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Sustainability Outlook Headlines
Black Carbon a Significant Factor in Melting of Himalayan GlaciersThe fact that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are thinning is not disputed. However, few researchers have attempted to rigorously examine and quantify the causes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Surabi Menon set out to isolate the impacts of the most commonly blamed culprit -- greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide -- from other particles in the air that may be causing the melting. Menon and her collaborators found that airborne black carbon aerosols, or soot, from India is a major contributor to the decline in snow and ice cover on the glaciers. "Our... Read more.. Date : Feb 4 Source: Science Daily
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CESC lines up 7,500 mw capacity additionCESC, the Kolkata-based power utility, plans to invest around Rs 35,000 crore during the 12th Plan (2012-2018) through a combination of debt, equity and internal accruals. The RPG group company has set a target to commission all its six thermal projects, which are at various stages of implementation across the country, by 2013. Around Rs 20,000 crore from the Rs 35,000 crore corpus will be channelled into the six projects which would give the company a generating capacity of 5,000 mw. The balance, Rs 15,000 crore, would go into hydel power, which the company has just... Read more.. Date : Feb 4 Source: Daily News and Analysis
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Carbon management becomes key supply chain strategyMajor companies are increasingly requiring their suppliers to manage their greenhouse gas emissions as a condition for doing business with them. That is one of the conclusions of the latest report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a 44-member not-for-profit organization that collects climate-change data from 2,500 companies around the globe. Management consulting firm A.T. Kearney analyzed the data from the most recent study and produced the CDP report. Six percent of the companies responding to the CDP's survey said their policy is to fire suppliers who don't manage... Read more.. Date : Feb 3 Source: Purchasing.com
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IEA says U.S. must adopt carbon pricing systemThe United States must adopt a carbon pricing system, like the one President Barack Obama has submitted to Congress, if it hopes to meet its U.N. commitments on greenhouse gas emissions, the International Energy Agency's head said on Wednesday. Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the Paris-based IEA which advises 28 industrialised nations on their energy policy, said Washington's 2020 target of cutting carbon emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels meant it would have to adopt new legislation imposing a cost on carbon waste. Tanaka said the U.S... Read more.. Date : Feb 3 Source: Reuters India
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IFC to provide 6.25 million dollars loan to set up biomass-based plantInternational Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank group, will provide 6.25 million dollar loan to a renewable energy company, Auto Mira Energy Corporation Private Ltd, to build an 18 MW biomass-based greenfield power plant through its subsidiary. To be based in Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu, the project, to be built by the subsidiary Auto Mira Bio Systems Kanyakumari Private Ltd, is expected to save 76,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. IFC's investment will help the company create new renewable energy-based generation capacity to meet the... Read more.. Date : Feb 3 Source: New Kerala
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P2 Solar, Inc. Submits Detailed Project Report to the Punjab GovtP2 Solar, Inc. (OTCBB: PTOS) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has submitted a Detailed Project Report to India government officials. The report was a requirement of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Company and the Punjab government. The report includes a feasibility study on the proposed project. "This is a major step towards getting an implementation agreement with the Punjab government. I am very pleased with our team and the effort that was put into the report," said Mr. Raj-Mohinder Gurm, President / CEO of P2 Solar. A third party EPC engineering... Read more.. Date : Feb 3 Source: MSN Money
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Intuit switches out SAP’s Clear Standards in favor of HaraRedwood City, Calif.-based Hara said today its software has been selected by Intuit (Nasdaq:INTU), adding to a list of customers including Coca-Cola, News Corp., and government organizations using the Hara Environmental and Energy Management product to monitor and manage their natural resource consumption and environmental impact. Hara says its software also helps to prioritize and track reduction opportunities, and achieve cost savings. Mountain View, Calif.-based Intuit had been previously using Clear Standards’ software for two years, even before the company was acquired... Read more.. Date : Feb 2 Source: Cleantech Group
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Bio-fuels hold the future for forest-products industry: reportHeating homes holds as much promise as building them for Canada's long-struggling forest products industry, says a study Monday heralding the use of wood fibre for biofuels and other bioproducts. In fact, clean energy from biomass could reverse the industry's long downward spiral of plant closings and shuttered mill towns, says the study, titled the Future Bio-pathways Project, produced by the Forest Products Association of Canada. "With the right investments in the right areas, the forest products industry can return to profitability and contribute to climate change... Read more.. Date : Feb 2 Source: Financial Post
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Suppliers that don't manage CO2 could lose clientsSuppliers that fail to manage their greenhouse gas emissions could lose clients, said a report published on Monday. Some 56 percent of large firms would in the future deselect suppliers for failing to meet criteria on managing carbon emissions, according to a survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The CDP Supply Chain report said that six percent of its members, which include Google (GOOG.O), Dell (... Read more.. |
India submits to UNFCCC info on domestic actionsIndia today formally submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) the information on its domestic mitigation actions under which it will endeavour to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20-25 per cent by 2020 as compared to the 2005 level. These actions will also not apply to agriculture sector. The emissions from agriculture sector will be excluded from the assessment of emissions intensity. While these actions will be in the nature of India's contribution to the global efforts to address climate change, the country has clarified... Read more.. Date : Jan 31 Source: New Kerala
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IMF Chief Proposes $100 Billion Annual Fund to Tackle Climate ChangeThe head of the International Monetary Fund today proposed to create a multi-billion dollar Green Fund that would provide the financing that countries need to cope with climate change and move to a low-carbon growth model. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the funding needed could amount to $100 billion a year within a few years. "We are going to provide some ideas built around a Green Fund devoted to finance the $100 billion a year, which is the figure which is commonly accepted that is needed for addressing the problem,... Read more.. Date : Jan 31 Source: Environment News Service
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NTPC to generate cheap energy by mixing solar with thermalNavratna public sector enterprise NTPC Limited will generate 2000 MW of cheap energy by mixing solar energy with thermal by 2013, NTPC Limited Director (Commercial) Inderjit Kapoor said today. Addressing a press conference on the occasion of launching the company's FPO to mark its five per cent divestment, Mr Kapoor said NTPC would act like the nodal agency in the name of NTPC Bidyut Byapar Nigam under the National Solar Mission in which the company would mix 1000 MW solar energy with 1000 MW thermal energy allocated by the Centre. The mixed power would be sold out through... Read more.. Date : Jan 31 Source: Webindia 123
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China Insists That Its Steps on Climate Be VoluntaryAs a Sunday target date approaches for countries to submit to the United Nations their plans for fighting climate change, China is banding together with other major developing nations to stress that only the wealthier countries need to make internationally binding commitments. So while China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, might put down in writing its targets for slowing the growth of emissions, it will make clear that those efforts are voluntary steps it plans to take domestically that should not imply a binding international commitment. The distinction... Read more.. Date : Jan 30 Source: New York Times
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To save carbon, invest in carbonTo save carbon, we need to invest in carbon; that is one of the greatest paradoxes, said Brice Lalonde, Special Ambassador of France for Climate Change. He was speaking at the Indo-French conference on “Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development”, organised as part of Bonjour India here on Friday. Mr. Lalonde, in his plenary lecture, said that the world was facing a series of crises that would force the international community to invent new economic and institutional tools to prevent environmental collapse while ensuring sustainable development. The ongoing... Read more.. Date : Jan 30 Source: Hindu
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Pollution control: India ranks 123rdIndia and China rank 123rd and 121st in pollution control respectively, reflecting the strain rapid economic growth imposes on the environment, according to the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI). However, among the other newly industrialised nations Brazil and Russia rank 62nd and 69th, suggesting that the level of development is just one of many factors affecting pollution control. Iceland leads the world in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges, according to the index produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale University... Read more.. Date : Jan 29 Source: Economic Times
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US closes $1.4 billion electric car loan with NissanThe US government closed a $1.4 billon loan agreement with Nissan to help retool a factory in Tennessee to build up to 150,000 all-electric automobiles a year and the battery packs to power them, the Energy Department said on Thursday. "This is an investment in our clean energy future. It will bring the United States closer to reducing our dependence on foreign oil and help lower carbon pollution," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "We are committed to making strides to revitalize the American auto industry and supporting the development of clean energy vehicles." The... Read more.. Date : Jan 29 Source: Economic Times
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Climate deal unlikely unless economy lifts-IndiaU.N. climate talks will "probably not" agree an ambitious deal this year unless the economy improves and voters press for action, said India's top climate official Shyam Saran. "If the economic and financial crisis continues or even worsens during the coming year then the kind of ambitious response that the world expects is probably not going to happen," said India's special envoy on climate change, on the fringes of a business and policy summit in Davos. "But if the situation improves ... if there is much more public opinion pressure on... Read more.. Date : Jan 29 Source: Reuters UK
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Number of trees that release CO2 into atmosphere grossly overestimatedA recent study at Oregon State University, US, indicates that some past approaches to calculating the impacts of forest fires have grossly overestimated the number of live trees that burn up and the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere as a result. The research was done on the Metolius River Watershed in the central Oregon Cascade Range, where about one-third - or 100,000 acres - of the area burned in four large fires in 2002-03. Although some previous studies assumed that 30 percent of the mass of living trees was consumed during forest fires, this... Read more.. Date : Jan 28 Source: Newstrack India
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India decries grain diversion to bio-fuelsIndia on Wednesday decried attempts to divert food grains for bio-fuels. “Diversion of grain for fuel is a dangerous trend,” Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said at the World Economic Forum meeting here. Addressing a session on energy security, Mr. Sharma said diversion of food grains for bio-fuels cannot “subvert” the need for food security. “The cost of food in India has been on a rise over the past year and in early January food inflation was hovering around 17 per cent,” he said. Responding to a point that India and China are increasing their energy... Read more.. Date : Jan 28 Source: Hindu
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Is clean tech China's moon shot?
The global race to develop clean technology is not just about who can build the best solar parks or wind farms. It is also shaping up as a contest between Chinese-style capitalism and the more market-oriented approach fancied by the United States and Europe. The question comes down to this: will China's highly capitalized command-and-control economy trump laissez-faire in a low-carbon shift that is widely portrayed as the next industrial revolution? The failure in Copenhagen to agree to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new global climate... Read more.. Date : Jan 28 Source: Reuters
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Obama eager to help advance climate billPresident Barack Obama appeared to back away from creating a market in planet-warming emissions on Wednesday in a bid to save the stalled climate change bill, while reaching out to Republicans by promoting nuclear energy and offshore drilling. Obama said he was eager to support a bipartisan climate bill in U.S. Senate during his annual State of the Union speech to Congress. But he did not say it had to include a cap-and-trade market for emissions blamed for warming the planet. "This year, I am eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate," Obama said. "And... Read more.. Date : Jan 28 Source: Reuters India
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India's 'miracle' biofuel crop: too good to be true?To its fans, jatropha is a miracle crop, an eco-friendly answer to India's growing ... Read more.. |
US climate goal unchangedSENATOR John Kerry, a key US lawmaker trying to craft a cap-and-trade bill, denied a report on Wednesday that advocates of this plan to curb climate change were scaling back their efforts. 'Our goal remains exactly what it was before: to price carbon and to create a target for reduction of emissions that is real,' the Massachusetts Democrat told a forum on clean energy, jobs and security. 'So we have not scaled back our goals, they are the same,' Senator Kerry said. 'We have not recalibrated some lesser approach that is only energy or only this or that ... We have to price... Read more.. Date : Jan 28 Source: Straits Times
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Global warming to trigger more warmingClimate change caused by mankind will release extra heat-trapping gases stored in nature into the atmosphere in a small spur to global warming, a study showed. But the knock-on effect of the additional carbon dioxide -- stored in soils, plants and the oceans -- on top of industrial emissions building up in the atmosphere will be less severe than suggested by some recent studies, they said. "We are confirming that the feedback exists and is positive. That's bad news," lead author David Frank of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL said of the study in Thursday's edition of... Read more.. Date : Jan 28 Source: Reuters UK
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EU agrees to make lowest climate offer to U.N.The European Union has decided to stick to its lowest offer for cutting carbon emissions under a U.N climate accord, but will maintain a conditional pledge to do more if others follow suit, EU diplomats said on Wednesday. Their comments after EU ambassadors met in Brussels confirmed the 27-nation bloc's commitment to unilateral target carbon dioxide emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade. Some EU countries such as Poland, Italy, Cyprus and Malta had opposed making the more ambitious conditional offer because of concerns that it would be too costly for... Read more.. Date : Jan 28 Source: Reuters India
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