IPCC Wants Reforestation Projects Included in Kyoto II

As talks kick off this week to negotiate a replacement for the Kyoto Treaty, ENN reports that the IPCC is trying to figure out a way to include reforestation and other land use projects in the list of acceptable project types to help Kyoto signatories meet their reduction obligations.

This is a subject I like to chime in on, since some of our main competitors (Terrapass and NativeEnergy, for example) choose not to include reforestation projects in their project portfolios. We do, though, and we think it's one of the things that set us apart. Why do we offer reforestation projects? Here's ENN:

Fossil fuel use and land use change account for roughly 1/5 of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC’s 2007 assessment report.

That's 20 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by deforestation or other types of land use. By contrast, all emissions from air travel amount to no more than 2 or 3 percent of worldwide emissions. Where and how does this happen, you may ask? Here's Time Magazine:

Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that its ranking among the world's top carbon emitters has surged from 21st to third according to a report by Wetlands International. Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidly that it's running out of uncultivated land.

This means reforestation projects should be and need to be a part of any solution to global climate change.

Re-News-Ables - 3/28/08

The Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica is collapsing a-la Day After Tomorrow. Good thing the ice shelf is only the size of Connecticut.

When it comes to the environment, Americans aren't in to saving the world - but they are in to saving America.

Business magnates don life vests and sail Hobie Cats with Richard Branson while brainstorming solutions to global warming.

A new study estimates 24 square feet of forest saved from destruction every time a family scraps paper bills for online payments.

A Mexican law firm is inviting U.S. companies to invest in greenhouse gas reduction projects there in order to sell into the European Union's compliance carbon market.

Start Spreading the News

CarbonFree partner The Element Agency just wrote to alert us that the New York League of Conservation Voters has launched a website-- What Is New York Waiting For-- to combat global warming in New York state.

This is big news because it’s one of the first political funds in the US set up specifically to elect leaders that will fight global warming.

Yet another example of a state taking matters into its own hands when it comes to moving on climate change. See also: Western Climate Initiative.

Why Financial Additionality Tests Are Stupid

We here in the carbon offset industry have been trying for a while now to explain what Sean Casten explains perfectly in a Gristmill post today. I wish I had had this post at my fingertips a few months ago when the press was fumbling around trying to explain the issue (I can still hear the NY Times reporter over the phone: "So tell me about this 'additionality' thing.").

It's actually tough to find a more misunderstood concept when it comes to carbon offsets. The central question of additionality is whether a project that reduces greenhouse gas emissions would have moved forward were it not for the money provided by offsets. After all, we wouldn't want to paying for something would have happened anyway, right? Here's Casten's answer:

Theoretically, great idea. Practically? Stupid.

What Casten really puts his finger on is how additionality tests actually drive money away from good investments. Good investments don't need any additional money to get them going. That's what makes them good investments!

Meanwhile, Casten writes, "bad investments, by virtue of being unable to attract sufficient capital, are deemed worthy of public incentive. Implicit is that public funds should only be put toward shoddy investments!"

I should stop paraphrasing and quoting, though, and just urge all our readers who are interested in this issue to go read Casten's post.

Baking for Offsets

Sarah Otterstrom from Paso Pacifico alerted us to a group of high school students in North Carolina who had contacted her after researching ways to combat climate change. They had decided on carbon offsets-- reforestation, specifically, as it is the only way to address carbon already in the atmosphere.

In their words:

"We chose to focus on more offsetting the existing carbon emissions rather than simply reducing our production. Our research presented us with a couple of options for offset, and the one that we liked the most was the idea of reforestation...We knew we wanted to have some kind of public event, not only to raise money for the project in Nicaragua but also to inform the public about the dangers of carbon effects, so that is when we decided to have a bake sale. We spent the whole day prior to the sale making about 300 homemade tree shaped cookies with green icing and bagging green and white popcorn to sell at our stand."

The students raised about $300, offsetting 54.5 tons of CO2 or 120,251 lbs. It's great to see grass roots efforts like this. (If we had had little more time, perhaps we could have sent them a bag of CarbonFree sugar to use in the cookies!)

Carbon Offsets As a Social Marketing Pitch

John Tierney in the New York Times today has a novel solution to climate change: mood rings and glowing lapel pins. This plan actually doesn't sound so crazy after reading the story.

Turns out, subtle "nudges" have significant effects on people's willingness to make short-term sacrifices for long-term benefit (the kinds of sacrifices we've collectively been failing to make for a while now). Here's Tierney's central evidence:

A study in California showed that when the monthly electric bill listed the average consumption in the neighborhood, the people in above-average households significantly decreased their consumption. Meanwhile, the people with the below-average bills reacted by significantly increasing their consumption — not exactly the goal of the project. That reaction was avoided when the bill featured a little drawing along with the numbers: a smiling face on a below-average bill or a frowning face on an above-average bill. After that simple nudge, the heavy users made even bigger cuts in consumption, while the light users remained frugal.

And there you have it: smiley faces. Tierney, his tongue appearing to be only mildly in his cheek, goes on to suggest mood rings, bracelets, or lapel pins as effective calls to action - anything that could be programmed to inform its wearer of the real time contributions he or she is making to climate change.

One line in particular caught my attention toward the end of the story (mostly because, among other jobs here at Carbonfund.org, I'm responsible for our overall marketing strategy). Given the social pressures evidenced by the aforementioned study, Tierney asks, why we shouldn't "reward devout conservationists by letting them display their virtue?"

That, in effect, is what carbon offsetters are trying to do, particularly nonprofit ones like Carbonfund.org. We could just as well say: "Donate to Carbonfund.org because global warming is a serious global problem that will impact billions and we need to solve it quickly." But we find that people pay more attention if we tie our mission of fighting global warming to something more personal, like an individual's responsibility to do something about his or her own emissions.

Truly, I think the concept of carbon offsets have little to do with debates over additionality, RECs vs. forestry, papal indulgences, or the like. At its heart, the decision to label what are essentially greenhouse gas reductions as "offsets" is really a marketing pitch: Don't just support renewable energy and reforestation projects because they're good for the planet; support them because you have a personal responsibility to fight global warming as a result of the CO2 emissions caused by you in your daily life.

Surf the Internet, Fight Global Warming

Carbonfund.org partner Carbon Neutral Search has released an OpenSearch plugin. Carbon Neutral Search provides the same search results as Google, but every search conducted through the site results in a small donation to offset the carbon associated with searching and then some. The plugin works with Firefox and Internet Explorer 7+. Check it out -- it's doubtful there will ever be a quicker and easier way to fight climate change!

Re-news-ables (Or, a New Weekly Carbon News Roundup from Carbonfund.org)

A new book describes how civilizations rose and fell as a result of climate change in the Middle Ages.

A massive new coal-fired power plant in India is apparently a solution to climate change (according to the World Bank).

Firefighters in New Jersey make it big by buying carbon offsets.

WWF publishes 105-page "Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards - Making Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market." No word yet on whether people are less confused than before.

David Roberts is momentarily seduced by an ExxonMobile rep.

Thin ice grows, thick ice melts in the Arctic this year. Leading climate skeptics claim all evidence points toward NASA hiding aliens near North Pole.

Carbonfund.org's World-Class Consumer Label Brings CarbonFree Sugar to the Shelves

Today we formally announced the CarbonFree certification of Florida Crystals' entire line of organic sugar. Read the full press release of the announcement on our Web site for the nitty gritty details.

Bottom line? We think CarbonFree product certification - on everything from food to furniture - is going to be the next big thing in consumer trends. Carbonfund.org Climate Change Specialist Julia Farber was just at the Natural Products Expo West, where Florida Crystals' CarbonFree sugar was on prominent display.





Florida Crystals sugar on prominent display at the expo. Notice the CarbonFree logo in the middle!








This is Julia and Rebeca Krones, the founder of Tropical Traders, which makes Royal Hawaiian Honey - another CarbonFree product. Everyone here at the Carbonfund.org offices in Silver Spring, MD gives the honey rave reviews (We're planning on baking something delicious with the CarbonFree sugar in the near future).

The Sky is Falling

Just kidding. The sky isn't falling. But glaciers are melting, and it's almost the same thing, so...

Actually, I've been hesitant to alert our readers to yet another report that the glaciers are melting faster than expected (here's the NY Times story), since it seems this report has been coming out every six months for years now. But that was until Carbonfund.org's Executive Director, Eric Carlson, asked me if I'd seen the big climate news of the week.

"What news?" I said. The EPA's new study (released Friday) showing that a cap-and-trade bill wouldn't hurt the economy at all? The report that we have to reduce our carbon emissions to near zero in order to avert catastrophe? The three new small business partners that signed up to offset their emissions with Carbonfund.org yesterday?

"No," he said. "The glaciers are melting even faster than we thought." He may at that point have been reminding me of the obvious, but just to put this in its rightfully serious context for a moment, here are just some of the consequences of melting glaciers, from the Times:

The big danger ahead, several glacier experts said, is that the loss of glaciers would take away a summertime source of river water, drinking water and hydroelectric power in populous, relatively poor places like South Asia and the cities along the western slope of the Andes. “Millions of people depend on the runoff from mountain snow and ice in the warm seasons,” said Peter Gleick, who has studied water and climate for two decades and is the president of the Pacific Institute, a private research group in Oakland, Calif. “Climate change is going to make that runoff disappear.”

Big Business Thinking Green?

Carbonfund.org is a nonprofit, but really we operate at the intersection of business and environment. Our business partners-- small and large-- are a huge part of what we do, and clearly the market is of supreme importance in moving toward a clean energy future. In some ways, the two are not so far apart as conventional wisdom would have it. After all, one core value neatly links both camps: efficiency.

Anyway, I've been trying to keep up with the ongoing Eco:nomics conference, a Wall Street Journal-sponsored gathering of businesspeople that "takes a CEO-level view of the rapidly developing relationship between the environment and the bottom line." For instance, this post from David Roberts at Grist caught my eye. Wal-mart is often held up as an example of all that is wrong with bottom-line-obsessed corporatism, but at Eco:nomics, CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. revealed the extent to which his company has given thought to becoming greener-- it's greater than you'd think. Among other interesting tidbits comes the fact that Wal-mart has brought in NGOs to vet its processes and offer frank advice. Someday, perhaps pragmatism will not be toxic for NGOs, but until then, at least the two sides are talking.

Clinton Foundation Looks Into Reforestation

A researcher from the Clinton Foundation called me today to discuss the barriers to more investment in reforestation projects. The first and still best profile of the Clinton Foundation I've read was published by Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic Monthly ("This Is Not a Charity - How Bill Clinton, Ira Magaziner, and a team of management consultants are creating new markets, reinventing philanthropy - and trying to save the world.")

Needless to say, I'm extremely pleased the Clinton Foundation is looking into supporting reforestation projects. The take-away from the Atlantic story is that the foundation is becoming extremely adept at mobilizing fragmented markets into big buyers of whatever it is they want to support - be it AIDS medicine in Africa or solar panels in progressive cities around the world. The bottom line is that the Clinton Foundation has hit on a way to dramatically lower the cost of very good projects by finding and pooling demand for them on a large scale.

Particularly exciting were some of the researcher's pointed questions about the efficacy of avoided deforestation projects -- paying landowners not to cut down their trees. This may sound a bit weird as far as being a type of greenhouse gas reduction project, but in fact protecting threatened forest is one of the single most cost-effective investments we could make in our environment, and the Clinton Foundation could mobilize a huge amount of financial support for doing just that.

Reducing Carbon Emissions to Zero

I got an email yesterday from a local radio reporter about a story that ran in the Washington Post a few days ago: "Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Show."It's a good read (also a scary read), detailing new studies that show we need to reduce global emissions almost to zero if we want to avoid further warming. Not just reduce them a lot. Reduce them to zero.

In light of the story, the reporter asked me a question specifically about Carbonfund.org: "Now if we are to believe the studies behind yesterday's front page Post story - we can't just offset, we need to stop altogether. Is this a good or bad story for your business?"

Here's the email I wrote back:

We’ve always said we’d be happy to be put out of business by some massive transformation to a clean energy economy. But barring that, carbon offsets can act as a bridge. All that carbon that’s already in the atmosphere? The only way to take it out and put it somewhere else is by the types of reforestation projects we support. Meanwhile, helping to aggregate demand for clean energy like wind power and solar power is helping to drive down the cost of those technologies – which will hopefully lead to the kind of economic transformation to clean energy we need. So in answer to your question: our goal one day is put ourselves out of business, yes.

First Continent-Wide Environmental Tracking Network Launches

The Center for Resource Solutions recently announced the creation of the Environmental Tracking Network of North America. ETNNA is intended to promote coordination and cooperation among environmental tracking systems throughout North America by bringing together electricity tracking systems, emissions registries, governmental regulators, and other interested market participants.

Such coordination will encourage trade, create a common currency for certificates of generation, prevent double-counting, and support existing and emerging markets for renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions.

Yesterday, the Environmental Tracking Network held a teleconference/webinar kick-off meeting to introduce the organization and its Board members, explain the benefits of membership, and discuss some issues related to tracking systems. Carbonfund.org was represented by Climate Change Specialist Julia Farber.

ETNNA will hold two more meetings open to the public. Details on the meetings can be found here.

Carbon Offsets in the Media

David Roberts of Grist writes a scathing indictment of recent, environment-related media coverage - not all of which has been good for the nascent carbon offset industry. Here's his conclusion:

While the American public remains deeply and fundamentally misinformed about the structure of our climate/energy situation, is the best focus for media the scattered, nascent attempts by some people to do something about it? It's profoundly disempowering, however useful it may be to the owners of said media.

Needless to say, Carbonfund.org happens to be one of those organizations that help people "do something about it." Thanks to Roberts for helping bring the media back to more urgent tasks than, as he puts it, "flagellating soccer moms."

Southern Baptists Help Make Carbon Reduction Nonpartisan

The Southern Baptist Convention's declaration over the weekend that environmental protection is a duty akin to protecting God's creation should erase any lingering doubt that carbon reduction is (and certainly should be) a nonpartisan issue.

The 16 million member convention is socially and politically conservative, so the statement made news as a significant shift from the organization's previous statements expressing skepticism that global warming is really a problem.

Carbonfund.org, for one, is proud to have been working with church organizations to reduce and offset CO2 emissions for years. Our partners include half a dozen congregations, as well as the Evangelical Environmental Network.

Include International Carbon Offsets in the Cap and Trade Bill

A ton of CO2 reduced in the U.S. is the same as a ton of CO2 reduced in China - so shouldn't both options be on the table if the goal is to reduce CO2? That's one of the issues up for debate as Congress seeks to pass what will hopefully be groundbreaking climate change legislation.

The International Emissions Trading Association has sent a letter to Rep. John Dingell (chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce) asking him to make sure carbon offsets from international projects be included in the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill. (see the ENN story here) The logic is pretty simple: reducing CO2 in the developing world is considerably cheaper than reducing CO2 in Europe and the U.S.

Opponents of the idea say it's more difficult to ensure the kind of oversight needed when it comes to projects in the developing world. We haven't found that to be the case at all. Our Return to Forest project in Nicaragua, for example, is certified according to one of the strictest standards for reforestation projects in the world.

Besides, a global problem necessitates a global solution. If we can write a law that encourages American companies to support greenhouse gas reductions in places other than the U.S., we should.

Carbon: Where Does It All Go?

The answer comes courtesy of the Global Monitoring Division of the Earth System Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (phew!): CarbonTracker.

CarbonTracker keeps track of "carbon dioxide uptake and release at the Earth's surface over time." Very cool. The site provides a ton of data drawn from tens of thousands of measurements over the past six years. There's a CO2 Weather Map ("Plumes of CO2 move with the weather systems across the continent and illustrate the dynamic nature of our atmosphere") and, even better, carbon weather movies. Plus a ton more technical data-- I'm still digging around to see what's on there.

Question: What Can I Do About Climate Change? Answer:

Wondering what's at stake when it comes to climate change? Wondering what you can do about it? Check out The Checklist Toward Zero Carbon. But don't expect any pulled punches. This nearly comprehensive checklist of carbon footprint reduction opportunities in contemporary living suggests dozens of steps anyone can (and should) take in nearly every face of life.

Of course, after all the reductions have taken place, The Checklist Toward Zero Carbon suggests calculating one's carbon footprint and offsetting it.