Singapore’s CleanTech Park $52m masterplan unveiled

JTC Corp and Economic Development Board (EDB) have unveiled plans on the $52million CleanTech Park (CTP) slated to commence construction in July, the first of three phases of development.
Upon completion by 2030, this 50-hectare eco business park will be Singapore’s clean technology research and development hub, and is expected to create 20,000 jobs in the sustainability sector.
Some of [...]

New Soap, Old Bottle

A company in the U.S. buys brand-name detergents and soaps and sells them to consumers in recycled plastic and glass bottles, calling it an eco-initiative aiming to “give consumers a greener option”.
The company doesn’t vouch for the eco-friendliness of the contents of the bottles, but you get the drift.

COP15 concludes. The climate deadlock doesn’t.

President Obama called the Copenhagen Accord – as the outcome of the two-week climate summit in the Danish capital came to be known as – ‘an important first step’.
Essentially, the Copenhagen Accord is a 12-paragraph document outlining an agreement that the global average temperature increase must be kept to below 2degrees Celsius to avoid catastrophic [...]

Our low-carbon future – think opportunities, not costs

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
Herbert Stein (1916 – 1999)
The quote above, often referred to as Stein’s Law, is in my view especially appropriate in describing the situation we now face with climate change. The scientific community tells us that climate change, left unchecked, could potentially result in catastrophic consequences for the [...]

Six provincial governors endorse rainforest carbon trading scheme

This is really encouraging news. Six governors from provinces in Laos, Philippines and Indonesia endorsed an expanded UN scheme aimed at aimed at protecting and conserving forests in return for carbon credits.
The meeting, held at the fringes of the APEC Conference, was convened by the Asian Development Bank and ecosystems service firm Carbon Conservation.
Link to [...]

Recession lowers emissions

“The rise or fall in emissions naturally correlates to economic growth,” said Satoshi Hashimoto, a senior climate- change researcher at Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc. in Tokyo. “Whichever way the economy goes, there’s a tough road ahead for companies. When the economy is up, emissions rise. When it’s down, companies are short of money to invest [...]

Will Carbon Trading Save the Planet?

There has been tremendous debate over the merits of the carbon trading scheme. Recently, the World Bank has conducted a study over the merits of such a plan. Their findings are a resounding NO. The carbon credit plan has actually made it cheaper to run coal-fired plants. Polluters, in fact, are able to continue polluting [...]