What's New List Serve Post Display

ARB Newsclips for November 27, 2013. 

This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office
of Communications.  You may need to sign in or register with
individual websites to view some of the following news articles.

CAP AND TRADE

Carbon Rises to 2-Week High as Volume Climbs to Most in a Month. 
Climate negotiators’ failure last week to set emission-limiting
rules for the Kyoto Protocol’s extension through 2020 was down to
one paragraph on Ukraine’s greenhouse-gas targets, according to
the European Union. Envoys meeting at the United Nations climate
talks in Warsaw couldn’t agree on article “3.7ter,” a paragraph
in the Kyoto rules that sets the limit on countries’ emissions,
said Isaac Valero-Ladron, a climate spokesman for the European
Commission. Negotiators have given themselves another seven
months to reach agreement, according to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change and the EU. Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-27/carbon-rises-to-2-week-high-as-volume-climbs-to-most-in-a-month.html


1st batch of 5,000 carbon emission permits bought.  The first
carbon emission permits in Shanghai traded at 27 yuan (US$4.43)
each yesterday after the city launched its carbon trading market.
Sinopec Shanghai Gaoqiao Co bought the first batch of 5,000
permits, known as Shanghai Emissions Allowances (SHEA), for 2013
compliance from Shanghai Waigaoqiao No. 3 Power Generation Co at
27 yuan each in the first trade on the Shanghai Environment and
Energy Exchange. One SHEA confers the right to discharge 1 ton of
carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human
activities. Posted.
http://www.china.org.cn/business/2013-11/27/content_30719525.htm


Green Investing: Four Stocks With Falling Emissions and Rising
Profits.  The United Nations’ 19th annual Climate Change
Conference concluded on Saturday with little progress made in the
effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global
warming. This had been viewed as an opportunity to lay the
groundwork for the formation of a universal climate agreement -
to replace the Kyoto Protocol – at the 2015 session in Paris.
Instead, after two weeks marked by a hunger strike, walkouts, and
general discord, the 195 countries ultimately acquiesced to
modest compromises. Posted.
http://wire.kapitall.com/investment-idea/green-stocks-falling-emissions-profits/


Factbox: How do China's carbon markets work?  China's most
populous province, Guangdong, will launch a CO2 emissions trading
scheme in mid-December, hot on the heels of Shanghai and Beijing
this week. A market in Shenzhen was launched in June.
China, the world's biggest source of climate-changing carbon
emissions, will initially distribute credits to member firms
mostly free of charge, meaning participants will face additional
costs only if they exceed their quotas and have to buy. Posted.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/us-china-carbon-factbox-idUSBRE9AQ06D20131127


AIR POLLUTION

Beijing destroys BBQs in order to fight pollution.  Beijing is
waging a war against air pollution and it is doing so one
barbecue at a time. Authorities in the capital have destroyed
more than 500 open-air barbecues "to cut PM2.5" - the tiny
particulate matter in the air that can enter deep into the lungs.
Photos carried by state media showed workers on Tuesday cutting
pieces of metal with sparks flying as city wardens looked on.
Citizens online ridiculed the exercise, suggesting authorities
should focus on bigger sources of pollution. Posted.
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/nov/26/beijing-destroys-bbqs-in-order-to-fight/#ixzz2lrjTCFse


CLIMATE CHANGE

How to Save for a Disaster.  The destruction wreaked by Typhoon
Haiyan in the Philippines this month has renewed debate on a
critical financial question: How can nations best prepare for and
respond to natural disasters? It’s a topic that is especially
pressing in an age of climate change and population growth. The
World Bank, which finds itself perpetually in the midst of
disaster-response activities, is helping to back a study to get
some answers. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/business/energy-environment/how-to-save-for-a-disaster.html


The 2 Companies Most Responsible for the World's Greenhouse Gas
Emissions.  According to a recent study published in the
scientific journal Climatic Change and reported by The Guardian,
90 companies have been responsible for nearly two-thirds of all
carbon dioxide and methane gas emissions in the entire world
since 1750. In the video below, Motley Fool contributor Jay
Jenkins highlights the top two investor-owned companies,
ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) . According to
Jay, this should be a troubling revelation for long-term
investors in these oil giants. Posted.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/27/the-2-companies-most-responsible-for-the-worlds-gr.aspx


DIESEL EMISSIONS

California Air Resources Board (CARB) to introduce tougher truck
emissions standards.  The California Air Resources Board (CARB)
has announced it is detailing plans to adopt new optional
ultra-low NOx emissions limits for diesel truck engines in
December 2013. The details of the plan were discussed at the
Diesel Emissions Conference in Atlanta last month, organized by
Integer Research. The board is also considering a future
mandatory low-NOx engine standard, pending the outcome of a
research project looking into the matter. Posted.
http://www.discoverdef.ca/news/2013/11/26/exclusive-california-air-resources-board-%28carb%29-to-introduce-tougher-truck-emissions-standards/


VEHICLES

Complete Auto Loans Announces New "Electric Car" Loan Incentives.
 In the next fifty years, climate scientists estimate that global
warming will increase the temperature of the Earth by at least
one degree Celsius. This seemingly microscopic change will have
far-reaching impacts on the planet’s most fragile ecosystems,
causing the sea levels to rise and the desertification process to
increase. Complete Auto Loans wishes to encourage Americans to
discard their fuel-hungry SUVs and trucks in favor of more
efficient and environmentally friendly electric cars. On November
20th, 2013, Complete Auto Loans announced its new electric-car
loans, set to take effect in December of this year. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Complete-Auto-Loans-Announces-New-Electric-Car-5013079.php


GREEN ENERGY

Clean Wind Farms Catch Up to Dirty Big Oil.  One energy company
has an ugly accident and lots of birds are killed. It pays a huge
fine and gets slammed in the news media. Another energy company
routinely kills plenty of birds and gets off scot-free. A double
standard? It sure looks that way. Or at least it did before last
week, when the U.S. Justice Department settled criminally charged
Duke Energy Corp. with operating wind farms that slaughtered
hundreds of birds, leading the energy producer to pay $1 million
in fines and restitution. Although oil companies have often been
charged with killing birds as a result of spills, it was the
first time a wind-energy producer was penalized for deaths of
protected birds. Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-27/clean-wind-farms-catch-up-to-dirty-big-oil.html


A roof you can root for.  For 30 years, Stephen Keane, 78, saw
the same thing outside his apartment windows: a dark, plain roof
adorned with some tired-looking air-conditioning units. Today, he
looks out those same windows and sees a quilt of creeping plants
with burgundy flowers. That old eyesore of a roof was transformed
in September into a thriving “green roof.” “It’s kind of relaxing
to look out this window,” he says while viewing the lower roof
that covers the retail space in his apartment building, 1841
Columbia Road (1841 Columbia Road NW; 202-234-4619). “It looks
like it’s spruced up a bit.” Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2013/11/27/a-roof-you-can-root-for/


UC Davis West Village falls short of zero net energy goal. A
sustainability-focused UC Davis housing community is generating
87 percent of its own electricity, short of the university’s
ambitious goal that the development  produce all of the energy it
consumes. The $300 million West Village campus project opened to
much fanfare two years ago, riding on the hope that it would
serve as a model for future construction. Posted. 
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/26/5949323/uc-davis-west-village-progresses.html#storylink=cpy


MISCELLANEOUS

Chef makes the most of leftovers.  When John Medall, executive
chef of The Patio on Lamont Street, was a boy, Thanksgiving at
his parents’ house went something like this: After the whole
family sat down to eat turkey and trimmings, at one point his
father would repair to the kitchen and start his own private
ritual. “Everybody would eat their turkey and my dad would be in
the kitchen, picking apart the turkey carcass,” Medall said in an
interview at his Pacific Beach restaurant. This was “my dad’s
favorite thing in the whole world.” Posted.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/nov/26/chef-John-Medall-leftovers-sustainable-food/


OPINION

Tesla Meets the Auto Regulators. Look out, Elon Musk. Expecting
rational results from regulatory agencies is often a recipe for
disappointment. Two of Mr. Musk's Tesla Model S cars burned up
when road debris punctured the battery, a vulnerability not seen
in other electric cars. Mr. Musk says his cars are no more
fire-prone than gasoline cars. He claims to welcome a National
Highway Safety Administration investigation into whether the cars
are defective and warrant a recall. Posted.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304465604579222051067101342?KEYWORDS=climate+change


BLOGS

A Fresh Look at America’s Gas Lands.  I’ve been meaning to post
for a while on “Gas Rush Stories,” a series of simple, but
captivating short films on America’s gas drilling boom made by
Kirsi Jansa, a Finnish video journalist currently living in
Pittsburgh. The time is right because Jansa is in the running for
a $10,000 grant from the Sprout Fund that could help her sustain
and refine this effort to portray the many meanings and realities
surrounding hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, in
Pennsylvania communities scattered over the gas-rich Marcellus
Shale. Posted.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/a-fresh-look-at-americas-gas-lands/


China Hopes Cities Can Help Boost Electric Car Sales.  In
exchange for actively promoting environmentally friendly
vehicles, 28 pilot cities and urban areas will qualify for
subsidies the government outlined in September aimed at boosting
alternative-fuel vehicle sales. State-media Xinhua said Tuesday
that the incentive program, which runs through 2015, aims to push
sales to government-related organizations and institutions as
well as public-transport providers. Posted.
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/11/27/china-hopes-cities-can-help-boost-electric-car-sales/?KEYWORDS=vehicles