The film records the efforts of three year-in-industry students as they audit and reduce the carbon footprints of three Norwich companies. Aimee Etheridge, Jason Galloway and Alison Morris spent the last year at Bayer Crop Science, UCP Zeller and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital respectively and used the knowledge gained in their environmental sciences degree to advise how those organisations could reduce their energy consumption and ultimately their energy bill.

The three stars will traverse the green carpet on the way into the venue, which will be removed and planted on the UEA campus after the event. Following the screening there will be Q&A session for attending organisations to find out more about the year-in-industry programme as well as learning simple steps to reduce energy consumption in the workplace. Finally there will be a networking drinks reception at which Adnams’ low carbon beer East Green will be served.

The experience of Adnams working with CRed to monitor the carbon footprint of beer production provided the inspiration for the Carbon Cutters documentary.

Anybody wishing to attend the premiere should contact Matt Dolan through m.dolan@uea.ac.uk or 01603 591358.

The VCI was created to track intra-annual price developments in the over-the-counter secondary VER market and is based on confidential information from operators in the market. New Carbon Finance tracked close to 3 million tonnes of carbon credits in July and August 2008, worth about US$18.9 million at an average of US$6.3 per tonne. ThVCI has identified several key trends in the voluntary carbon market.

• The average price of a project-level “secondary VER” rose 26% in the first half of 2008, from US$5.0/t in 2007 to US$6.3/t. This is significantly higher than the voluntary credits exchanged on the Chicago Climate Exchange. Those traded at an average of US$3.9/t during the first half and have now fallen to US$2.5/t.
• The emergence of the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) as the most popular and dominant standard in the markets has been consolidated, with most volumes transacted through this standard. VCS credits have seen a 33% price increase (US$7.3/t) compared to their 2007 average value (US$5.5/t).
• Gold Standard (GS) VERs continue to be the “premium credit” commanding the highest average price at US$15.8/t, up 40%, and the standard developed by the Californian Climate Action Registry (CCAR) is also quickly gaining ground with prices 71% above the average VER price (US$10.8/t), likely due to demand from pre-compliance buyers.
• Project type is another important price determinant. As a sign of the increasing growth of the so-called pre-compliance market, methane projects accounted for the majority of offsets transacted in July and August and can currently obtain the highest prices. They have increased by 12% (US$7.3/t) from their 2007 price of US$6.5/t. Methane projects are particularly interesting as they are relatively inexpensive to develop and are most likely to be eligible in a future compliance programme.
• Prices for industrial gas and renewable energy credits have remained comparatively flat: renewable energy VERs traded at US$6.7/t and industrial gas at US$3.6/t. Forestry VERs have increased by 24% (US$5.2/t) from their 2007 price of US$4.2/t, a move likely attributable to the increased use of standards such as the CCB, CCAR and VCS.

Many see the move as unsurprising given that the Australian economy is so dependent on coal exports. The proposal will form the basis of Mr Rudd’s presentation to the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week. The embattled UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has offered support, Mr Rudd said.

The new institute will start out in Australia with the objective of helping meet the G8 commitment to have at least 20 industrial scale carbon capture and storage projects in operation by 2020.

Presently there are five pilot projects, including the Otway scheme in Victoria.

Carbon capture and storage involves gathering carbon dioxide which would otherwise be emitted by a coal-fired power station or factory, compressing it for transport by pipeline and then injecting it into subterranean rock several kilometres beneath the earth’s surface.

Dr Peter Cook, chief executive of the Cooperative Research Council for greenhouse gas technologies, said the process wasn’t pie in the sky.

“This is science that has a firm base … that has been developing for a number of years,” he said.

Mr Rudd said any effective solution to climate change must deal with clean coal.

“It must deal with carbon capture and storage.

“Unless we deal with coal we are not dealing with a core part of the challenge.”

There was a great danger the G8 ambition would end up on the long list of politically pious statements which lacked any machinery to make them happen, Mr Rudd said.

“We the government want this global carbon and storage institute in Australia to be the global go-to place across the board for clean coal technologies and their application. That is the ambition.

“Rather than simply put an idea out there, we have decided that we need to have some skin in the game. So we will be providing up to $100 million a year to fund this global carbon capture and storage institute.”

“The 44 Gt CO2-equivalent offset potential for cool roofs and cool pavements would counteract the effect of the growth in CO2-equivalent emission rates for 11 years,” according to the authors. In a serve which shows how simple solutions can shame more complex arrangements like Kyoto, the authors added “Installing cool roofs and cool pavements in cities worldwide does not need delicate negotiations between nations in terms of curbing each country’s CO2 emission rates.”

Cool roofs are a simple, inexpensive solution which produces real results. It’s about time someone in the UK legislated to reflect that.

There is much debate in Australia about the impact this will have on the cost of petrol, which is already pushing A$1.70 per litre. This may not seem like much to Europeans but in Australia it is already causing major jitters in the economy. Especially amongt the freight and transport companies.

Without strong and early action by Australia and all major economies we are likely to face severe and costly impacts on Australia’s prosperity and enjoyment of life, according to the Garnaut Climate Change Review’s Draft Report,
released today.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra, Professor Ross Garnaut said that by 2050, unmitigated climate change on middle of the road outcomes would mean major declines in agricultural production across much of the country, including a 50 per cent reduction in irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin. By 2100, irrigated agriculture in the Murray Darling Basinwould decline by 92 per cent.

Early economic modelling results of readily measurable unmitigated climate change for middle of the road outcomes on temperatures and decline in rainfall – indicate that climate change would wipe off around 4.8 per cent of Australia’s projected GDP, around 5.4 per cent of projected householdconsumption, and 7.8 per cent from real wages by 2100.

“These readily measurable costs are only part of the story. There are also conventional economic effects that are not currently measurable, the possibility of much larger costs from extreme outcomes, and costs that aren’t manifested through markets,” said Professor Garnaut. The full economic modelling results, to be released in a Supplementary Draft Report in August, will help complete the picture for Australians, by comparing the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation. This will inform the Review’s consideration of emission reduction trajectories and targets. The Final Report will be released in September.

Professor Garnaut said that the climate change impacts would be significantly reduced with strong global mitigation.

Australia needs to play its full part in the international effort if global mitigation is to have a chance. The first step is to take action as part of the developed world, with a view to bringing in developing countries – first of all China – on the earliest possible timetable,” he said. Australia would be hurt more than other developed countries by unmitigated climate change, and we therefore have an interest in encouraging the strongest feasible global effort.

We are running out of time for effective global action, and it is important that we play our full part in nurturing the remaining chance. “We will delude ourselves should we choose to take small actions that create an appearance of action, but which do not solve the problem. Such an approach would risk the integrity of our market economy and political processes to no good effect,” said Professor Garnaut.

Australians are well placed to deal with the challenges of this major economic reform. As with all economic reform, mitigation policy must be forward-looking. Policy interventions and the use of public and private resources should focus on improving future economic prospects rather than reacting to past decisions”, said Professor Garnaut. The Draft Report provides the Review’s suggestions on the design of the emissions trading scheme (ETS). Professor Garnaut reiterated his support for the ETS to cover as many sectors as practicable. “The more sectors included in the ETS, the more efficiently costs will be shared across the economy. Transport should be included,” said Professor Garnaut.

The Draft Report advocates the full auctioning of emissions permits and the return of all revenue to households and business. The cost to consumers of rising energy and petrol prices, can be balanced through payments to households, while preserving price incentives to reduce emissions,” he said.

The Report proposes that half the proceeds from the sale of all permits is allocated to households, around 30 per cent provided for structural adjustment needs for business (including any payments to (TEEIIs), and the remaining 20 per cent allocated to research and development and the commercialisation of new technologies.

The proceeds from the ETS should be allocated for purposes that will help Australia adjust to a low emissions future,” said Professor Garnaut. A massive increase – reaching $3 billion per annum – is required in Australia’s commitment to low emissions technology research, development and commercialisation,” he said.

The Draft Report states that it would be in Australia’s interest to find out as soon as possible whether there can be a low-emissions future for coal, and to support rapid deployment of commercially promising technologies. This follows from Australia’s role as the world’s largest exporter of coal and the central place of coal in growth in emissions from Asian developing countries.

Australia has the opportunity to play a leadership role in funding and co-ordinating a major global effort to develop and deploy carbon capture and storage technologies, and to transfer those technologies to developing countries,” said Professor Garnaut. Additional mitigation policies should only be undertaken where they will lower the overall cost to the economy, by correcting market failures,” he said.

Professor Garnaut said that he supported the phase-out of the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, once the unconstrained ETS was fully operational. The Review’s first aim is to lay out the issues for policy choice in a transparent way. We will have one our job if Australian governments and the community make their choices in full knowledge of the consequences of their decisions,” said Professor Garnaut.

In the proposal, the country would extend and raise the level of its renewables obligation to encourage up to 30 percent to 35 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.

The country’s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said this would mean connecting around 30 to 40 gigawatts of additional renewable capacity, with much of it from offshore and onshore wind.

Brown outlined the plan at a Low Carbon Economy Summit in London.

“When I first proposed holding this conference last November the price of oil was $90 a barrel, up from just $60 a barrel the year before,” he said.

“Today it is over $130 a barrel and the resulting energy and fuel price rises, as all of us know, are hurting families and hurting businesses everywhere, and they pose a real risk to the stability and a real risk of imposing damage on the global economy, for every country in the world is now having to face up to the consequences of this global change.”

He said that although his country’s aim must be to get the current high oil price down, he said they need to recognize that they have to take a new course.

“Meeting our climate change goals requires Britain to become a clean economy, that is, to replace many traditional fossil fuels with low carbon sources of energy right across this country, and to do so at much lower levels of energy demand than currently projected,” said the prime minister.

“And we must start now.”

Along with the planned incentives, the government has also published a new package of measures to speed up grid connections for renewable energy projects.

The bill gives a full tax deduction for the cost of planting forests as carbon sinks. But Senator Heffernan, the Nationals and the Greens argued passionately in the Senate last night that it is flawed. Senator Heffernan says the bill does not stop the trees being cut down or allowed to die within a year.

“There is absolutely no way in this legislation that you can prevent me from planting these trees and the year after I collect the tax deduction - me ploughing them in,” he said.

“It is a national disgrace if we allow this Parliament to pass this legislation in the full knowledge that it is completely and fundamentally flawed.”

Greens Senator Bob Brown agrees the bill is seriously flawed.

Nationals Senator Barnaby Jocye went further and called it a load of rubbish. “Its very rare - to be honest - I would agree with the Greens but tonight’s going to be one of those nights,” Senator Joyce said.

But Government Senator Stephen Conroy says the bill was initially brought in by the previous Government.

“To be muttering up the back about what an evil plot this is - its your bill,” he said.

The senators do not deny that they are negotiating on ways to to fix the problems they have complained about.

The Coalition is understood to be discussing technical aspects of how to do that.

Production of the Camry Hybrid at the Altona Plant (in the State of Victoria in southeastern Australia) will commence in early 2010, with an annual production target of 10,000 vehicles.

After receiving TMC’s decision officially today, Victorian Premier John Brumby will hold a press conference at the Altona Plant to be attended by TMCA President Masahide Yasuda.

Ever since the introduction in 1997 of the Toyota Prius?he world’s first mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle?MC has been making a concerted effort to promote and popularize hybrid technology, as part of its high-priority environmental-management policy.

Toyota aims to sell 1 million or more hybrid vehicles annually as early as possible in the 2010s and, taking market needs into consideration, is working to put in place an optimal hybrid vehicle production system worldwide.

Source: Toyota Motor Coroporation 

Carbon Conscious Executive Director Daniel Stevens said “The Company has raised $7.25M plus seed capital of
$600,000 which is well in excess of the $5M minimum outlined in its Prospectus. The capital raise provides an
excellent financial base for the execution of the business plan.”

Mr Stevens said “despite challenging share market conditions, Carbon Conscious had managed to achieve a
fantastic result ahead of its official listing.” He said “Carbon Conscious will become the first ASX listed biosequestration
company to raise capital via an IPO.”