By Chris Lang Gurpreet Singh Rai, or Gurps to his friends, describes himself as someone who was a “prominent figure of the Carbon Market”. He claims to have created history in 2011, when he became “the first person to successfully facilitate a commodity trade using a virtual currency”.
Category: USA
California’s “lenient leakage accounting” means that emissions reductions from forest offsets may never happen
California’s cap-and-trade scheme has resulted in payments of hundreds of millions of dollars to forest owners. But a recent policy brief by Barbara Haya at the University of California, Berkeley argues that California may have exaggerated the emissions reductions of these forestry projects by as much as 80 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Members of the European Parliament urge California to exclude REDD from its cap and trade scheme: “Adopting the Tropical Forest Standard would water down climate ambition in California, the EU, and globally”
Last week, six Members of the European Parliament wrote to the California Air Resources Board urging the ARB to reject the proposed California Tropical Forest Standard. In November 2018, the ARB held a public meeting about the proposed Tropical Forest Standard. But the Board failed to reach a decision at that meeting.
Natural Climate Solutions: “It really is time that governments stopped trying to find more ways to offset their fossil fuel emissions”
From the beginning, REDD proponents described saving rainforests as the “low-hanging fruit”. When he launched Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) in December 2007, Norway’s then-prime minister Jens Stoltenberg told us that, “Through effective measures against deforestation we can achieve large cuts in greenhouse gas emissions – quickly and at low cost.”
A storm in a Katowice tea cup: COP24 climate negotiators argue about the difference between “welcoming” and “noting” the IPCC’s latest report
The COP24 climate negotiations in Katowice are following the same predictable path that the UN climate meetings follow every year. After the first week, the negotiators are arguing, apparently unable to agree on anything much. Over the second week, as ministers arrive, everything will seem hopeless. Then, after a couple of late-night sessions at the…