| Sourced From Cleantech Blog |
This past week, the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the new US Congress held its first hearing on the use of offsets within a future carbon regime, presumably within the cap and trade variety of such a regime. As anybody should be able to surmise from reading my byline, my past blogs, or doing a quick Google search, this topic has some degree of importance to mekind of like oxygen is a bit important to me. I am definitely getting to that age where starting a new career would be a pain.
As Ive written elsewhere, its my firm belief that the US holds the future of the CDMthe international offset regimein the palm of its hand. So last week when we got wind of the E&E hearing, and the fairly negative testimonies that were planned on the subject of the CDM, my team who tracks and works on these things (okay, shes just a hyper-accomplished whirlwind who SEEMS like a team) sprang into action and in about 24 hours, managed to work together with four major trade associations to write a letter on the benefits of offsets to Congressman Markey, the Chair of the Committee. Dont get me wrong, there is plenty about the CDM that needs work, and I would suspect that at least a few folks on its Executive Board would get a laugh out of the fact that I am out there loudly defending it to Democrats and Republicans on the Hill. But theres a difference between standing up for a concept and noting serious concerns about its execution and underlying architecture.
Anyway, the hearing went off and, on the whole, went OK, but a theme emerged that is worth noting. Its the issue of deforestation, and in particular, international tropical deforestation. Quite quickly, this issue seems to be becoming a focal point of interest for the U.S.and this is a really good thing. Congress seems to have begun to grasp the notion that smoking the worlds forests at the rate of 36 football fields a minute is a really bad idea. Tropical forests were utterly screwed in Kyoto
Related posts:
- Human Rights Activists, Environmentalists Condemn Talks to Include Forests in Carbon Trading
- Untouched Natural Forests Have 60% More CO2 Storage Capacity than Plantation Forests
- African forests gobble up more CO2: study
- Environmental Groups Against Including Forests in Carbon Markets
- Carbon figures reignite debate on old-growth forest logging
