Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
from Summit Notebook:
60-hour work weeks, all in the name of climate change
Some politicians may be accused of dragging their heels when it comes to dealing with climate change, but you can't say members of the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism's executive board aren't clocking in the hours.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an emissions trading scheme under the Kyoto Protocol worth $33 billion last year according to the World Bank, allows companies and countries to outsource their greenhouse gas reduction efforts by investing in clean energy projects in emerging countries like China and India, where making emissions cuts costs less.
Projects are submitted to the CDM for registration and a staff of over 100 examine and scrutinize each one to ensure environmental integrity.
The whole scheme is supervised by a 20-member executive board, chaired by Lex de Jonge of the Netherlands' environment ministry.
"The members are all employed by governments and assigned to the board. They don't get a salary from the UN but they receive a daily subsistence allowance to pay for meals, hotel and travel costs," de Jonge said at the Reuters Climate and Alternative Energy Summit.
"As chair of the board, I spend 75% of my time on CDM issues and 25% on domestic issues relating to my actual job," he added.
The CDM's executive board holds some 7 to 8 week-long meetings a year, up from 5 meetings in 2005, the year international emissions trading really began to take shape.
from Summit Notebook:
Silver Spring Networks shows grid smarts
Scott Lang, the Chief Executive of Silver Spring Networks, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to talk about building and expanding within green tech sector.
Here Lang discusses how his company's technology for reporting power consumption to utilities also finds problems quickly.
(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)
from Summit Notebook:
BrightSource CEO talks about building carbon-free future
John Woolard, the chief executive of solar thermal energy company BrightSource, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to talk about energy efficiency, project financing and the future of carbon-free power.
His advice: build fast!
(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)
