EJ Matters for Climate Change [Resources]

Resources on Carbon Trading

F A C T S H E E T S

The Cap and Trade Charade for Climate Change - Download PDF

Summary: 13 Reasons Why Trading and Offset Use are NOT a Solution to Climate Change - Download PDF

Reality versus Theory--Debunking the Myths of Cap-and-Trade - Download PDF

Carbon "Offsets"--A lose-lose-lose scenario to address climate change - Download PDF

B O O K

"The main cause of global warming is rapidly increasing carbon dioxide emissions -- primarily the result of burning fossil fuels. Some responses to the crisis, however, are causing new and severe problems -- and may even increase global warming. This seems to be the case with carbon trading -- the main current international response to climate change and the centrepiece of the Kyoto Protocol." -- Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power, edited by Larry Lohman, published by Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Durban Group for Climate Justice and The Corner House, October 2006. - Download PDF

A R T I C L E S

The Economics:

“Most economists believe a carbon tax… would be a superior policy alternative to an emissions-trading regime. In fact, the irony is that there is a broad consensus in favor of a carbon tax everywhere except on Capitol Hill... Al Gore supports the concept, as does James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality during the George W. Bush administration, Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute supports such an initiative, but so does Paul Anderson, the CEO of Duke Energy.” -- Green, Kenneth P., et. al., Climate Change: Caps vs. Taxes, American Enterprise Institute , Jun. 3, 2007. [Note: we believe a fee would be better for California.]

“[A] given long-term emission-reduction target could be met by a tax at a fraction of the cost of an inflexible cap-and-trade program.” -- Policy Options for Reducing CO2 Emissions, Congress of The United States Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Feb. 12, 2008.

“[E]xcessive volatility or unduly high prices of quotas on carbon emissions might disrupt the economy severely.” -- Carbon Markets Create a Muddle, Financial Times , Apr. 26, 2007.

"A surge in emission permit prices in the EU carbon market in the wake of spiralling oil, gas and coal prices may force a rethink of the rules to prevent carbon compliance getting too expensive, Deutsche analyst Mark Lewis says. This would most likely mean a relaxing of the restrictions on the use of Kyoto offset credits, particularly Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) generated under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)... 'A more generous quota may have to be allowed … to cushion against the risk of an excessive price spike,' Bloomberg reports Lewis saying.” -- CERs may get new boost from oil, Carbon Positive , Jun. 20, 2008.

Speaking Out Against Carbon Trading:

"Based on our experience as environmental enforcers..., we believe that the California Air Resource Board’s confidence in cap-and-trade is misplaced and that carbon fees provide the more effective and efficient path to the goals of AB 32, California’s landmark climate protection law." -- GUEST JUICE: Cap & Trade - Misplaced Confidence, California Energy Circuit , Jul. 11, 2008.

EPA Lawyers call for Carbon Fee, May 4, 2008 - Download PDF

"As the United States moves toward taking action on global warming, practical experience with carbon markets in the European Union raises a critical question: Will such systems ever work?.... in Europe, which created the world’s largest greenhouse gas market three years ago, early evidence suggests the whole approach could fail. Carbon dioxide emissions are still rising in many industries, not falling." -- The Trouble with Markets for Carbon, New York Times , James Kanter, Jun. 20, 2008.

"The headlines tell the story. 'European Union’s efforts to tackle climate change a failure.' 'UN effort to curtail emissions in turmoil.' 'Truth about Kyoto: huge profits, little carbon saved'. 'It isn’t working . . . $3 billion to some of the worst carbon polluters in the developing world.' 'Critics say offsets may slow the changes needed to cope with global warming'. 'Rich states failing to lead on emissions'. 'Carry on polluting.' In the last two years, investigative journalists have highlighted a story of growing failure in all the most high-profile official efforts to address climate change – the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS), and many regional programmes – and in the 'carbon market' framework they all share... 'The EUETS has done nothing to curb emissions,' notes Peter Atherton of Citigroup Global Markets. It benefits utilities, hedge funds and energy traders while constituting 'a highly regressive tax falling mostly on poor people' and other consumers. Coal plants, observes Deutsche Bank, ironically 'receive more allowances than eco-friendlier' fuels. According to a consultant to the British government, 'by 2015, the UK’s electricity system will look remarkably similar regardless of . . . how the EUETS plays out.'... Private consultancy Point Carbon complains that the new Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon-marketing scheme planned for the northeastern US states has hobbled itself before it has even got under way by allocating an oversupply of pollution rights to electricity generators." -- Carbon Trading: Solution or Obstacle?, The Corner House , Larry Lohmann, Jun. 18, 2008.

"Unless we find cost-effective ways of reducing the role of fossil fuels, a cap-and-trade system would ultimately break down. It wouldn't permit satisfactory economic growth. Nor would it work internationally. Developing countries, the largest source of new emissions, won't abandon fossil fuels unless there are competitive alternatives. If we're going to use price to try to stimulate those new technologies, let's at least do it honestly. Most economists think that a straightforward tax on carbon would have the same incentive effects for alternative fuels and conservation as cap-and-trade without the rigidities and uncertainties of emission limits. A tax is more visible, understandable and democratic." -- Let's Just Call It 'Cap and Tax,' Newsweek , Robert J. Samuelson, June 9, 2008.

"'Cap and trade' sets up a system that offers endless opportunities to game the system and make even more money by burning fossil fuels, while claiming to be curbing global warming fast enough to avert climate chaos. By the time the system has matured and we learn that it did not work, the billionaires created by the system will be living comfortably in the globally-warmed mountains of Switzerland while the rest of us are learning to deal with more and bigger Katrinas, creeping inundation of all the world's coastal cities, and widespread famine from crop failures caused by drought. This disaster is being created right before our eyes by the 'leading environmentalists' in the United States." -- A Disaster Brought To You By the Nation's Leading Environmentalists, Rachel's Democracy & Health News , Peter Montague, Issue: #962, June 5, 2008.

"CLIMATE change is 'the greatest market failure the world has ever seen'. That is the view of no less an authority than Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, and he has a point... The permits are tradable, and the potential for making a profit from buying or selling them has encouraged a whole landscape of speculators, hedge funds, carbon brokers and complex financial instruments to spring up (see "Dirty, sexy money")... With the credit crisis still biting and a global recession looming, a cynic might say the financial market is the last thing we should be calling on to mend the climate. If we cannot trust financiers with something as apparently straightforward as the housing market, why should we imagine they can triumph at controlling global pollution? Yet we all have a vested interest in them succeeding, and the carbon market is growing fast... It is also far from clear that carbon trading will benefit the climate in the long term. By reducing the short-term costs of cutting emissions it could be undermining research and development into the low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies without which the problem will never be properly solved. Bizarrely, no one has thought to address this issue.” -- Can carbon capitalism save the world?, New Scientist.com , Apr. 19, 2008.

Many fear that "carbon capitalism is already out of control, delivering big profits while doing little to halt global warming. They are deeply sceptical of the notion that market forces can fix climate change. 'To believe that is to believe in magic,' says Tom Burke, a former director of Friends of the Earth in the UK and adviser to several British environment ministers... [B]etween now and 2012 European companies are expected to buy about $25 billion worth of carbon credits. With this sort of money up for grabs, it is no surprise that what began as a niche market is now attracting major financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Barclays Capital. Climate Care has just been bought by JP Morgan... most of the dams issued with CERs were either completed or already under construction before the application for carbon credits was made - suggesting they were going to be built anyway, without the incentive of carbon credits. For instance, the Xiaogushan dam [] in Gansu province began construction in 2003. Later it qualified for carbon credits. Once sold, those credits will allow their purchasers, probably in Europe, to pump out some 3 million tonnes of CO2 that they would not otherwise have been allowed to emit.” -- Carbon trading struggles to cut our emissions, New Scientist.com , Apr. 19, 2008.

"The United Nations is facing scathing criticism from the world's indigenous communities for its attempts to promote carbon trading as a tool to address climate change concerns... Janet Redman, lead author of a new study released by the Washington, DC-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) last month, tends to agree, especially with respect to the World Bank's role in facilitating carbon trading programs. "It is making money off of causing the climate crisis and then turning around and claiming to solve it," she said of the Bank... Out of its $2 billion carbon finance portfolio, the Bank has directed nearly 80 percent to projects involving polluting industries.” -- Carbon Trading Blasted by Indigenous Groups, One World US , May 5, 2008.

"The vast majority of indigenous peoples feel that the REDD will not benefit Indigenous Peoples, but in fact will result in more violations of Indigenous Peoples' rights. It will increase the violation of our rights to our lands, territories and resources; cause forced evictions; prevent access and threaten indigenous agriculture practices; destroy biodiversity, cultural diversity, traditional livelihoods and knowledge systems; and cause social conflicts. Under REDD, States and carbon traders will take more control over our forests.” -- Petition to the Permanent Forum members, PROTEST: United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, YouTube , May 2, 2008.

"As Congress debates whether to limit carbon-dioxide emissions, one of the most vocal supporters of such legislation -- the nuclear-power industry -- is poised to reap a multibillion- dollar windfall if restrictions take effect.” -- Carbon Caps May Give Nuclear Power a Lift, Wall Street Journal , May 19, 2008.

“The emerging alliance of business and environmental special interests may well prove powerful enough to give us cap-and-trade in CO2... it would make money for some very large corporations. But don't believe for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming.” -- Cap and Charade: The political and business self-interest behind carbon limits, Wall Street Journal, March 2007.

Companies “will doubtless fudge numbers to maximize their credits; some companies stand to make a great deal of money under a trading system. ... This presents opportunities for Enron-style market manipulation.” -- Time to tax carbon, Los Angeles Times , May 28, 2007.

"The world's biggest carbon offset market, the Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism (CDM)... is intended to reduce emissions by rewarding developing countries that invest in clean technologies. In fact, evidence is accumulating that it is increasing greenhouse gas emissions behind the guise of promoting sustainable development. The misguided mechanism is handing out billions of dollars to chemical, coal and oil corporations and the developers of destructive dams - in many cases for projects they would have built anyway." -- Discredited strategy, The Guardian , May 21, 2008.

"California deregulated its electricity industry in 1998, and shortly afterward the lights went out. Apparently, regulators hadn't realized how easy it would be for unscrupulous traders such as Enron to manipulate the state's power market once it was open to competition; the results were rolling blackouts and skyrocketing electricity charges... We bring up this painful history because the state is about to embark on a new program that will radically impact utility regulation... regulators are designing a cap-and-trade program... This is a staggeringly complex undertaking that will once again create opportunities for dishonest traders to manipulate the market... If California, which leads the country in addressing the threat of global warming, gets this program wrong, it could discredit efforts to fight the problem nationwide, if not worldwide.” -- California’s Cap-And-Trade Won’t Work, LA Times, Mar. 10, 2008.

New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, spoke out that “I think it’s time we stopped listening to the skeptics who say, ‘But for the politics,’ and start being honest about costs and benefits.” -- The Real Climate Debate: To Cap or to Tax?, New York Times, Nov. 2, 2007.

"Cap-and-trade is an easier political sell because the costs are hidden — but they’re still there. And the payoff is more uncertain. Because even though cap-and-trade is intended to incentivize investments that reduce pollution, the price volatility for carbon credits can discourage investment, since an investment that might make sense if carbon credits are trading at $50 a ton may not make sense at $30 a ton. This price volatility can also lead to real economic pain. ... The market for trading carbon credits will be much more complex and difficult to police than the market for the sulfur dioxide credits that eliminated acid rain. And there are political issues — because the system is subject to manipulation by elected officials who want to hand out exemptions to special interests. ... Politicians tend to prefer cap-and-trade because it obscures the costs. Some even pretend that it will lower costs in the short run. That’s nonsense. The costs will be the same under either plan — and if anything, they will be higher under cap-and-trade, because middlemen will be making money off the trades.” -- Bloomberg Calls for Tax on Carbon Emissions, New York Times, Nov. 2, 2007.

“Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil refiner, has said carbon taxes are preferable to emissions-trading systems like the one adopted by the European Union. `A carbon tax is certainly the least complex' of the two options, Sherri Stuewer, Exxon Mobil's vice president of health, safety and environment, said last week. Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in December 2002, agreeing to reduce emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels from 2008-2012. Canada's greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 were 33 percent above its Kyoto target, government figures released last month show.” -- Quebec Approves Carbon Tax to Cut Greenhouse Gases, Bloomberg.com, Jun. 2007. [Note: we believe a fee would be better for California.]

"I strongly favor a 'tax and dividend' approach. The entire carbon tax should be given back to the public, an equal amount to each person. No bureaucracy is needed to figure this out. If an early carbon tax averages say $1200 per person (it can be collected in various ways -- at the well-head, carbon emission permit auctions, etc.) a monthly $100 deposit can be made automatically in everyone's bank account..” -- Dear Governor Greenwash, Gristmill , James Hansen, May 29, 2008.

“As lawmakers on Capitol Hill push for a cap-and-trade system to rein in the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, an unlikely alternative has emerged from an ideologically diverse group of economists and industry leaders: a carbon tax... a coalition of academics and polluters now argues that a simple tax on each ton of emissions would offer a more efficient and less bureaucratic way of curbing carbon dioxide buildup...” -- Tax on Carbon Emissions Gains Support, Washington Post, Apr. 1, 2007. [Note: we believe a fee would be better for California.]

“Since the Kyoto agreement, the concept of permit trading has gathered momentum. Companies are researching schemes to pay others to preserve or increase their own emissions. The World Bank is attempting to price emissions to jump-start a trading market. Even the Environmental Defense Fund plans to make money by brokering carbon trades... The recognition is growing, moreover, that trading is simply inadequate to the climate crisis. 'International carbon trading is a scam that is going to give emissions trading a bad name,' said John Henry, a Washington-based entrepreneur who made sizable profits brokering trades for the domestic US sulfur dioxide trading program. Henry explained the domestic sulfur dioxide trading program worked because virtually all those emissions came from 2,000 smokestacks - a manageable number to monitor. Moreover, the program operated under an enforceable national regulatory system. By contrast, carbon is emitted from millions of sources all over the world - far too many to monitor. And there is no international regulatory system to enforce emission limits... Schemes like ''emissions trading'' look neat on paper. Unfortunately, they will not slow the melting of the earth's glaciers, the breakup of Antarctic ice shelves, rising sea levels, warming-driven migrations of disease, the intensification of El Ninos, and the relentless increase in floods, droughts, and severe storms.” -- Trading away our chances to end global warming, Boston Globe, Ross Gelbspan, May 16, 1999.

The Failures of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS):

“The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reports that nuclear power companies in Finland are enjoying massive subsidies from emissions trading rights. It reports that companies producing electricity with coal and other emission-causing fuels pass on the value of emission rights to their electricity prices, even though they receive the bulk of the rights free of charge... Also, power utilities that do not cause emissions follow the same pricing practices. According to Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's four nuclear power units bring owners an extra 500 million euros annually from non-existent emissions." -- Emissions Trading Windfall For Nuclear Plants, YLE News , Jun. 23, 2008.

“Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades... The European Union, through its emissions trading scheme, has tried to make power plants consider the costs of carbon, forcing them to buy 'permits' for emissions. But with the price of oil so high, coal is far cheaper, even with the cost of permits to pollute factored in..." -- Europe Turns Back to Coal, Raising Climate Concerns, New York Times , Apr. 23, 2008.

“Earlier this month, Ted Nordhaus posted 'The ‘Serious Business’ of Kyoto: EU to ‘overshoot’ its emissions reductions targets? Read between the lines.' His analysis rightly takes the EU to task for overselling its GHG-emissions-reduction activities, in the hope that the U.S. will buy what they’re selling and leap aboard the sinking ship of carbon cap-and-trade. Nordhaus reveals that the EU’s claims to leadership and projected success on the GHG-reduction front are based on assumptions that will likely prove embarrassing in hindsight." -- Nordhaus on Europe's Scheming, National Review Online , Mar. 25, 2008.

Of the 65% of companies surveyed by Point Carbon earlier this year [2007] which claimed that the ETS had led them to abate their emissions (up from 15% the previous year), most were planning to buy credits rather than cut their own emissions….European emissions overall are not falling, which suggests there may not be as much switching out of coal, or as much technological innovation, as had been hoped. Chinese CERs are too cheap and the carbon price is too low and too volatile. Even when it was bouncing around at €15-25, it did not seem to encourage much new investment." -- Trading Thin Air, The Economist , May 31, 2007.

“Overall, EU emissions have not been curbed since the Kyoto treaty was signed in 1997. Under current policies the EU-15 will certainly not meet its Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 8% on 1990 levels by 2012. But on current trends, emissions in the EU-15 will have actually increased by 5% by 2030." -- Europe’s dirty secret: Why the EU Emissions Trading Scheme isn’t working, Open Europe , Aug. 2007.

"Even a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the EU’s ETS is far from being the most cost effective way to reduce net carbon emissions. Adding up simply the transfer cost and the administrative cost suggests a cost to the UK economy of £530 million a year (without including the knock-on costs of higher energy prices). This is unacceptably high, given that there is no evidence that the scheme is actually limiting emissions across the EU… ” -- The High Price of Hot Air: Why the EU Emissions Trading Scheme is an Environmental and Economic Failure, Open Europe .

“[T]he [European] commission assumes that the ETS, which awards 'permits to pollute' to industry, will deliver a practical means to achieve its target. These permits have to date been given away, resulting in massive windfalls for energy-intensive industries. It now proposes to auction the greater part of these pollution licences, although heavy lobbying has resulted in a series of opt-outs and delays. In effect, the EU is offering polluting industries an extended period of grace. This despite the mass of evidence, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change downwards, that the next 15 years will be the crucial period for action on climate change.” -- Permission to pollute: Far from tackling climate change, the EU's timid plans are rewarding those on the wrong track, The Guardian, Jan. 2008.

“The price of phase two allowances [in the EU-ETS] has risen to a level high enough to get some power generators to switch from coal to gas at the margin when the gas price is moderate; but not high enough to get them to replace coal-fired power stations with gas-fired ones—nor to encourage much of the innovation that carbon trading had been expected to spawn.” -- The Carbon Market is Working, But Not Bringing Forth as Much Innovation as Had Been Hoped, The Economist, May 31, 2007.

A new study "estimates that the windfall to electricity generators in just the five states of UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland over the current five year phase of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) [Phase II] could be between 23 and 71 billion Euros ($US 36 -111 billion ).” -- EU carbon market sets up another round of windfall profits for dirtiest power generators, World Wildlife Fund, Apr. 7, 2008.

“National governments are already allowed to auction up to 10% of emissions permits but WWF estimates that the proportion sold, in practice, is closer to 4%... European Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich added that part of the problem had been the response from power companies. 'If they can pass on the costs to the customers, they will do it. Then they have a certain number of free certificates which they can sell on the market,' she said.” -- EU 'windfall for power companies', BBC News, Apr. 7, 2008.

(In)Efficacy of Pollution Trading Programs:

"Compare the success of the often-touted sulfur dioxide trading system the U.S., instituted in 1990, with the speed and quantity of reductions under rule-based systems during the same period. U.S. SO2 emissions dropped by 31% between 1990 and 2001. Over the same period of time, under old fashioned rule-based regulation, Germany reduced its emissions by 87%, Italy by 62%, and Western Europe as a whole by 57%. ... In general, it is not surprising that emission trading discourages innovation. The whole point of spatial flexibility is to encourage use of all cheap means before turning to expensive ones." -- Gar Lipow, Gristmill, Feb. 19, 2008.

"[A]rticle presents new data and theory unsettling the traditional view that market mechanisms encourage innovations vital to sustainable development. Market actors fail to take positive spillovers, e.g. benefits accruing to competitors and thence to future generations, into account in making technological choices. Because of this failure to take long-term economic development into account, the international trading markets have contributed far less to sustainable energy development than more targeted programs." -- Sustainable Development and Market Liberalism’s Shotgun Wedding: Emissions Trading Under the Kyoto Protocol , Indiana Law Journal , David M. Driesen, Vol. 83, Issue 1 (forthcoming), Oct. 3, 2007.

“The problem lies in the fact that carbon trading is designed with the express purpose of providing an opportunity for rich countries to delay making costly, structural changes towards low-carbon technologies. This isn’t a malfunction of the market or an unexpected by-product: this is what the market was designed to do. The economist John Kay wrote in the Financial Times: 'when a market is created through political action rather than emerging spontaneously from the needs of buyers and sellers, business will seek to influence market design for commercial advantage.' In terms of climate change and carbon trading, the 'commercial advantage' (at least in the short term) lies in avoiding the costly structural changes, and industry has influenced every stage of the design and implementation of the carbon market to this end.” -- Carbon Trading: the limits of free-market logic, Kevin Smith, China Dialogue, Sept. 20, 2007.

“Comparing and contrasting [trading] programs revealed grave flaws common to all of them. Finding the same failings in all trading programs—as well as evidence of the emergence of these failings in smaller or younger programs, even though they are for different pollutants, time frames and circumstances—suggests that the deficiencies are intrinsic to trading itself, not the result of faulty program design or implementation.” -- Marketing Failure: The Experience With Air Pollution Trading in the United States, Health & Clean Air Newsletter , Feb. 2004.

“[P]ollution trading actually creates perverse incentives to avoid innovation.” -- Drury, Richard; Belliveau, Michael, et. al, Pollution Trading and Environmental Injustice: Los Angeles’ Failed Experiment in Air Quality Policy, Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum, Vol. 9:231, Spring 1999.

The Urgency to Achieve Significant Greenhouse Gas Reductions:

"We are now firmly ensconced in the Age of Extreme Weather. According to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, there have been more than four times as many weather-related disasters in the last 30 years than in the previous 75 years. The United States has experienced more of those disasters than any other country. In 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, the estimated damage from storms in the United States was $121 billion. That is $39 billion more than the 2005 supplemental spending bill to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. About $3 billion has been allocated to assist farmers who suffer losses because of droughts, floods and tornadoes among other things. And, a recent report in The Denver Post said the Forest Service plans to spend 45 percent, or $1.9 billion, of its budget this year fighting forest fires. This surge in disasters and attendant costs is yet another reason we need to declare a coordinated war on climate change akin to the wars on drugs and terror. It’s a matter of national security." -- Farewell, Fair Weather. - New York Times , Charles M. Blow, May 31, 2008.

"The international community may have as little as a decade to bring greenhouse gases under control or risk catastrophic global warming that places millions of people at risk, warns a group of the world's leading climate scientists," in a declaration released Dec. 6, 2007 in Bali, Indonesia. -- Toronto Globe and Mail. - Full text of declaration.

"The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades." -- Washington Post.

"The general dialogue on adapting to a world affected by climate change by definition excludes the world's poorest people. And yet it's the world's poorest who are often put forward as the ones who are likely to feel the affects of climate change the most and are likely to be able to deal with them the least. ... 1 billion of the poorest people on Earth will lose their livelihoods to desertification (UNEP). More than 200 million environmental refugees will be created by 2050, as a direct result of rising sea levels, erosion and agricultural damage (World Development Movement). ... in Los Angeles more than 71 percent of African Americans live in 'highly polluted areas,' compared to 24 percent of whites. ... An independent study last year in the UK showed that the number of households being forced to decide between food and heating has almost doubled in just two years. This, over a period when electricity prices jumped by 39 percent and gas prices by 61 percent.” -- Rich, poor and climate change, CNN, Feb. 18, 2008.

"The biannual UN Human Development Report, issued at the end of November, reported that 1 out of every 19 people in the so-called developing world was affected by a climate-related disaster between 2000 and 2004. The figure for people in the wealthiest (OECD) countries was 1 out of every 1,500... Those who have benefited the least from the unsustainable pace of economic growth and expansion over the past five or six decades are facing a future of suffering and dislocation unlike any the world has ever seen... [T]he growing practice of purchasing carbon dioxide credits in order to 'offset' affluent consumers’ excessive greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly opposed by people on the receiving end. Carbon offsets, whether sold on the Internet or negotiated through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, also favor the conversion of forests into monoculture plantations and further the displacement of traditional communities.” -- Brian Tokar, Z Magazine, Jan. 1, 2008.

"By 2030, emissions of greenhouse gases will rise by 57% compared to current levels, leading to a rise in Earth's surface temperature of at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Nov. 7." – Industry Week.

"The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades... [The scientists] are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further... When it comes to deciding how drastically to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, O'Neill said, 'in the end, this is a value judgment, it's not a scientific question.' The idea of shifting to a carbon-free society, he added, 'appears to be technically feasible. The question is whether it's politically feasible or economically feasible.'" -- Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say, Washington Post, Mar. 10, 2008.

"The newly released Maplecroft Climate Change Risk Report includes the first-ever climate change vulnerability index and a set of best-to-worst rankings for more than 168 countries worldwide... The report finds many of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters are also the countries least vulnerable to the impacts of climate change." -- First-Ever Climate Change Vulnerability Index Identifies the Most and Least Vulnerable Countries and Companies, BusinessWire, Jul. 23, 2008.

Real Solutions:

"Sweden topped the list of countries that did the most to save the planet - for the second year running... Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices. The main reason for this success, say experts, is the introduction of a carbon tax in 1991... 'Our carbon emissions would have been 20% higher without the carbon tax,' says the Swedish environment minister, Andreas Carlgren... 'Impose a carbon tax,' suggests Lindberg. 'You would make it more attractive financially to go for green solutions than for carbon options.' 'A carbon tax is the most cost-effective way to make carbon cuts and it does not prevent strong economic growth,' adds Carlgren." -- Sweden's carbon-tax solution to climate change puts it top of the green list, The Guardian, Apr. 29, 2008.

“A recent issue of Scientific American featured a 'Solar Grand Plan.' Its authors described a way for the United States to obtain nearly 100 percent of its electricity and 90 percent of its total energy, including transportation, from solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal resources by mid-century. Electricity would cost a comfortable 5 cents per kilowatt hour.” -- The subsidy tease, part III A solar grand plan, Gristmill, Feb. 15, 2008.

“Germany has 200 times as much solar energy as Britain. It generates 12% of its electricity from various renewables, compared with 4.6% in Britain. It has created a quarter of a million jobs in renewables - a number that is growing fast. Britain has only 25,000, a number that represents the amount of jobs created in the industry in Germany in the past year alone.” -- Germany sets shining example in providing a harvest for the world, The Guardian, Jul. 23, 2007.

“[T]housands of Darfuri refugee women and girls [were] being raped and murdered when they leave their camps to search for firewood. … ’What about solar cookers?’ someone suggested. ‘If they don't need wood to cook, they won't need to risk leaving their camps!’” -- Tzivia Getzug: Battling Genocide One Cooker At a Time, KPCC Radio, Feb. 13, 2008.

A report that ". . . dispels myths about the climate benefits of landfill gas recovery and waste incineration, outlines policies needed to effect change, and offers a roadmap for how to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within a short period.” -- Stop Trashing the Climate , Jun. 2008.