By Keith Akers, Compassionate Spirit, 3 February 2012 | Livestock is not just an important factor, but the key factor driving climate change. Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang put forward this idea in their 2009 WorldWatch article “Livestock and Climate Change,” and it is now receiving increased support and attention. In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations had said that livestock contribute about 18% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) — which...
Kaieteur News, 5 February 2012 | Bruce Wrobel, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sithe Global, the developers contracted by the Guyana Government for the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Plant has said that he is willing to provide the Guyanese public with a copy of the contract for perusal to increase Transparency but Prime Minister Samuel Hinds says ‘not so fast.’ Hinds recently baffled reporters when he said that the Government has always been willing to and has provided information on the...
Guyana Chronicle, 5 February 2012 | The Board of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) gave its final nod of approval Wednesday for the execution of the Institutional Strengthening Project for Guyana’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy initiative. According to a release from the Office of the President, under whose purview the initiative falls, the IDB’s approval paves the way for all remaining funds, totalling US$5.94 million, to flow directly to Guyana from the GRIF for full...
Environmental Finance, 27 January 2012 | The UK government has invested £110 million ($157 million) into two new commercial funds, aiming to leverage in at least £3 billion of private capital for green investments in developing countries. Britain has committed £50 million to the Climate Catalyst Fund, which is a private equity fund of funds managed by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), and £60 million in the CP3 Asia fund, a clean-tech fund of funds developed by the UK...
By Fidelis E. Satriastanti & Alina Musta’idah, Jakarta Globe, 1 February 2012 | Applicants for land concessions in Indonesia will soon be forced to clarify the boundaries of their land and show that there is no overlapping claims, the Forestry Ministry announced on Tuesday amid a recent eruption of violence linked to land disputes. Hadi Daryanto, the secretary general of the Forestry Ministry, said the government would revise a ministerial decree on the process to establish or extend...
Climate Change Policy & Practice, 30 January 2012 | An agroforestry project financed by the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund in western Kenya presented a methodology for soil carbon sequestration through sustainable agricultural land management, which was approved by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). The methodology is expected to allow smallholder farmers in Kenya – and potentially worldwide - to adopt improved farming techniques, boost productivity and increase their resilience to climate...
By Anjali Nayar, Nature News & Comment, 1 February 2012 | A scramble to buy African land is threatening the continent’s sustainable development, according to reports launched today at the Royal Society in London. Of the 203 million hectares of land deals reported worldwide between 2000 and 20101, two-thirds were in Africa. The acquisitions are dispossessing millions of Africans of their land, to make way for expansive forestry and mineral projects and plantations, say a series of briefs2...
Radio Australia, 2 February 2012 | William Laurance: There is a huge area of Papua New Guinea which has now been set aside for these SABLs. It's about 5.5 million hectares, about 11% of the countries land area and one of the common concerns is that these SABLs which were supposed to be designed for larger scale agricultural development, in fact, in many cases are being exploited by timber companies as a back-door or insidious way of getting around existing forestry regulations trying to limit...
By Alex Morales, Bloomberg, 3 February 2012 | European Union policies to promote the use of biofuels for transportation will cost consumers as much as 126 billion euros ($166 billion) between now and 2020, two environmental groups said. The fuels, gasoline substitutes derived from plants, probably won’t cut greenhouse gases because forests are chopped down to make way for biofuel plantations, Friends of the Earth and ActionAid said today in an e-mailed statement. The European Commission said...
Economic Times, 1 February 2012 | India today asked all countries to "adhere and sincerely follow" the Kyoto Protocol which recognises principles of common but differentiated responsibility in dealing with the challenge of climate change. Addressing the 9th World CEO Sustainability Summit organized by TERI here, he said "we have acknowledged the fact that countries across the world have different levels of development, have differing abilities in adopting mitigation and adaptation measures for...
By Nina Chestney, Reuters, 2 February 2012 | U.N.-backed carbon permits were among the worst performing commodities in 2011 and trading volume fell more than 35 percent in January this year from December as the benchmark contract became very illiquid, renewing concerns about lack of demand. Prices for United Nations carbon credits, called certified emissions reductions (CERs), have sunk by more than 60 percent since January last year. In a poll by Reuters last month, carbon analysts cut price...
CIFOR Forests Blog, 2 February 2012 | Twenty-two dollars in Indonesia buys a 90-minute boat ride to watch orangutans. In Rwanda, to catch a glimpse of a mountain gorilla costs $500 – and the tourists are lining up. Could Indonesia charge foreign tourists $500 to see its great apes? “When we started (gorilla) tourism in Rwanda, people were paying $50. Now we are at $500,” Antoine Mudakikwa from the Rwanda Development Board, told a workshop on great apes at the Center for International Forestry...
By Martin Hickman, The Independent, 31 January 2012 | Teeming with rare mammals, the Tripa swamp is an orangutan stronghold and vital carbon store in north-western Sumatra, an island larger than the UK whose natural wealth for decades has been relentlessly stripped by Indonesia's corrupt rulers. Nearly half its forest was burnt or chainsawed between 1985 and 2007, proportionally more than neighbouring Borneo, which is shared between Indonesia and the more orderly Malaysia and Brunei....
By Finnigan Wa Simbeye, Tanzania Daily News, 1 February 2012 | Payments to communities which conserve their forests to help mitigate effects of global warming will become real next year when Kyoto Protocol expires and United Nations members agree on adopting Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) initiative. Norwegian Ambassador to Tanzania, Ingunn Klepsvik told lawmakers in Bagamoyo last Friday that her country is supporting the UN initiative to compensate poor...
Super Bowl 2012 = Greenest Super Bowl Ever? (Infographic)
CleanTechnica
Buying carbon offsets to cover the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the AFC and NFC Super Bowl teams' air and ground travel. Supporting urban forestry programs in...
GINA, 2 February 2012 | Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) will soon benefit from implementation support through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Guyana and The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) headed by Dr. R.K Pachauri, Nobel Prize Laureate and Chairman of the Inter- Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Former President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo and Shyam Nokta from the Office of the President held discussions in Delhi with Dr. R.K Pachauri and...
By Chevon Singh, Guyana Chronicle, 2 February 2012 | The Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF) will not be available for disbursal until the Government of Guyana and its partners -- the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) -- have agreed on projects to be presented to the Steering Committee. Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon, made this pronouncement yesterday while fielding questions at his weekly post-Cabinet...
Kaieteur News, 3 February 2012 | Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon yesterday told media operatives that he is aware of reports involving police altercations with controversial contractor Makeswhar ‘Fip’ Motilall but insists that the Government owns the seized equipment. Dr Luncheon, addressing reporters at his weekly media conference, said that Government forked out a significant sum of cash for the purchase of the equipment and in light of the developments involving the...
By Chevron Singh, Guyana Chronicle, 2 February 2012 | Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon has announced that Cabinet on Tuesday approved the provision of financial resources to continue work on the Amaila Falls access road. He was at the time speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President, where he explained that the resources earmarked for the continuation of the project, were to be used for the recruitment of contractors to complete the...
