XML FeedsChanging the Climate: Looking Toward a More Cost Effective, Energy Efficient Future
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy are helping states lead the way in an effort to promote low cost energy efficiency. More than 60 energy, environmental and state policy leaders from across the country have come together to produce the updated National Action Plan Vision for 2025: A Framework for Change. The action plan outlines strategies to help lower the growth in energy demand across the country by more than 50 percent, and shows ways to save more than $500 billion in net savings over the next 20 years. These actions may help to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 90 million vehicles.
“The significant action taken by states, utilities and energy customers advances low cost energy solutions,” said Robert Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “The plan is a big step toward a more energy-efficient future, helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while growing the American economy.”
“These leaders from state government and the private sector should be commended for their continued progress in promoting energy-efficient technologies as a key part of modernizing our electric and gas infrastructure to meet our Nation’s growing energy needs,” said U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Kevin Kolevar.
The action plan outlines critical steps for state policy makers to take toward the goal of increasing the nation’s investment in low cost energy efficiency. The plan also shows the progress states are making toward these goals. States, utilities and other organizations are spending about $2 billion per year on energy efficiency programs. Through this investment, states, utilities and other organizations have saved the energy equivalent of more than 30 power plants generating 500 megawatts of electricity saving energy customers nearly $6 billion annually. This effort helped reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those emitted from 9 million vehicles.
The updated action plan also identifies areas for additional progress. About one third of the states have established energy savings targets and addressed utility disincentives for energy efficiency. Moreover, about half of the states have established energy efficiency programs for key customer classes and reviewed and updated building codes.
Two technical assistance documents are also available to assist states in achieving the energy goals established under the action plan. The first document provides guidance on establishing cost-effectiveness tests for energy efficiency programs, while the second outlines best practices for providing business customers with energy-use and cost data.
Initiated in 2005, the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency is directed by a leadership group of 30 electric and gas utilities, 20 state agencies and 12 other organizations. This state driven initiative is designed to help electric and natural gas ratepayers increase energy efficiency while saving money. More than 120 organizations have endorsed the original recommendations of the action plan and have committed to making it a reality.
The documents and the action plan are available at: http://www.epa.gov/eeactionplan
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) www.EPA.gov
Press Release dated November 18, 2008
The Enhanced Use of Wood-biomass Macroeconomic, Sectoral and Environmental Impacts
Link: http://www.ihs.ac.at/publications/eco/es-227.pdf
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to identify fuel substitution potential by estimating potential price induced energy substitution and by considering available technological options. Todor Balabanov and Wolfgang Schwarzbauer consider the impacts of CO2 taxation on reduction of emissions until 2020, assuming CO2 neutrality of burning fuel wood. The authors finally address the macroeconomic, environmental and sectoral impacts of enhanced usages of fuel wood for energy. The main assumptions are a 1.5 times increase of fuel wood use by 2020 and achieving a share of renewables of 29.83 %. The main outcome for this scenario is that the Austrian economy could benefit from the double dividend of sustained economic growth and fulfilment of EU targets on renewables and CO2 reduction. The prospects for the energy intensive industries deteriorate – most of them would have to reconsider their technological options and face adverse conditions for their production sites.
Keywords: Sustainable development, aggregate supply and demand analysis, demand and supply of renewable resources and conservation
by Todor Balabanov 1 and Wolfgang Schwarzbauer 2
1. Department of Economics and Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies; Stumpergasse 56
1060 Vienna, Austria; tel.: +43/1/599 91-243; email: todor.balabanov@ihs.ac.at
2. Department of Economics and Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies; Stumpergasse 56
1060 Vienna, Austria; tel.: +43/1/599 91-112; email: wolfgang.schwarzbauer@ihs.ac.at
Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS), Wien Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna www.ihs.ac.at via Research Papers in Economics (REPEC) www.REPEC.org
Reihe Ökonomie (Economics Series); October 2008
Mitigating Climate Change, Conserving Biodiversity and Helping People
Link: http://www.conservation.org/newsroom/pressreleases
Conserving the world’s tropical forests is essential for both avoiding catastrophic impacts of climate change and maintaining vital resources depended on by hundreds of millions of people. A workshop at the World Conservation Congress showed how the emerging forest carbon markets offer an additional benefit of generating new revenue as a conservation incentive that can help alleviate poverty.
Organized by Conservation International (CI), IUCN and The Nature Conservancy, the 90-minute workshop featured speakers representing government, indigenous communities, development and conservation interests who examined the strategy of monetizing the carbon sequestration and storage of standing forests and restored areas.
The crucial messages of the session invoked both the urgency of the challenge and the opportunity offered by accounting for the economic value of carbon dioxide that is absorbed and stored by tropical forests:
* Burning and clearing tropical forests currently emits 20 percent of total greenhouse gases that cause climate change. That’s more than all the world’s cars, trucks, trains, ships and airplanes combined. Failure to halt this rampant deforestation would result in dangerously high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, regardless of what other steps are taken involving energy use and other contributing factors.
* Preventing future deforestation helps mitigate climate change, ensures the maintenance of healthy ecosystems for the people who rely on them, and protects habitat for 70 percent of the species on Earth. Right now, we are losing 15 million hectares – equal to an area the size of England – every year.
* Future forest carbon markets have the potential to generate tens of billions of dollars annually and provide forest-rich nations with access to financial resources that can help them conserve their tropical forests and contribute to long-term economic growth and sustainable rural development. Nearly 1 billion people living in extreme poverty depend on forests for their livelihoods, and forests provide life-sustaining services such as food, fuel, shelter, water regulation and climate stabilization.
* Forest carbon strategies are performance-based mechanisms that provide financial incentives for activities that can verifiably reduce emissions. Unlike overseas development aid, the revenue from a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanism requires all stakeholders to work together to conserve tropical forests for their mutual benefit, thereby enhancing the chances of success. This also requires more transparent and accountable governance in order to demonstrate the required emissions reductions in order to participate in carbon market programs.
More potential benefits of REDD and other forest carbon strategies include job creation, strengthening of rights, empowerment of indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities as conservation stewards, and maintenance of vital ecosystem services such as soil regeneration, pollination and water regulation. Some possible risks also discussed included corruption of forest carbon markets and systems, market access, a lack of respect for traditional land tenure and use rights, and the shifting of deforestation to other areas with lower carbon values or weaker governance.
Workshop speakers included moderator Charles McNeill of the U.N. Development Program; Barnabas Suebu, the governor of Indonesia’s Papua province; Johnson Cerda, , Kiwicha Indian leader from Limoncocha in the Ecuadorean Amazon; Glenn Prickett, CI’s senior vice president for climate change, and Joshua Bishop of IUCN.
Currently, the forest carbon market created under the Kyoto Protocol only recognizes afforestation and deforestation projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Afforestation refers to tree-planting projects in areas where there has not been forest cover in the past 50 years, and reforestation refers to projects in areas that were more recently deforested. Projects that protect standing tropical forests and the carbon stocks they hold are currently ineligible for carbon credits through the CDM. Overall, less than 1 percent of the $60 billion global carbon market targets deforestation, which is the source of 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.
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Conservation International (CI) applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth’s richest regions of plant and animal diversity and demonstrate that human societies can live harmoniously with nature. Founded in 1987, CI works in more than 40 countries on four continents to help people find economic alternatives without harming their natural environments. For more information about CI, visit www.conservation.org.
The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 18 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 117 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.
Conservation International www.conservation.org
http://www.conservation.org/newsroom/pressreleases/Pages/multiple_benefits_forest_carbon_markets.aspx>The Multiple Benefits of Forest Carbon Markets
U.S. EPA Performance and Accountability Report Released
Link: http://www.epa.gov/ocfo/par/2008par/index.htm
A new report has been released that describes EPA’s environmental and financial progress over the past year. The Performance and Accountability report highlights the agency’s efforts to ... reduce air pollution, improve water quality, make ... strides in cleaning up Superfund sites, increase health and environmental safety through pesticide and chemical evaluation, and avoid pollution through ... enforcement actions in fiscal year 2008.
The report was delivered to President Bush and Congress on November 17th, 2008 meeting the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and other management-related statutes. The 1993 GPRA requires federal agencies to report to Congress annually on the results of their activities during the fiscal year.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Press Release www.EPA.gov
