Environment Forum

from Reuters Investigates:

Solar energy vs wildlife

Sarah McBride reports on brewing battles between environmentalists in her special report: "With solar power, it's Green vs. Green."

It turns out the perfect place to build a big solar plant is often also the perfect place for a tortoise or a fox to live. This means developers of large-scale solar plants are running into legal challenges from people who one would expect to be natural allies of alternative energy providers.

Here's a map of some of the more contentious projects.

One local resident of the Panoche Valley, Sallie Calhoun, had this to say:

"I am passionate about preserving open space," she says, adding she believes the solar plant achieves that goal. "The idea that we're going to protect every lizard, every drainage, seems counterproductive."

Making REDD work for illegal loggers

It took just 30 seconds to fell the tree. Hendri, 27, a skinny Indonesian from Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, skilfully wielded the chainsaw more than half his height. The result is a thunderous crash and a tree that is quickly cut into planks on the forest floor near by.

And the reward for this effort? About 125,000 rupiah, or roughly $12 per tree measuring 30 cm or more in diameter. Hendri and the three other members of this local gang of illegal loggers make about $45 a day (not including expenses and bribes) cutting down between 4 and 5 trees and slicing them into planks with a chainsaw, using no protective gear. They work for about 10 days at a stretch.

Their work is tough and highlights the challenge of finding alternative livelihoods in communities surrounding projects that aim to save large areas of forest in the fight against climate change.

Another member of the gang, Maulana, 40, explained he didn’t like the work but he had six children to feed. If given a choice, he said he’d switch to growing rubber or managing a small area of palm oil if given the seedlings and land. Just a hectare of palm oil would be enough to meet his needs. That was preferable than the dangerous work cutting down trees in the steaming, flooded peat swamp forest, he said.

Indonesia has emerged as one of the leading countries in a U.N.-backed scheme that hopes to reward developing nations with carbon credit payments in return for saving forests, particularly carbon-rich peatlands found in southern Borneo.

Called REDD, or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, the idea is to pay for reductions of greenhouse gases, such as the carbon dioxide that forests absorb to grow and release in large amounts when cut down or burned. The greater the amount of carbon prevented from being emitted, potentially the greater the rewards in a scheme that could eventually be worth $30 billion a year in annual trade in CO2 credits, the United Nations says.

In Central Kalimantan, there are a number of large REDD projects, including where Hendri and his workers were operating. But project developers know that their investments will only pay off if the loggers are found new jobs, such as rangers, guides for ecotourists or given assistance to set up their own cash crops, such as rubber, rattan or even quick growing timber.

from The Great Debate UK:

Heather Rogers on fixing “Green Gone Wrong”

How can human production be transformed and harnessed to save the planet? Can the market economy really help solve the environmental crisis?

Author Heather Rogers argues in a new book that current efforts to green the planet need to be reconsidered.

The growth-based economy can't help but add to the problems the planet faces, Rogers writes in "Green Gone Wrong" published by Verso.

"I think we can have an economy that supports environmental health, but we have to differentiate between growth and development."

"It's not about feeling guilty, it's not about sacrifice and suffering, it's about understanding how we can have a healthy economy, good standards of living and wellbeing -- within that is protecting the environment."

Rogers, who will speak the Institute of Contemporary Arts on Wednesday, set out her argument for Reuters after a talk in London at the New Economics Foundation.

Oil sands and ethical investing at a price

At BP’s AGM on Thursday, ethical investors including the Co-Op and Calpers failed in their effort to convince BP to review its biggest planned investment in Canada’s oil sands.

Nonetheless, 9 percent of investors voted in favour of a review — a much bigger venting of shareholder angst about a single project than oil companies are used to hearing.

Was this a vote for the environment or a vote for ethical fund managers’ own businesses?

The oil sands business produces even more CO2 than traditional oil and the investor group, which also included environmental and faith groups, said they were concerned that if governments sought to fight climate change by hiking charges for emitting CO2, the Sunrise project may turn prove an economic catastrophe for BP.

Analysts don’t see a serious risk of this but the oil sands industry could still be an economic catastrophe for socially responsible fund managers.

With environmental groups successfully marketing oil sands as the dirtiest end of a dirty business, ethical fund managers will come under more pressure to exclude big oil companies – most of which now invest in squeezing crude from Alberta’s bitumen-drenched soil – from their funds.

That’s Citgroup’s view at least: “Institutions promoting “climate aware” products will continue to come under pressure if found to be exposed to the (oil sands) sector,” the bank said in a research note on Wednesday.

from UK News:

Are you losing faith in climate science?

While attending a meeting of prominent climate sceptics during the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December (an anti-COP15, if you will), I listened to each of the speakers put forward their theory on why conventional evidence on the primary causes of climate change should be dismissed as, for lack of a better phrase, complete hokum.

Among their denunciations of widely-accepted truths regarding global warming, greenhouse gases, melting glaciers and rising sea levels was the assertion that a change in attitude was afoot; the public may have been duped into believing the mainstream scientific assessment of climate change, but not for long.

There was something in the air, the sceptics said, and soon people would begin to question their trust in the majority view.

I’m no scientist and am in no position to comment on the validity of any of the evidence on show; as journalists we were there to make sure both sides of the argument were being heard. This group of climate outcasts were in every sense on the fringes of COP15, but after a series of controversies in recent weeks it seems they were right about one thing at least -- the public conviction about the threat of climate change is slipping.

Well, it is in Britain anyway. An Ipsos Mori poll of over 1,000 UK adults found that the proportion of people who believe climate change is definitely a reality dropped from 44% to 31% in the past year.

Meanwhile, 31% said the threat was exaggerated, up 50% on last year – worrying statistics for the government and charities trying to convince the public to change its behaviour and to accept higher priced energy and goods as a small price to pay for saving the planet.

Why the sudden drop off? The poll follows weeks of suggestions that mainstream climatologists have, in the past, manipulated data and that an influential study by the U.N.’s main climate science body contains inaccurate information.

Walmart accused of hypocrisy in green initiatives

Just last month, Walmart announced that it would be moving to eliminate non-biodegradable plastic bags from stores across the United States to reduce their collection in landfills. While they’ve demonstrated positive green initiatives, this week there’s been accusations of hypocrisy because they’ve been passing off a harmful, manufactured textile as sustainable.

Environmental advocates had been applauding Walmart for their plastic bag reduction goals and the installation of more energy-efficient systems. For example, coolers that only light up when a shopper’s presence is detected. So this new accusation from the Federal Trade Commission comes at a bad time.

Walmart, along with many other big box and chain stores across the United States, has been selling products as bamboo that are actually rayon. It is a textile shrouded in debate, because it contains cellulose that is naturally occurring. However, it does require an extensive manufacturing process to produce.

Regardless of whether rayon is natural or not; it’s definitely not bamboo. This labelling misleads consumers who think that they’re purchasing clothing and other home goods made from one of the most sustainable materials on the planet.

As we’ve seen a lot lately, proper regulation and disclosure is a common issue when it comes to things labelled green.

Are the Copenhagen climate talks failing?

In the last few days it has seemed like the only thing everyone can agree on in Copenhagen is that time is running out.

The heads of state start arriving today and descend in full force on Thursday.

Negotiators say they don’t want their leaders arguing over the placement of a comma or a set of brackets, and so everything needs to be tied up by Friday morning.

That leaves just over two days, and more than 190 countries gathered in the conference hall can’t even settle on a draft text to argue over.

The parties seem to have divided into three factions – although officially it is rich vs poor, as developing countries say they are united.

In reality, developed countries responsible for most emissions currently in the atmosphere are facing down the major developing countries expected to produce the majority of emissions in coming decades.

Both want the other group to sign up for more ambitious targets – whether emissions cuts, funding for the poor, or verification of what they will do to curb production of greenhouse gasses in future.

Youth groups bending the ear of business at COP15

There are numerous youth groups at the Copenhagen Climate Conference (they are known as ‘Youngos’, short for young non-governmental organisations) and they have all come here to make sure their collective voice is heard as delegates negotiate an agreement on how to tackle climate change.

Youngos represent a significant portion of the 34,000 people who have registered to attend the conference, and some have even managed to gain access to politicans and business leaders to put pressure on them on ethical business strategies.

One of these unfailingly vocal groups is the United Kingdom Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC), which has travelled to Copenhagen to lobby businesses, investors and world leaders to adopt practices which would safeguard the environment for future generations.

We corralled three of these 18-25 year olds onto a youth panel and asked them to talk about how they are applying this pressure, what they would like to achieve in Copenhagen and the successes they have had so far.

Here is a video of Victoria Barron on the success she has had working with businesses on ethical strategies.

This is Isabelle Ellis-Cockroft talking about how businesses can become stronger by going green.

from Commentaries:

Stella Artois becomes real hedge fund investor

It seems like a gutsy time to be advertising a hedge fund in newspapers and across billboards in London.

Until you realise at second glance that the adverts are a spoof by InBev-owned lager brand Stella Artois which is trying to boost its green and recycling credentials with some whacky marketing.

With slogans such as "An Investor measures the growth of his hedge fund" and "Once upon a time a hedge fund was just that", the ads initially catch the eye of those of us interested in financial services.

The question is whether they'll get people buying and drinking more Stella Artois beer. The beermaker is hoping to boost its sales by promising to work with The Tree Council to plant hedgerows across Britain -- to help wildlife and soak up CO2 -- if you buy a special pack of its lager.

The marketing industry response so far looks promising.

But the real test of whether people are spurred into drinking more Stella Artois out of a sense of environmental responsibility will be in the British countryside.

Look out for miles of hedgerows with "Sponsored by Stella Artois" signs.

Sprouting business

Marie Larsson, Director of Operations at Toronto Sprouts, discusses the benefits of growing food in a downtown location.