Topic: Emissions Offsets and Trading

Wearable Carbon Credit Meter Keeps Track of Your Emissions

Most of us have only a vague idea of our daily carbon emissions; we know that riding the train to work is better than driving, but not by how much. Industrial designer Nick Hunter wants to change that with his wearable carbon credit ...READ»

World Green Exchange is Now a Carbon Credit Shopping Mall

Carbon credits (permits that allows the holder to emit one ton of CO2) are often maligned because it's impossible to know how much carbon is actually reduced from their purchase. In many carbon markets, buyers are only able to ...READ»

Are American Energy Companies Investing in a Bolivian Carbon Offset Scam?

Carbon offsets are often derided as a modern-day form of the Catholic indulgence. Pollute as much as you want, pay for someone else to offset your emissions, and feel good at the end of the day. But polluters might not feel so great ...READ»

Europe's Biggest Polluters See Windfall Profits From Carbon Trading

Four years after the EU unveiled its emissions trading scheme, the most polluting industries in the region have seen multibillions in windfall profits. Total reduction in emissions? Almost none.READ»

UN Climate Summit: 186 Nations Gridlocked by Global Recession

There won’t be too many major decisions made at this week’s UN climate summit, but close observers will be able to hear the conversation shift and watch battle lines being drawn for the new year.READ»

• Can Carbon Credits Slow Global Warming?

Building the Low Carbon Economy

The financial crisis seems overwhelming, with dire warnings that things may still get worse, bailout or not. People are worried about what lies ahead for business, but believe it or not the news is not all bad. There are still ...READ»

The Future of Farming is in Nitrogen Efficiency

A California biotech firm claims a gene that makes plants use nitrogen more efficiently can transform agriculture, make lots of money -- and slash greenhouse-gas emissions.READ»

Can Carbon Credits Slow Global Warming?

Legal limits on greenhouse-gas emissions are coming fast, with a $1 trillion carbon market emerging. At the core: A cadre of young, idealistic Yale forestry grads. But will carbon offsets do anything to slow global warming?READ»

• Green Family Tree
• Silicon Valley's Green Angel Investors
• The King of Green Investing

Who Wins Under a Cap-and-Trade System?

The idea behind the cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions is simple: Energy companies that rely mostly on oil and coal will have to pony up big bucks, while those who rely on more diversified forms of power will benefit. ...READ»

Editor's Letter: Market Manipulation

When the founding fathers of the New York Stock Exchange (and, yes, they were all men) gathered under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, in lower Manhattan, 216 years ago, they could not have imagined that their efforts would help ...READ»

Are Carbon Offsets a Cop-Out?

Fighting climate change may have become a crusade--but it's no sin to do the easiest thing first.READ»

Responsible Travel Dumps Carbon Offsets, Says They Encourage Wasteful Consumerism

Carbon offsets have always been controversial, mainly because it's difficult to verify their reliability. Chalk up Responsible Travel, one of the first travel companies to offer carbon offsets to customers, as one of the biggest ...READ»

Sustainability: The Little Green Lies We Tell Ourselves

Apparently it has become all the rage in Colorado (and probably other places, too) for individuals to purchase little cards that claim to offset the bearer's monthly power consumption derived from fossil fuels with the good clean ...READ»

A Vote Against the Waxman-Markey Climate Change Bill is a vote for the Do Nothing Tax of 2009

With so many challenges facing our country and the U.S. government, many people have doubted whether we would see significant action on climate change this year.  They may still prove correct, but with the passage of the ...READ»

Carbon Craze

In "Are Carbon Offsets a Cop-out?" (November 2007), David Roberts is right that comparisons between carbon offsets and indulgences are tired and inaccurate. Carbon offsets are meant only as a last resort, to cover greenhouse-gas ...READ»

For Pennies, UPS Offers Carbon Offsets for Your Packages

Would you splurge for a small surcharge on UPS packages if it meant cutting down on carbon emissions? UPS is betting on it. The shipping company is now the first small package carrier to offer carbon offsets to customers. At $0.05 ...READ»

Carbon Micro Credits for the Developing World

Families in Kenya now have a convincing reason to lower their carbon footprints: cash. Yes, two of the trendiest ethonomic concepts of the last 10 years--carbon credits and microfinance--have finally merged. Carbon Manna ...READ»

Updates

Texan Trees"Carbon Boom" (July/August) addressed the idea of offsetting greenhouse- gas emissions by preserving forests, largely in tropical regions like Brazil and Indonesia. Now the so-called forest carbon trade has come ...READ»

• Feedback

Forest Credits Could Crash The Price of Carbon, Greenpeace Says

Carbon cap-and-trade efforts are becoming one long chain of unintended consequences. To whit: Greenpeace released a report arguing that allowing official trade in carbon credits representing forest preservation would crash the price ...READ»

October 2008: Reader Feedback

In the Fast Lane By the time our July/August issue arrived in subscribers' mailboxes, cover girl Katie Hoff had broken the world record in the women's 400-meter individual medley at the U.S. Olympic trials, shaving 0.34 of a second ...READ»

• Updates

San Francisco Snags World's First Airport Carbon Kiosks

San Francisco mayor and California gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom is attempting to jack up his eco-cred in a slightly controversial way by announcing the world's first airport carbon offset kiosk at San Francisco International ...READ»

Al Gore: Oil "Junkie" America Needs Third World Help

The former Vice President, clean-shaven in a dark suit and black cowboy boots, pauses. "Junkies find veins in their toes, when the veins in their arms and legs collapse," he says to Charlie Rose. The audience suffers an ...READ»

What's Your Carbon Worth? Ask Richard Sandor

Financial-futures pioneer Richard Sandor thinks he can make carbon-emission rights as tradable as pork bellies and frozen OJ.READ»

The State of the Climate Change Debate

As politics and the planet both heat up, there’s a lot of talk about climate change measures. What’s really happening? READ»

• The King of Green Investing
• Silicon Valley's Angel Investors
• The Music Industry Goes Green

Can New York City's MTA Run On Carbon Credits?

One creative source of revenue New York City is considering: Carbon credits. Yesterday, public transit chief Eliot Sander was on the Brian Lehrer show discussing the "doomsday budget", which basically is a choice between bad and ...READ»