GMO Carbon News week 25

CARBON IN THE NEWS
WEEK 25 2012



2014 World Cup Will Have $20m Sustainability Budget

FIFA has said it will spend $20 million to make the 2014 World Cup in Brazil the first with a
comprehensive sustainability strategy. It will include “green” stadiums, waste management, community
support, reducing and offsetting carbon emissions, renewable energy, climate change and capacity
development, according to FIFA and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), which will develop the
sustainability strategy over the next two years. FIFA’s access to the Brazilian Development Bank’s line of
credit — FIFA’s funding source for World Cup stadiums — is conditional on a sustainable construction
certification standard, Luis Fernandes, executive secretary of the Brazilian Ministry of Sport, said. FIFA
says the strategy will build on environmental programs at FIFA tournaments since 2005, international
standards such as ISO 26000 and the Global Reporting Initiative, and on the Brazilian government’s
development policies. Read More

UK will introduce mandatory carbon reporting from 2013

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has today announced that from April
2013 all businesses listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange will have to openly report
their levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The requirements will not cover private companies or those
listed on the Alternative Investment Market. Speaking at the Rio+ 20 Summit earlier today Deputy Prime
Minister, Nick Clegg confirmed that the UK is set to become the first country to make it compulsory for
companies to include emissions data for their entire organisation in their annual reports. The introduction
of the reports, which follows extensive consultations with leading businesses, will enable investors to see
which companies are effectively managing the hidden long-term costs of greenhouse gas emissions.
Read More

Green is the new gold says carbon expert

Gold investors are switching to carbon credits, said a global carbon market leader, predicting up to 25 per
cent returns for the ‘ethical’ commodity in 2012. Charles Stephenson, managing director of Dubai-based
Advanced Global Trading (AGT), a global leader in the verified carbon market, said he has witnessed floods
of investors in the first quarter of 2012 who have pulled positions out of gold in order to increase the
number of Verified Emissions Reduction (VER) Carbon Credits in their portfolio. “We’ve seen an increasing
number of clients opening accounts with AGT selling increasingly shaky gold positions to buy into the
verified carbon market, largely because all investors who have traded with us have made a profit - some as
high as 38 per cent within 18 months,” Stephenson said. Read More


Olympic team buys carbon credits to offset travel

The Canadian Olympic team and support staff will generate a carbon footprint equivalent to the annual
emissions of nearly 300 mid-sized vehicles when they travel to and from the Summer Olympics in London
this summer. But they plan to offset that 1,500 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions with carbon credits
— the first Olympic team so far opting to be carbon-neutral for the London 2012 Games. “Not only is this
building on Vancouver’s legacy of sustainability, it’s also complementing the London 2012
organizers’ [desire] to have sustainable games,” Canadian Olympic Committee CEO and secretary-general
Christopher Overholt said in Vancouver Tuesday. The Olympic Committee will be partnering with
Offsetters Clean Technology Inc., a local carbon offset company, to cover the round trip. Read More

EU to penalise airlines refusing to share carbon emission data

The European Union (EU) has decided that it would not ban foreign airlines that have refused to share
their carbon emission data from entering the EU airspace. However, it said stringent financial penalties
would be imposed if these airlines failed to comply with the laws by January 2013, according to a
Business Standard report by Nayanima Basu. Refusal to share carbon emission data is a violation of the
EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) laws. The EU has asked all domestic, as well as foreign airlines, to
comply with the changed laws and share their carbon emission data with Brussels. India and China,
however, have refused to share the data. Officials in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry have said India
would not follow any unilateral decision by another country, only adhere to laws currently being worked
out by the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The Civil Aviation Ministry
had said no airline would share emission data with the EU. Read More

Global carbon emissions rise is far bigger than previous estimates

Carbon dioxide emissions have risen by even more than previously thought, according to new data
analysed by the Guardian, casting doubt on whether the world can avoid dangerous climate change. The
data has emerged as governments met in Rio de Janeiro to finalise the outcome of the Rio+20 conference,
aimed at ensuring that economic growth does not come at the expense of irreparable environmental
degradation, but which activists say has not achieved enough to stave off severe environmental problems.
Global carbon emissions from energy are up 48% on 1992, when the original Earth summit took place in
Rio – a historic summit at which governments agreed to limit emissions in order to prevent dangerous
climate change. In 2010, the latest year for which figures have been compiled, the US Energy Information
Administration (EIA) said the world emitted 31.8bn tonnes of carbon from energy consumption. That
represents a climb of 6.7% on the year before and is significantly higher than the previous best estimate,
made by the International Energy Agency last year, that in 2010 a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon
dioxide were released from burning fossil fuel. Read More


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