Climate Change TV » Carbon

Frans Verhagen (December 2010)

francesca — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:26:50 +0000

Frans Verhagen discusses a carbon-based international monetary system to combat climate change by advancing low carbon, climate resilient development. Its carbon-based standard would make currencies convertible and remove the global reserve system that costs non-hard currency countries about $100 billion annually.

Pat Finnegan (December 2010)

francesca — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:10:54 +0000

Pat Finnegan, from Grian, catches up with Climate Change TV. He eplains how shifting the dominant thinking of the last 10 years, that mitigation is a burden to be avoided at all costs, and recasting it into the idea that well-designed and programmatic decarbonisation offers major net national benefits for employment, manufacturing and GDP. The question hanging over Cancun is whether the US as a whole is ready for this yet.

Laurent Corbier (December 2010)

francesca — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:45:12 +0000

Laurent Corbier, Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, talks about available technology, and what is in the pipeline. He says it’s not a question of waiting for new ones, but enhancing and improving the low-carbon technologies on hand.

Richard Houghton & Alessandro Baccini (December 2010)

francesca — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:29:54 +0000

R. A. Houghton, Deputy Director and Senior Scientist and Alessandro Baccini, Assistant Scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center talk about the developments in monitoring and new science. New carbon flux numbers show that tropical deforestation contributes roughly 10% of annual global CO2 emissions. Uncertainty in these rates is influenced by deforestation & carbon stocks. The datasets reduce carbon stock uncertainty by capturing variability in carbon stocks across the landscape.

Janot Mendler (December 2010)

francesca — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 22:45:14 +0000

Janot Mendler, Consultant for Global Forum of Oceans, Coast and Islands discusses the pivotal role of the oceans in regulating climate. She explores the new science on significance of coastal ecosystems as nature’s most efficient carbon storage mechanism, and reveals inadequacy of accounting for both impacts of climate change on coastal people and importance of both adaptation and mitigation finance for nature-based solutions.

Rafe Pomerance (December 2010)

francesca — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:11:14 +0000

Rafe Pomerance, President, of the Climate Policy Center expresses the urgency behind the negotiations. He discusses the major advances of climate change, focusing on the reefs in the Carribean. He says as regards the US, diplomacy has to follow domestic decisions. He looks at the pricing of carbon and admits that the US hasn’t managed to resolve this.

Emily Pidgeon (December 2010)

francesca — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 12:40:25 +0000

Emily Pidgeon, from Conservation International, talks about blue carbon – the abilitiy to use coastal systems (such as seagrasses, mangroves and salt marshes) and their “phenomenal capacity to sequester and store carbon”. She discusses the annual 2% loss of these systems, and the danger this poses to the environment, and the incentives they are building around raising awareness of carbon sequestration.

Yvon Slingenberg (November 2010)

climatechangetv — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 16:49:40 +0000

Yvon Slingenberg of the EU ETS discusses the potential of global emissions trading schemes. She says this is unlikely because of the lack of movement in the US, but note that systems are under consideration in Japan and Korea, that New Zealand has already put something in place and that China may introduce a system on a national level. She says the system will be significantly improved by Phase 3 in 2013. Regarding embedded carbon and aviation, she believes there is potential to influence other countries.

Charlotte Hebebrand (July 2010)

climatechangetv — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 07:16:20 +0000

Chief Executive of the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council, Charlotte Hebebrand, discusses the impact of climate change on food security and trade, particularly increased weather variability, and notes how slight warming will lead to big yield decreases. She predicts developing countries will increase food imports and insists on the need to focus on trade liberalisation within the Doha Round to “ensure availabilty of food in the future”. She emphasises that it’s important to ensure policy coherence and raises the example of the Food Miles scenario, and the need to avoid serious trade disruption. She explores the imperative for international agreed food standards around carbon, and how that might look and refers to the Codex Alimentarius. She notes that the differing advantages developed and developing countries may have. She finishes on discussing the “worrying” shift away from agricultural aid and how adaptation and agriculture are crucial to food security, but that sustained financing is required.

Jeff Chapman (December 2009)

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:07:06 +0000

Jeff Chapman, Chief Executive of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, says CCS technology is fundamental to any agreement from Copenhagen. He explains how collaboration “is essential” and gives global examples. Also see John Novak, Executive Director of the Electric Power Research Institute speaking from Copenhagen. And Gerard Hendriksen, a senior advisor with the Republic of Rwanda’s Ministry of Infrastructure, speaking from Bonn in 2009.