By JACOB BUNGE And TESS STYNES SEPTEMBER 7, 2010, 12:37 P.M. ET

Original source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704358904575477452109794016.html?mod=WSJ_Energy_leftHeadlines

NYSE Euronext plans to expand its carbon-trading business from Europe to the U.S. and Asia through a joint venture that sets up a three-way battle among exchanges to expand a once-promising market.

The exchange operator is fusing its Paris-based BlueNext unit with APX Inc., a U.S.-based provider of trading technology to focus on derivatives contracts tied to renewable energy and emissions.

The new NYSE Blue joint venture will compete with offerings from IntercontinentalExchange Inc. and CME Group Inc. in a market which has had its growth partly stalled by the halt of efforts to enact cap-and-trade legislation in the U.S.

“We think the marriage of an infrastructure company, APX, with strong links to voluntary carbon and renewable energy markets, is going to give us a competitive advantage going forward,” said Brian Storms, chief executive of APX, who will take over as CEO of NYSE Blue.

Mr. Storms said in an interview that he saw no chance of any U.S. cap-and-trade legislation this year, but that NYSE Blue could benefit from “evolving” state-level programs centered on renewable energy and region-specific programs like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

China holds opportunity as well, Storms said, citing government plans to introduce cap-and-trade pilot programs in several cities; there, NYSE Blue would vie with ICE’s Climate Exchange, which maintains a joint venture in the country aimed at developing a new emissions trading platform. Read more

David Lightman and Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers

Posted on Tue, Sep. 07, 2010   last updated: September 07, 2010 05:03:24 PM

FREDERICA, Del. — Conservative Republicans around the country are using cap and trade — a way to limit global-warming pollution — as a political weapon to attack GOP moderates as well as Democrats.

Anger at big government, and its possible expansion, is a favorite conservative theme, and arguing against cap and trade allows candidates to rail against regulation and taxes.

“It’s a very big deal,” said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He cited Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky as among the states where the issue could help Republican Senate candidates. Republican strategists for seats in the House of Representatives also consider cap and trade an important talking point in close races. Read more

Sep 7 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Chris Casteel The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16896264

The Obama administration’s emphasis on clean energy and the fight in Congress over energy legislation is creating some tension among certain sectors, including the natural gas and wind power industries.

The American Wind Energy Association has been fighting to counter a recent column in The Wall Street Journal that challenged a key selling point of wind — that it reduces carbon emissions. The industry also is defending its federal subsidies, arguing that they are actually less than those received by oil and gas companies.

“We’ve been under attack by the fossil fuel industry for the last six months,” Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, told reporters in July.

Bode is a former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner, but she’s also a former head of the Washington-based trade group for independent oil and gas producers and was a highly visible advocate for the natural gas industry when she worked for the American Clean Skies Foundation.

Now, her organization is claiming that an oil and gas company trade group and think tanks financed in part with energy money are spreading misinformation to discredit wind as a renewable energy source. Read more

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have wavered on Proposition 23, trying to appease their conservative base without alienating independent voters. Fiorina finally came out in favor of it last week.

By Seema Mehta and Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times  September 8, 2010

Original source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/la-me-0908-gop-global-20100908,0,2762779.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fpolitics%2Fcal+%28L.A.+Times+-+California+Politics%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

A November ballot measure that would rescind California’s landmark global warming bill until unemployment drops significantly has become an albatross for the Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.

For months, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have struggled with competing imperatives: appeasing members of their party who want to suspend the global warming bill while wooing environmentally-conscious independent voters who could carry them to victory in November.

Fiorina’s uncertainty produced one of her most difficult moments during her first debate with Sen. Barbara Boxer last week, when she was repeatedly pressed for a position on Proposition 23 but declined to give one. She came out in support of the ballot measure two days later.

Whitman has yet to be pinned down.

Their reticence may also reflect divisions in the business community over the measure, which would suspend the global warming law until unemployment drops to 5.5% or lower for one year. Opposition to the November measure is particularly strong in the Silicon Valley, their home turf and an area they have mined for campaign contributions.

“It raises different strategic choices for both of the candidates,” said Bruce Cain, a political science professor at UC Berkeley. “The fact that they’re hesitating suggests they fear they could lose something there.”

Two-thirds of California voters support the state’s climate change law, which would require California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels over a decade; 53% believe the state should act to reduce such emissions immediately rather than wait for the economy to improve, according to a July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. Notably, more than 7 in 10 independent voters support the state’s climate law.

Those voters tend to be fiscally conservative but socially and environmentally liberal, and are key to the Republicans’ efforts to make up for Democrats’ double-digit voter registration edge in California, said Mark Baldassare, president of the nonpartisan institute. Read more

September 8, 2010 | Susanne Rust

Original source: http://californiawatch.org/watchblog/out-state-polluters-pump-effort-kill-climate-law-4541

Industrial polluters from outside of California, including Koch Industries, are stepping up the pressure to kill AB 32, California’s landmark climate change law, by flooding millions of dollars into the campaign set to derail the landmark legislation.

On Sept. 1, Flint Hills Resources, a Wichita, Kansas-based refining and chemical company owned by Koch Industries, donated $1 million to the “Yes on 23,” or California Jobs Initiative, campaign.

“Our company believes the implementation of AB 32 will set a bad precedent for regulations in other states and the federal government,” said Katie Stavinoha, spokeswoman for Flint Hills Resources.

The following day, the Texas-based Tesoro Corporation contributed $1 million on top of the more than $500,000 already donated to the campaign. Additional recent out-of-state donors include Texas-based Valero Energy Corp., Texas-based Frontier Oil Corp., and the Utah-based Western Petroleum Marketers Association.

Only one group donating to the “Yes on 23″ campaign in the last month – the California American Council of Engineering Companies Issues Fund – is from California. Read more

By CRISTINA SILVA  The Associated Press  Tuesday, September 7, 2010; 8:18 PM

Original source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090703721.html

LAS VEGAS — With clean-energy legislation trapped in a political deadlock, renewable-energy advocates called big business the new leader in the nation’s green revolution during a national summit meeting Tuesday.

John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, said untapped potential in the sustainable energy market could revive the stalled economy and end the recession.

“The focus now has got to be on getting these worlds and mechanisms together to finance innovative, renewable technology,” Podesta said.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hosted the third in a series of national clean-energy summit meetings Tuesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. More than 40 people rallied outside the event, with some wearing green hard hats and waving signs that equated clean energy with green jobs.

Reid said encouraging the development of emerging clean-energy industries could ease the nation’s security problems and help overcome economic woes.

“We need to take that little spark and turn it into a wildfire,” Reid said. Read more

Innovative Solution has Roots in 14th Century Switzerland

Country Name: United States of America Author: Tracy Stanton and Steve Zwick

Original source: http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/article.page.php?page_id=7706&section=news_articles&eod=1

Like many cities around the world, Denver gets its drinking water from rivers and reservoirs, which in turn get their water from forests. Many of those forests, however, are in trouble – thanks to funding cuts, climate change, and a horde of opportunistic beetles. That puts the city’s water supply at risk as well, so Denver teamed up with the US Forest Service to funnel money it collects from water fees into forest restoration. And it’s not the only city to do so.

7 September 2010 | Denver Water¹ delivers clean drinking water to more than 1.3 million people spread across more than 335 square miles, and most of that water comes from rivers and reservoirs that capture run-off from forest-covered hills in clearly-delineated watersheds. The forests both protect the steep slopes from erosion and regulate the flows of water by mopping it up and then releasing it slowly over time.

And therein lies the problem: climate change has extended summers in Colorado just enough to give the northern pine beetle the comfort it needs to multiply like never before.  The bug has taken full advantage – devouring bark at a rate ten times higher than ever recorded, killing trees and leaving them scattered like kindling for wildfires.

And those fires now take hold with increasing frequency, reducing the forest to lumps of silt and sludge.  Lush slopes degenerate into unstable masses of goo.  The water upon which the city depends becomes muddy and irregular, which makes it more difficult – and expensive – to assure people they can turn on their faucets and trust the drinking water that comes out.

Enter the US Forestry Service (USFS), which is charged, in part, with ensuring clean headwaters by maintaining healthy forests.

Both the USFS and Denver Water are struggling to meet their budgets in the face of these challenges, so in August the Forestry Service’s Rocky Mountain office cut a $33 million deal with the Denver utility to proactively manage 38,000 critical acres in five key watersheds – if Denver Water comes up with half the money.  Read more

The donation to the Proposition 23 campaign comes from a subsidiary of Kansas-based Koch Industries, which owns refineries and controls 4,000 miles of oil pipelines.

By Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times  September 4, 2010

Original source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/la-me-prop-23-koch-20100904,0,7842413.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fpolitics%2Fcal+%28L.A.+Times+-+California+Politics%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

The fight over a November ballot initiative to suspend California’s global warming law has escalated sharply with the Koch brothers, oil billionaires and “tea party” backers, making a million-dollar entry into the fray.

The contribution to the campaign for Proposition 23 came Thursday from a subsidiary of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest private company (after the agribusiness giant Cargill). A spokeswoman for the subsidiary, Flint Hills Resources, said the company “may consider additional support.” The Kochs’ company has estimated annual revenues of $100 billion, owns refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota, and controls about 4,000 miles of oil pipelines.

California’s global warming law, known as AB 32, is designed to cut the state’s emission of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the end of this decade. A significant chunk of the reductions would come through regulations aimed at fostering alternative fuels and generating electricity from solar, wind and other alternative energy sources. Read more

Sep 4 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – J.M. Brown – Jbrown@santacruzentinel.Com Santa Cruz Sentinel, Calif.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16865236

City leaders want to help 5,000 homes go solar, cut citywide water use 10 percent and reduce in-town vehicle trips 30 percent, all within a decade. Now, residents, business owners and city officials get to weigh in on how to realize those goals.

After nearly three years of study and planning, the city’s climate change action coordinator, Ross Clark, will present findings Tuesday that tally the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and provide a road map for how to cut the community’s emissions 30 percent from levels seen in the mid-1990s. The report was published Thursday on the city’s website.

By 2020, the city wants to reduce annual emissions by about 69,000 metric tons. A metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions equals about 3,100 kilowatt hours, which is how much electricity is used to power a medium- to large-sized home every month.

While the report lays out ways energy can be saved through innovations in transportation, land use, construction design, water conservation and solar installations, Clark also spells out everyday steps consumers can take to reduce emissions, such as shopping at local stores and farmers markets and taking kids to school by bicycle or by walking. The report calls for the creation of more local, high-paying jobs and higher-density housing growth designed to support public transportation and reduce over-the-hill commuting. Read more

By ANDREW C. REVKIN September 3, 2010, 10:35 am

Original source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/another-item-for-climate-panels-to-do-list/?ref=energy-environment

A committee convened by the InterAcademy Council, the association of the world’s leading national science academies, delivered a long to-do list to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday, including steps ranging from limiting the term and policy recommendations of its leadership to fostering more transparency in its machinations and being more careful to describe the science determining the strength, or weakness, of particular conclusions.

There were so many solid recommendations that I feel reluctant to pile on with one more step that was left out. But I have to, particularly because a Nigerian journalist, posting an online request for information on African participants in the panel’s next climate science review, has helped make my point.

Here’s the vital step: The panel would do well to cultivate, rather than restrict, contact between its authors and reporters in poor countries. There is a glaring need for the panel and related institutions — the United Nations Environment Program and World Meteorological Organization — to facilitate informed media coverage of climate risks, both natural and human-driven, in poor places. This is nowhere more pressing than in sub-Saharan Africa, where exposure to climate-driven hazards, particularly drought, is acute even now, let alone with whatever shifts may come through the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (And keep in mind that populations in the region are projected to double by 2050, greatly increasing exposure to climate-related hazards.) Read more

By PATRICK MCGROARTY SEPTEMBER 6, 2010, 8:35 A.M. ET

Original source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703713504575475072814350924.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews

BERLIN—Germany’s proposal to keep its nuclear reactors running on average 12 years longer than planned will bring in €30 billion ($38.69 billion) in taxes and levies from utility companies, Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle said Monday.

“It’s about €30 billion overall. These are large sums that will be directed to the government, toward renewable energy,” Mr. Brüderle said in an interview with radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. He added that the revenue includes the contributions utilities will be obliged to make toward renewable-energy research and development, and a tax on nuclear fuel rods. The fuel-rod levy, which utilities fought vigorously to avoid, will generate an estimated €2.3 billion annually but will be limited to six years, Mr. Brüderle said.

Mr. Brüderle was among the ministers and party leaders who met with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday to try to resolve a heated dispute over the details of the proposal. A previous government had planned to close Germany’s 17 nuclear reactors by 2021. Read more

By ALICE PFEIFFER September 2, 2010

Original source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/business/energy-environment/03iht-rbogvol.html?ref=energy-environment

ILZ, AUSTRIA — Until a few years ago, Styria, a province in southeastern Austria bordering Hungary and Slovenia, was an economic backwater, a buffer zone between the prosperous west of the country and its formerly Communist neighbors.

Today, the province is enjoying an economic boom generated in part by a regional project that has brought together 79 municipalities to promote local, green, self-sustaining businesses.

Known as Vulkanland, a nod to the volcanic geology of the region, the marketing and rural lifestyle concept began in 2000, when 14 mayors in the districts of Feldbach, Radkersburg, Weiz and Fürstenfeld agreed to work together to develop a sustainable business strategy, with financing from the European Union.

“I wondered, is there just one way of measuring progress?” Joseph Ober, the initiator of the project, said during an interview last month. “Must it be a question of highways and factories? So a few of us got together and started imagining a future built on different standards.” Read more