Get involved with The UN’s Billion Tree Campaign

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a major worldwide tree planting campaign. Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments are encouraged to enter tree planting pledges online with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide each year. In a call to further individual and collective action, UNEP has set a new goal of planting 7 billion trees by the end of 2009. The campaign strongly encourages the planting of indigenous trees and trees that are appropriate to the local environment.

The idea for the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign was inspired by Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2004 and founder of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, which has planted more than 30 million trees in 12 African countries since 1977.  When a corporate group in the United States told Professor Maathai it was planning to plant a million trees, her response was: “That’s great, but what we really need is to plant a billion trees.”

A worldwide effort Recognizing that there are many tree planting schemes around the world, UNEP proposes to federate these efforts in both rural and urban areas. People and entities – individuals, children and youth groups, schools, community groups, non-governmental organizations, farmers, private sector organizations, local authorities and national governments – are encouraged to enter pledges on the online form. Each pledge can be anything from a single tree to several million trees.

The responsibility will lie with the person/organization making the pledge via the campaign website to arrange for the tree planting.  All contributing participants will receive a certificate of involvement. They will be encouraged to follow up via the web site so UNEP can verify that the trees have survived, in partnership with certification mechanisms, such as the Forest Stewardship Council. The website will record the ongoing tally of pledges, and also publish photos and accounts from registered campaign members of what they have achieved.

Advice on tree planting (How to plant a tree) is available via the website, as well as information about reforestation and other tree-related issues, including links to appropriate partner organizations best equipped to give locally tailored advice, such as the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). Because ideal planting conditions vary in different regions, the campaign will operate throughout the year.

Plant a tree with Mokugift for 1$

 

EU ‘well on track’ to meet Kyoto target

The latest projections suggest that the EU-15 member states will reduce their domestic emissions to 6.9% below 1990 between 2008-2012, based on policies and measures that have already been implemented.

This falls slightly short of the Kyoto goal of 8%, but the EU is confident that with a little extra push and a little extra cash, this target can be reached. It said that plans by 10 of the EU-15 governments to buy carbon credits from outside the EU, via the Kyoto Protocol’s flexible mechanisms (international emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism and the Joint Implementation) will bring a further reduction of 2.2%.

IEA puts $500bn a year cost on Copenhagen failure

Each year of delay in cementing a global post-2012 climate deal will add $500 billion to the cost of the low-carbon energy revolution, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

As international negotiators seek to manage expectations that the UN climate talks this December will result in a finalised Copenhagen protocol or treaty, the IEA said in its World Energy Outlook 2009 that the $10.5 trillion energy investment needed between 2010 and 2030 will increase by $500 billion for each year of delay “before moving to a more sustainable emissions path”.

A delay of “just a few years” would make it impossible to reach the IEA’s scenario for stabilising carbon dioxide equivalent in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million. Keeping greenhouse gas concentrations at this level will produce a 50% chance the global temperature rise can be kept below the crucial 2°C threshold.

Speakers at the Environment 09 conference in London on Monday were doubtful a comprehensive legally-binding deal would be reached in the Danish capital, however. Japan’s head negotiator Kuni Shimada said that the “most probable” outcome now is that Copenhagen will “agree on the elements for key issues which must be within the outcome. We can still negotiate the nitty gritty details next year.” A final protocol or treaty could be hashed out in 2010 or even 2011, he added.

“[Copenhagen] won’t solve all the issues,” agreed Chris Smith, chairman of the UK’s Environment Agency. “Some of the most significant emitting countries aren’t yet ready to conclude a deal – not least the US, where the Senate won’t have made its decisions until the New Year.”

“What we have to aim for, though, is a number of clear ‘in principle’ decisions, agreed by the participating nations, with a commitment to agree actions arising from those principles in the course of the following nine months,” he added.

But José Maria Figueres, former president of Costa Rica, told delegates: “I’m absolutely certain we can still achieve a high quality agreement at Copenhagen.”

“If we can’t get the [key] elements by the end of this year, we can’t get these kind of elements ever,” Shimada said.

Article from http://www.carbon-financeonline.com

US to boost solar manufacturing with tax credits

New York, 12 November: US Senators have introduced a bill that would extend the 30% solar investment tax credit (ITC) to equipment and facilities used to manufacture solar technology.

Solar Tax

Currently, the solar ITC can be drawn on for investment in or installation of solar power technology in operation in the US before 1 January 2017. Under the Solar Manufacturing Jobs Creation Act, equipment and facilities used to manufacture solar power technology would become eligible for the solar ITC. These technologies include solar cells, silicon, evacuated tubes and flat-plate solar collectors.

Click HERE to read full article from Environmental Finance Online News

Land Use Change an Overlooked Cause of Global Warming

Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone is publishing a paper in the December edition of Environmental Science and Technology that suggests policymakers need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change, in addition to greenhouse gas emissions.

Over-crowding suburbs

According to Stone’s paper, as the international community meets in Copenhagen in December to develop a new framework for responding to climate change, policymakers need to give serious consideration to broadening the range of management strategies beyond greenhouse gas reductions alone.

“Across the U.S. as a whole, approximately 50 percent of the warming that has occurred since 1950 is due to land use changes (usually in the form of clearing forest for crops or cities) rather than to the emission of greenhouse gases,” said Stone. “Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole — a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change. As a result, emissions reduction programs — like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress — may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming.”

Full Article HERE

Companies Mixing Up Greener Cement

Oakland, CA- You don’t have to look far to see just how much concrete humans use. Everything from highways to high-rise and bridges to runways around the world are made with the energy-intensive, carbon-spewing material.

Contributing at least 5 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the cement industry is ripe for changes to lower its impact. Cement, the glue that binds concrete, is one of the most carbon-intensive materials out there: It produces one ton of CO2 for every ton of cement made.

A number of companies, looking to cut the global impact of concrete, as well as open up huge markets for greener building blocks, are using a variety of methods like replacing concrete ingredients and adding new materials that make concrete waterproof.

See Full-Story HERE

Denmark Invites 191 Leaders to U.N. Climate Summit

Denmark has formally invited the leaders of United Nations member countries to the U.N. conference in Copenhagen in December that will try to clinch a new global climate deal, the government said on Thursday.

Copenhagan

The invitations are sent by letter from Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen to the heads of state and government of the other 191 U.N. member states.

The Copenhagen talks were originally meant for environment and climate ministers but the United Nations said last week that about 40 leaders have indicated plans to attend, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and leaders of nations in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.