our economic linkages with China and the rest of the Pacific Rim”. This is a case of think global and act local. San Francisco can host the carbon market players throughout the whole chain of carbon credit creation to trade credits within California, the United States and the rest of the world. Others are thinking along these lines too like Bill Joy, partner at KP who is advocating that the skills of Silicon Valley be put at the disposal of Carbon Valley. Bill Joy was Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems.

Over 60 companies attended the afternoon and following morning including global carbon credit auditor - DNV, global carbon brokers - CantorCO2e, Evolution Markets, global carbon project developers - EcoSecurities, First Climate, California green building companies - Studley, California Green attorneys - Morrison and Foerster, Binghams, Gordon and Rees, U.S and California policy makers and registries - Center for Resource Solutions, UC Berkeley, CARB, Climate Registry, software providers - APX, Carbonflow, U.S. Carbon and Clean Tech investors Clean Pacific, Jane Capital, Vantage Point and Tech companies like Fluid Trade, Media - San Francisco Business Times, Climatebiz and Sustainable Industries. Additionally, local businessman Barry Hoffner of HFS is interested to set up a San Francisco Carbon Exchange.

This was the first meeting of the Carbon Collaborative with future meetings planned in March. David noted that, “The impact of the policy position of the U.S government and the California response to that took up much discussion” Furthermore he said that San Francisco must also develop a Consensus Opinion on AB32 the California Emissions Trading Scheme.

The most important discussion agenda item is the San Francisco City policy position and how it fits into the national U.S Cap and Trade, AB32 and finally to be truly global the international revised Kyoto Protocol to be undertaken in Copenhagen December 2009. The policy position will make or break the notion of San Francisco as an anchor for the carbon markets. This is the nexus between policy and innovation - it is just this juncture, which either leads to green business activity or not.  If for example a carbon tax was to be put forward it would not lead to the same outcome. A tax on carbon polluting industries does not lead to much change in behaviour - it is inelastic. Double your cost of electricity or petrol prices for your car - and you still do not go out and buy photovoltaic cells for your house or a new Toyota Prius, do you? You just pay the tax! Also a carbon tax is not in line with global positions on ways to combat Climate Change. See this blog on the Carbonflow Carbon Game, which showed that as long as you auction the carbon permits,(not grandfather them, meaning give away the permits, the criticism of the European Emissions Trading scheme),  Emissions Trading will lead to a move away from coal fired power stations.  Interestingly, the Bay Area emitters like PG & E did not attend. David indicated that, based on discussions with those parties prior to our meetings, they expressed interest, but appear to be taking a “wait and see” approach to our initial moves. Once a clearer picture of our coordinated activities begins to emerge, San Francisco city will re-approach them with more specific opportunities for engagement.

Also for future meetings, there was mention of reaching out to key SF-based organizations that represent carbon interests in China and India which were also not present. It appears, these organizations may be looking to the US to solidify their standards and practices before they would participate in any new, SF-based market initiative. The U.S position on the post Kyoto framework will have a great impact on Indian and Chinese policy. Will they accept a cap on their emissions or a sliding cap perhaps - a bit less than the industrialized world?

The City of San Francisco has secured a place to meet regularly and continue formulating policy responses and projects that the city can undertake.

  • Policy and markets - 3/19 @ 8:30am
  • Communications - 3/18 @ 8:30am
  • On-going collaboration - 3/26 @ 5pm
  • Capacity building - 3/25 @ 5pm
  • Energy Efficiency - 3 / 30 @ 2pm

The working group on Energy Efficiency and Agricultural Offsets in the U.S Cap and Trade has been included at my request in order to maximize green business activity, create more green jobs, greater transparency and auditability. According to a study, Defining, Estimating and Forecasting the Renewable and Energy Efficiency Industries in the U.S and Colorado by The American Solar Energy Society, Boulder, Colorado, and published on Climatebiz it found that with appropriate federal and state government policies, Renewable Energy (RE) and Energy Efficiency (EE) could by 2030 generate over 37 million jobs per year in the U.S. The study goes onto report that the stronger the policy settings the stronger the job creation potential from RE and EE”. The inclusion of Rnewable Energy (RE) and Energy Efficiency (EE) in the U.S Cap and Trade will unleash the private sector to create the green businesses of the future around transport, energy efficiency and agriculture.

The consequence of good policy will be all the myriad of activities people want to see including a diverse range of companies prospering in a Carbon Valley hub of entrepreneurs, investors, policy people, educationalist and technology companies, which would support a  Carbon Valley Carbon Exchange.

To assist this process a web portal communication center or clearing house will be established by the City of San Francisco with education material focusing on carbon capacity building and communications. The Web portal clearing house would include the following content: Early Carbon Action / Showcase projects / Best practices / ANSI standards /Carbon policy / FAQ’s / Sharing of baseline data  / Summit - case studies (national and international), conferences / Website - city sponsored, blog, education, events, SF version of Open Carbon World / Cluster Building - incubators, think tanks, networking events/ Calendar of local events, local emission reduction projects / Use BC3 as network platform / Capital introductions.

 

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America is open for Green Business - next stop Carbon Valley

Written by Karla Bell on Wednesday, 11 February 2009

President Obama has made the claim that going “Low Carbon” is no longer a seminar subject for caring greens and that the “Green Race is on”. “It is a real live competition to beat the oil regimes and make profits”.

The U.S is positioning itself to be a world leader on Climate Change. Every energy investor and green entrepreneur knows that America is now the place to do business.The Guardian in England on Friday 7 November 2008, announced that, “BP has dropped all plans to build wind farms and other renewable schemes in Britain and is instead concentrating the bulk of its $8bn (£5bn) renewables spending program on the US, where government incentives for clean energy projects can provide a convenient tax shelter for oil and gas revenues”.

The Europeans now look tardy, so do the Australians and everybody else. Europe is being out-manoeuvred and outpaced by the U.S. The Kyoto Protocol had a greenhouse gas reduction target of 5% below 1990 levels. Barack Obama is proposing to cap U.S. emissions at 80% below 1990 levels. Astonishing!

In the Alternative Energy Weekly, 9th of February an annual survey of U.S. investors at the Vail Energy conference, where 68% of those surveyed think there will be a national Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in 2009,  while 55% expect CO2 legislation to be passed in 2010 and 39% think it will be implemented by 2013.

According to Carbon Finance, “The International Energy Agency estimates $45 trillion will have to be invested in clean energy alone over several decades.”  The Wall Street Journal and the Australian owned by Rupert Murdock, believe the U.S is preparing the country for a new green world order.  “Twenty three U.S. states have their own cap-and-trade schemes for capping carbon emissions, making a move to a national scheme very politically possible, although requiring harmonization, which is a practical issue, a legal and soft-ware issue.

Before the U.S. Cap and Trade is legislated, the stimulus package also includes provisions for renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE). President Obama in his campaign for the stimulus package to include clean energy investments, said that “America will not be held hostage to dwindling resources, hostile regimes and a warming planet,” he said, on his sixth day in office. The US would no longer “bankroll dictators” but would create its own energy from the Sun, Wind and Soil.

The stimulus package is still to be finalized this February 13th on the quantum for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Renewable Energy World have noted the differences between the House-passed bill and the Senate version in debate involving the different funding levels for various technologies and programs. The bills are still in discussion. The two bills for Energy, Efficiency and Transmission are $53 billion for the Senate, $ 48.9 billion for the House.

Metrics from Renewable Energy World - Senate version (House version in parentheses)

- $14.4 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs ($18.5 billion in House version, which includes $6.2 billion to expand existing weatherization activities and $7.9 billion for energy-related grants to states)

- $10 billion to cover the subsidy costs of federal loan guarantees for renewable energy systems and electric transmission projects ($8 billion in House version)

- $6.5 billion for federal power marketing administrations to build new transmission systems (same in House version)

- $4.6 billion for R&D on carbon capture and sequestration ($2.4 billion in House version)

- $4.5 billion to modernize the nation’s electricity grid with smart grid technology (same in House version)

- $7.8 billion for environmental remediation and various other activities ($6.4 in House version)

- Tax breaks for large-scale renewable projects ($ 11 billion Senate and House)

Additionally, two executive orders have been passed to require stricter energy efficiency standards on vehicles and to allow states like California to take the lead on higher standards for Climate Action than the Federal government, which is good for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The public discourse is becoming vigorous.

Michael Moore and Ralph Nader want to buy out Detroit and redevelop the whole car industry to produce electric and hybrid cars. They are calling for executives to be replaced by those that know how to produce energy efficient and alternative fuel vehicles. Sounds like a good idea. Texas has a proposed $ 5,000 dollar subsidy for citizens who buy electric hybrid cars.

In San Francisco, from February 23-25, 2009, more than 800 of the world’s clean technology sector leaders—representing over $3 trillion in capital—together with entrepreneurs, scientists and policy-makers, will convene in San Francisco for Cleantech Forum XXI. They promote themselves as “the largest annual assembly of global leaders of the clean technology sector, driving job and wealth creation, addressing climate change and resource scarcity and stimulating global economic growth during uncertain economic times”.

San Francisco is preparing itself for the next big thing and many silicon valley entrepreneurs are behind the next wave “Carbon Valley”.  Many clean-tech investors are dot-com billionaires such as Paul Allen, of Microsoft, and Vinod Khosla, of Sun. They know how quickly new businesses can grow.

Groups are forming to accumulate intellectual property and technologies in the alternative fuels area.  Look at the biochar and bio-diesel industries. Mainstream companies are investing heavily in the future, which is what has to happen.  See www.bestenergies.com

Americans have made it clear this is about business. American Democrats in the political spectrum are closer to European conservatives. Recently that message has got through and Conservative Leader David Cameron in Britain is proposing an ambitious strategy for making Britain a low-carbon economy. It has put the Conservative Party way ahead of the field.

Ironically, Barack Obama will be the most forthright proponent of deep cuts in Greenhouse Gas emissions in Copenhagen for the meeting of the Conference of the Parties December this year.

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San Francisco City Carbon Collobarative 18th and 19th February

Written by Karla Bell on Sunday, 8 February 2009

The Office of Economic and Workforce Development for the city of San Francisco is sponsoring a Carbon Collaborative on February 18/19th 2009. The Carbon Collaborative will explore opportunities to accelerate local economic activity within emerging environmental markets. Key areas of focus for this initiative include
emissions trading, emissions reduction project development, project verification and certification, and climate policy. The purpose of this exploration is to identify opportunities that will further establish San Francisco as a dominant center of activity within the coming low-carbon economy.

For Further Information contact the City of San Francisco,

Office of Economic & Workforce
Development
City Hall, Room 436
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco CA 94102

Posted in Carbon Conferences, U.S.Carbon Forums, US Carbon Forums, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »