Currency Trading Now $4 Trillion per Day
Study: Geoengineering Clouds Could Backfire
IEA: Solar Can Power One Quarter of World 2050
EU: Carbon Tariffs Risk Trade War
EPA Sets Limits on GHGs from Cars
CO2-Absorbing Algae found Toxic to Sea Life
Economic Growth Must Stop: Study
Could "100 Miles of Mirrors" Power the US?
Bolivian Offset Test Falls 90 percent Short of Goal
US Has 10 Years to Get Off Carbon: WGBU Study
Carbon Scrubbing Eyed as Part of the Solution
Royal Society Cautiously Suggests Geoengineering
"Safe Climate" requires ditching 75 percent of carbon fuel reserves
"Carbon Trading Won't Stop Global Warming"
Ocean "Fertilization" Scheme Scuttled By Hungry Plankton
Proposal: Cut Emissions From Richest Individuals
WEF Calls for $10 Trillion in Clean Energy by 2030
CDM dam projects "game" the system
Scientists Worried About Geoengineering Schemes
Climate Stablization May Cost Three Times Earlier Estimates
GAO: Carbon Offsets are Unreliable
"The Climate Crisis and the Adaptation Myth" -- Robert Repetto
EPA Freezes New Coal Plant Construction
Uranium Reserves Too Scarce To Solve Energy Shortage
Old Grids Limit Clean Energy in US
Hidden Costs Bedevil Carbon Sequestration
Gore Calls for Carbon-Free US Electrical Grid By 2020
Sun-Blocking Mirrors Would Redistribute The Warming
G-8 To Cut Current Emissions 50 Percent By 2050
Reality Check for Carbon Capture and Storage
EU Raises Serious Doubts About Carbon Trading
McCain Calls for 45 New US Nuclear Plants
IEA Urges Rapid Global Energy Transition
Germany Resists G-8 Rush to a nuclear future
UN Halts Algae-Seeding Plan to Control Emissions
Offsets "deeply flawed" -- Christian Science Monitor
Clean Coal's Costs Put It On Life Support
DOE: Wind Can Provide Percent of Electricity by 2030
McCain Proposes Cap-and-Trade to Address Warming
Gordon Brown: World Needs a New Marshall Plan
Study: CCS Unproven and Too Late
Biofuels Found To Be Net Carbon Source
'Algae Seeding' Found Ineffective as Warming Brake
USDA Touts Promise of Grass-based Fuel
Offsets Fall Two-Thirds Short of Nature's Requirement (Nov. 2007)
UK Mandates 60 Percent Cuts by 2050
Biofuels Will Harm World's Poorest People: UN, Oxfam
Biofuels Seen as Financially, Environmentally Unsustainable
Lovelock Promotes Deep Ocean Tubes to Enhance CO2 Capture
Iron Fertilization of Oceans Explored
Biofuels Impact Climate More Than Oil
Aerosol Cooling Would Lead to Global Drought
Forests Nine Times Better than Biofuels For Cutting CO2
Geoengineering -- An Eternal Treadmill
The Economist: Cap-and-Trade Won't Work
FT: Why Carbon Trading Won't Work
FT: Countries Must Cut Emissions in Concert
Groping Toward A Carbon Pricing Regime
Toward A Real Kyoto Protocol (Nov. 2003)
"Rx For An Ailing Planet" (April, 2003)
Terrorism, Recession and The Climate Crisis
Solutions OverviewA Modest Proposal to Stop Global Warming (Sierra, May/June 2001)
Rx For A Planetary Fever (May 8, 2000)
GEF: Multi-Billion Market in Renewables (Feb. 2001)
World Energy Modernization Plan
Energy Modernization Plan: A Narrative
"A Good Climate For Investment" The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1998
Many business leaders and policymakers believe that any meaningful attempt to address the climate crisis will result in global poverty. We believe the exact opposite is true -- as does Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (May, 2007).
Global poverty is the inevitable outcome of continued inaction.
But a properly financed, public-private global transition to high-efficiency and renewable energy technologies holds the potential for an unprecedented worldwide economic boom.
A global public works program to rewire the planet would create millions of new jobs all over the world. It would begin to reverse the widening gap between the North and the South. It would raise living standards in developing nations without compromising the economic achievements of industrial nations. It would turn dependent and impoverished countries into trading partners. And in a very few years, the renewable energy industry would eclipse high technology as the central driving engine of growth of the global economy.
What is missing is neither the technology nor the know-how. What is missing is the vision. One example is put forth in:
The Plan involves three interacting strategies which include:
* In industrial countries, withdrawing subsidies from fossil fuels and establishing equivalent subsidies for clean energy sources;
* Creating a large fund -- perhaps through a small tax on global commerce -- to transfer clean energy technologies to developing countries; and,
* Incorporating within the Kyoto framework a progressively more stringent Fossil Fuel Efficiency Standard that rises by 5 percent per year.
(The plan does not rely on international carbon trading, although internal emissions trading can provide a powerful tool domestically to help nations meet their annual five percent goal. The plan's proposed fund of $300 billion a year for a decade to transfer clean energy to developing countries corresponds to a similar estimate from the International Energy Agency.)
There are many other solutions being proposed, among them:
George Monbiot's Climate Plan (While Monbiot's plan is specific to the UK, most elements apply to all industrial countries.)
Al Gore's 10 Point Legislative Plan
US Pirg's: "Rising to the Challenge: Six Small Steps to One Big Reduction"