Carbon Offsets Daily

The market for Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) or the carbon credits issued by the UN's (CDM), when the Lieberman-Warner bill was amended to make provision for US industries to purchase international carbon offsets. The prices increased throughout May and their as well..

New concerns over supply of the Kyoto CDM carbon credits, bullish signals on demand and the rising world oil price have combined to push up the price of issued CERs on the secondary market by almost 20 per cent since April 30.

The rising CER prices can be attributed primarily to the ever-increasing gas prices, which have led to an increase in demand for coal in Europe. This in turn has rendered EU carbon emissions permits more expensive, affecting the CER secondary market. In addition, the recent earthquake in China -the leading supplier of CERs, has imposed fueling the price hike.

The governments of Ontario and Quebec have to set up an inter-provincial carbon trading market. Initiated by the premiers of Ontario and Quebec - Dalton McGunity and and Jean Charest respectively, the market is slated to go live by 2010.  The carbon trading would be based on the cap-and-trade system and would use the as the baseline, with the aim to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels.

But the plan has been for not having a proper regulatory mechanism, among other reasons. However, the federal government's plan for bringing about reductions in the greenhouse emissions, that uses a 2006 benchmark, is not only incompatible with what exists in other countries but also inadequate..

...The Quebec-Ontario system opts for "real reductions" in emissions as opposed to the federal government's much criticized "intensity-based" plan, which links reductions to productivity and which environmentalists say does not go far enough toward cutting emissions associated with climate change.

Let's hope that they are able to reach a resolution soon enough and adopt a unified approach to solving the problem of global warming, instead of a fragmented one. Meanwhile, in the United States, continue to shape the future of the carbon market here.

China is the number one supplier of Carbon Credits (CC), , and they show no signs of slowing down. Good news on paper, yet last year alone, Shanghai fell short of its goal of 4% improvement in energy efficiency, and two of the major environmental indicators were pointing in the wrong direction. These indications show that with all China’s economic good intentions, the environmental problems are too deep to simply expect Carbon Credits to function like a magic wand.

But India, the supposed number two with 6% and , has reached a plateau in its overall growth. Still, futures prices reached an all-time high of Rs 1,283 per CER (certified emissions reduction) on May 27, and the 295 Indian companies registered to trade CER are doing so aggressively.  

It remains to be seen whether current technological and economic strategies will be sufficient to combat the massive pollution existing in the world’s two leading traders of carbon credits.

The White House is to the climate change bill that is being debated  by the US Senate this week. The legislation, referred to as the Lieberman-Warner bill after its sponsors, Senators Joseph Liebrman and John Warner, recommends a "cap-and-trade" system. The system would stipulate a cap on industrial carbon emissions and allow industries to trade carbon credits. The United States is the only developed country that is not part of the carbon-capping and the adoption of the climate bill will help reign in its global warming emissions by 66 per cent by the year 2050.

However, President George Bush warned the lawmakers that the bill would cost the American economy six trillion dollars. Speaking against the bill, he said "You know, there's a much better way to address the environment than imposing these costs on the job creators, which will ultimately have to be borne by American consumers."

But what would be the cost of NOT passing the bill, we wonder.

reports that a group of US scientists, led by a physicist at Columbia University in New York, is working towards creating a device that will "suck" or extract carbon-dioxide from the air. They say that a prototype of the machine should be ready in two years time. Previous attempts at creating such machines (or scrubbers) were in vain due to their high energy requirements. However, Lackner and his team claim that they will use changes in humidity to tackle this problem:

... The team says it can trap the CO2 from air on absorbent plastic sheets called ion exchange membranes, commonly used to purify water. Crucially, it has discovered that humid air can then make the membranes "exhale" their trapped CO2.

They still need to work out how exactly the carbon-dioxide captured by the device will be disposed off. Tentative solutions include using the CO2 in greenhouses for plant growth or to grow algae which could be used for food, fertilizer or fuel.

Lackner admits that their invention will not serve as a panacea for the problem of global warming. However, 

... the team says the technology may be the best way to avert dangerous temperature rises, as fossil fuel use is predicted to increase sharply in coming decades despite international efforts.

Kudos to the for attempting to make the games a The  objective of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is to meet twenty per cent of the energy needs through renewable resources. The reports today that sustainable energy firm, Blue-ng, has proposed to power the London Games.

Per the proposal submitted by Blue-ng:

...a new combined heat and power plant (CHP) would be built adjacent to the Olympic Park in east London and would run on sustainably sourced biofuels. If given planning permission, the first implementation of Blue-ng's technology would be at the nearby Beckton pressure-reduction station.

Concerns have been raised about the use of biofuels in Blue-ng's plan, but the firm promises to use only sustainable biofuels like rapeseed which are grown locally in the UK or EU.

Furthermore, Greenpeace had this to say about Blue-ng's plan to use biofuels:

"Greenpeace, in common with many other environmental organizations, is concerned about the unsustainable use of biofuels, especially for road transport," ...... "However, we believe they have a role to play in the UK's electricity generation industry, where they offer the potential for substantial carbon savings. If biofuels are to be used, they should be used ideally in plants which capture heat and produce electricity, rather than as a transport fuel, which is what Blue-NG is proposing to do."

A formal decision on Blue-ng's plan will be taken on June 4th. We at Carbon Offsets Daily will be following this story and will keep you updated.