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From Sustainable Business:

South Korea passed legislation to begin a national cap-and-trade program with a near unanimous vote of 148-0, with three abstentions. 

The fourth largest economy in Asia, South Korea is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions among industrialized countries, doubling since 1990. It is the 8th biggest source of GHG emissions in the world and has a national target of cutting them 30% by 2020.

POSCO, the world’s third largest steelmaker, and Samsung Electronics, the largest electronics manufacturer, are among South Korea’s biggest polluters.

Emissions trading is scheduled to begin in Korea in 2015, the same year as those in Australia and China. New Zealand started emissions trading in 2009, and the EU’s went into effect in 2005. South Africa has plans for a program. In the US, the northeastern states have a cap-and-trade program, California’s begins in 2013. 

In April, both Mexico and Peru passed national climate change legislation.

This opens the possibility of linking country cap-and-trade programs - allowing participants to trade regionallly and eventually worldwide - which would raise the value of carbon markets substantially.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Energy Korea)

BBC:

The US has regained top spot from China as the biggest investor in clean energy in 2011, according to global rankings.

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Globally, overall financial backing in clean energy technologies hit a record $263bn, up 6.5% from 2010 levels.

The report, Who is Winning the Clean Energy Race, showed that G20 nations accounted for 95% of the investment in the sector (which does not include nuclear power).

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Over the course of the year, an additional 83.5 gigawatts (GW) was added to the world’s clean energy generation capacity, including almost 30GW of solar and 43GW of wind.

“The sector continues to expand and is outpacing growth in the overall (global) economy. The sector reached its trillionth dollar of investment last year,” observed Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program.

“We now have 565GW of installed (generation) capacity around the world. That outstrips nuclear installed capacity by 47%.

Check out the rest of the article here. And an interactive map of the report here.

(Photo credit: Pew Charitable Trusts)

From Business Green:

Businesses have been urged to accelerate their environmental footprinting strategies to include emerging economies, after new research by the Carbon Trust revealed young people in China could hold the key to unlocking mass demand for greener products.

The survey of 2,800 young people across six countries carried out by TNS found 83 per cent of 18-25 year-olds in China would be more loyal to a brand if they could see it was reducing its carbon footprint. In contrast, just 57 per cent of US respondents and 55 per cent of young people in the UK made the same claim.

Globally, 78 per cent of young people said they want their favourite brands to reduce their carbon footprint, but again those in Chinese showed the highest demand for emission reductions with 88 per cent calling on firms to cut their footprint.

South Africa came in second place with 86 per cent of respondents calling on blue chips to reduce their impact, followed by Brazil at 84 per cent. Again the US and UK lagged far behind with only two thirds of respondents demanding more action from big brands.

Check out the rest of the article here. You can also check out an infographic of the study here.

(Image credit: Carbon Trust) 

‘NASA Images Depict Rapid Loss of Thick Arctic Sea Ice’, 1980 - 2012

From Yale e360:

A new comparison of satellite images from 1980 and 2012 vividly depicts the rapid disappearance of thick, multi-year Arctic Ocean ice in winter. Over the past three decades, the extent of the Arctic’s thickest ice has declined by 15 to 17 percent per decade, according to NASA climate scientist Joey Comiso.

Details over at Yale e360 and NASA’s Earth Observatory.

It’s also worth noting that a new study has found an important link between melting Arctic sea ice and extreme weather being experienced in some regions of our planet. BBC coverage of the study explains that:

The progressive shrinking of Arctic sea ice is bringing colder, snowier winters to the UK and other areas of Europe, North America and China.

More here.

From Reuters:

Global warming threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government’s latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself.

The warnings are carried in the government’s “Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change,” which sums up advancing scientific knowledge about the consequences and costs of global warming for China — the world’s second biggest economy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution.

Global warming fed by greenhouse gases from industry, transport and shifting land-use poses a long-term threat to China’s prosperity, health and food output, says the report. With China’s economy likely to rival the United States’ in size in coming decades, that will trigger wider consequences.

“China faces extremely grim ecological and environmental conditions under the impact of continued global warming and changes to China’s regional environment,” says the 710-page report, officially published late last year but released for public sale only recently.

Even so, China’s rising emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, will begin to fall off only after about 2030, with big falls only after mid-century, says the report.

Assuming no measures to counter global warming, grain output in the world’s most populous nation could fall from 5 to 20 percent by 2050, depending on whether a “fertilization effect” from more carbon dioxide in the air offsets losses, says the report.

But that possible fall can be held in check by improved crop choice and farming practices, as well as increased irrigation and fertilizer use.

China is the world’s biggest consumer of cereals and has increasingly turned to foreign suppliers of corn and soy beans.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credits: Reuters; The Guardian)

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Despite the turbulence in the global economy, the world invested a record $251 billion in clean energy last year, with the US streaking ahead of China in green spending and boosting confidence among climate action advocates.

New figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance showed the US spent $54 billion on clean energy, retaking the No. 1 spot it lost to China in 2009 and defying assumptions that the world’s largest economy is flagging on greenhouse gas reductions.

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”Despite financial crisis, and even though carbon pricing schemes haven’t developed quite the way they were expected to … investment keeps growing, which reflects the world view of many major economists that clean energy is going to be the major industrial driver of economic growth this century,” said Kobad Bhavnagri, Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s lead clean energy analyst in Australia.

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The indications of a rise in global investment in clean energy follows the pact by major greenhouse-emitting countries in Durban last month on a road map that would lead to a global climate change deal by 2015.

Erwin Jackson, deputy CEO of the Climate Institute, said: ”There are all these myths of the world not acting on climate change. All you have to do is follow the money.”

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Bloomberg)

‘Ai Weiwei Piles 1,200 Bikes On Top Of Each Other, For Dazzling Effect’

From FastCoDesign:

The humble bike has inspired artists ever since Marcel Duchamp put a bicycle wheel on top of a stool in 1913—even Picasso, during the bleakest period of World War II, used a pair of handlebars and a bike saddle to whimsically conjure the skull of a bull. The artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained in a secret location for 81 days by the Chinese government last summer, continues this tradition with a new exhibition in Taiwan.

As part of what the museum bills as the first large-scale solo exhibition of the artist’s work to be held in the Chinese world, Ai Weiwei’s most recent work, Forever Bicycles, installs 1,200 bicycles—some hanging from the ceiling, some standing upright on the floor—one behind the other. The bikes have no handlebars and no seats and instead use those parts of the frame to extend upward and outward to connect to other wheels and other frames, creating the illusion of a labyrinth-like space in a three-dimensional area.

Check out the rest of the article here.

From Business Green:

China looks set to impose a direct tax on its largest greenhouse gas emitters by 2015, according to reports in state media.

Proposals for an environmental tax are being reviewed by the Ministry of Finance and are expected to come into force before the end of the 2011-2015 five-year plan, the state news agency Xinhua reported today, citing government sources.

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The prospective tax is the latest in a series of measures from the Chinese government designed to curb the country’s soaring greenhouse gas emissions, which oil giant BP recently estimated made up a quarter of the world’s total in 2010.

Most notably, the country’s latest five year plan includes targets to reduce carbon intensity, the amount of CO2 produced per unit of GDP, by 17 per cent from 2011 to 2015.

To ensure the target is met the government has launched wide-ranging incentives to drive investment in low carbon energy, introduced tough new fuel and energy efficiency standards, and piloted carbon trading mechanisms in several provinces.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Urban Age)

Infographic: The Top 10 Countries for Solar Energy

(Source: One Block Off the Grid)

From Reuters:

China has further revised up its solar power development target for 2015 by 50 percent from its previous plan, state media reported on Thursday.

The government has set a target for installed solar power generating capacity to reach 15 gigawatts by 2015 and wind power capacity to hit 100 GW, China National Radio reported, citing an announcement from the National Energy Administration.

The ambitious move may have been encouraged by a rapid increase in solar power installation in recent months after the government unified grid feed-in tariffs for solar projects for the first time in July, and offered a higher price for projects that would be put into operation before the year end.

China had doubled its 2015 solar power goal to 10 GW after the Japanese nuclear power crisis.

(Photo Credit: Associated Press)