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Tagline of:  Sustainable Travel International™
New Oxford American Dictionary declares “Carbon Neutral” Word of the Year.

Carbon Neutrality Defined:  Simple solutions that take the global warming out of the things companies do by asking people who buy products that cause climate change to pay a tiny bit extra.  This is used to fund projects that reduce climate change, such as renewable energy, energy efficiency or forest restoration.

Are we witnessing an interlace of environmental and energy issues acute enough that people are looking beyond what they can do personally and calling for increased levels of civic and corporate citizen participation?

Good, Clean Fun Can Be Very Smart Business!
By R. T. Eady, President and Founder, Quest Educational Foundation

In the Fall of 2006, for instance, with several global environmental accords in effect without U.S. participation, constituents started demanding action from locally elected officials.  The response has been staggering.  Efforts are being undertaken by mayors of cities in 46 states, representing more than 50 million Americans.

Prominent business universities in the US and UK have partnered in a first of its kind International Climate Academy to educate high-level business executives on how to seize the business advantage inherent in addressing global climate change.  Starting in 2007, Duke and Cambridge--following the example of Sustainable Travel International’s cooperative program with the University of Colorado-- will host annual sessions, then add a Chinese campus.  These model approaches steer travel and general business executives toward identifying and implementing profitable carbon management and sustainable travel strategies.

Corporate America has taken notice.  Climate change, carbon management policy and commitments to collaborative partnerships that advance economic growth and the development and deployment of clean, efficient energy technologies have established a place in the top rungs of corporate headquarters.   Heavyweight companies -- from Shell Oil to Wal-Mart -- have endorsed mandatory emissions reductions (carbon caps).

On the largest U.S. political stage, the top Republican candidate for President Senator John McCain has made climate change one of his signature issues with his “Cap & Trade per Carbon Ton” approach.

McCain co-sponsors one Senate proposal to cap U.S. emissions, and half-dozen similar bills have been introduced in the Senate.  Individual states are taking action, meanwhile, led by California, where a 2006 law mandates greenhouse-gas reductions expected to slice that state's emissions by 25 percent by 2020.

Presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. and Barack Obama, D- IL., say federal action is needed to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, automotive and agricultural gases blamed by scientists for global warming.

What’s more, the current administration has been taking a measured “thumping” (as President Bush put it in November) that has activists striking out far beyond mid-term elections.  Emboldened environmentalists have launched legal salvos against the US Administration ranging from a dozen states suing the EPA over soot levels to California signing a global warming technology sharing agreement with Britain. This “stretch across the pond” not only signals a unified front, but--in political terms--a bracing elbow to the “cheek just turned” after the smackdown delivered to the Republican congress.   

The “push back” came with the announcement that ten major companies in utilities, manufacturing, petroleum, chemicals and financial services operations aligned to call for up to 30 percent nationwide CO² emissions reductions over the next 15 years.  The timing of the US Climate Change Action Partnership’s (USCAP) announcement (the day before a State of the Union Address that would see a raft of environmental proposals floated) was seen as a pro-business nod to the Republicans.  A statement by founding member Peter Darbee, chief executive of PG&E, left little doubt.  He pointed out, “we have the opportunity to construct something more pragmatic and realistic while President Bush is in office." A future political climate, after 2008, he opined, might offer "solutions less sensitive to the needs of business."  The group believes that swift legislative action on the USCAP solutions-based proposal, entitled A Call for Action, would encourage innovation, enhance America's energy security, foster economic growth, improve our balance of trade and provide critically needed U.S. leadership on this vital global challenge.

More consternation than praise also tolled the end of Kofi Annan’s tenure as UN Secretary-General. In his “State of the UN” speech delivered in Nairobi at the XII United Nation Conference on Climate Change at the end of 2006, Annan sharply rebuked the governing body for the pace of “measurable progress.”
 Amplifying Annan’s frustration, 25-picturesque miles up the River Rhine from the Headquarters of the UN Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), in a quaint historic district of Bonn, Germany, an EU-subsidized, private Carbon Brokerage Exchange is flourishing.  The Cologne Messe, host of the Global Carbon Market Fair and Conference, has made this event a May fixture and cites the backing of a $10 billion a year industry.  Cologne provides the backdrop and the Messe the platform to execute pragmatic and practical solutions to global warming.   As this lively exchange shows, anything [and everything] can be made carbon neutral: events, products, travel, facilities and processes.  The Carbon Expo provides business development opportunities for market intermediaries and service providers such as brokers, traders, auditing and certification entities, consultants, and law firms. This critical information facilitation and deal making among buyers, sellers and service providers is an important part of the behind the scenes market development that perks up politicians in the US and the EU.
 
The Jig is Up
It’s only a matter of time until the mood for policy change in Congress goes beyond issues of the war in Iraq.  Consumer preference and attitude among US citizens is creating pressure on businesses and government to earnestly look again at the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).  The idea (originally created in the US in the 80’s) is that if business A can reduce emissions more cheaply than business B, then B can pay A to make reductions for both of them.  Moreover, by putting a price on emitting greenhouse gases, trading is meant to encourage businesses to invent new technologies to replace fossil fuel use.  Unfortunately--in the 1980’s--without a will to act on ecological issues, it quickly became a jury-rigged “shell-game” in US regulatory circles.  But the jig seems to be up.  As Eliot Spitzer, (while in his role as NY Attorney General) and now Democratic governor of New York declared in an AP wire as the States lawsuits went forward, "it is unfortunate that this coalition of states must resort to legal action to get the EPA to do its job — protect the environment and the public health."
A cogent point when carbon offset cost is cast in the light of today’s sophisticated technology.  It amounts to stunningly little “ka ching” out of anyone’s pocket.  For example, using Sustainable Travel International’s Myclimate ™ calculator on a mid-sized 30 mpg car driving 12,000 miles/year generates about 3.54 tons of CO2/year. This would amount to $4.49/month in consumer offset cost.
Carbon Du Jour “Watch those Calories”
Technology married to accounting also makes it remarkably easy for businesses to determine the impact of an activity--expressed in terms of carbon emissions and then arrange offsets and waivers.
Much like a diabetic might account for glucose units of exchange, if an organization takes the time to determine the interest-level and then formulates a simple approach by asking a few key questions (see box/attached) it can set up a significant carbon management strategy.  

One that’s smart for business, healthy for the environment and simply good, clean fun.

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                                           Dodging the Spell of Intrigue:  Euro-Style Climate Change & Emission Control

Is the EU’s 20/20/20 (reduce Green House Gas emissions by 20% by 2020) bold enough to convince the world to step-up on the Carbon Market and Emission Trading Scheme stage?
"Let's be honest, there's a cost involved for pioneers like Europe," said Christian Egenhofer, a research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels before the EU’s “Environmental-Industrial Revolution” announcement in January 2007.  Though, in comparison to the staid, transparent validity of mandatory carbon caps in Europe, the voluntary US offset program seems more reminiscent of the promise of Wild West prospector camps. 
Enlivened by the uniquely American alchemical combination of whimsical idealism, practicality and--many would argue--a twinge of guilty conscience for being the world’s top emission offender, US carbon brokers, analysts and assorted experts are staking claims on the rich veins of unregulated prospects.
Wild West
In fact this “broker business” of selling "hot air" brings to mind what it must have been like in the Gold Rush days.  There's a lot of prospecting, lots of claim making, but only a few proving out.  (Mostly, by the ones that can "haul freight" on the infrastructure;  back in the 1800's it was stampers, drillers and high graders, now it's lawyers, lobbyists and regulators.)
Peering over from Europe, it seems a patchwork of archaic measures has yet to coalesce into a “benchmark” structure.  Which can only leave many Europeans believing it’s more American marketing magic; simply the projection of a P.T. Barnum-like spell of intrigue.   As Ken Bruder, Executive Director of New Energy Finance in London kindly pondered, “there’s probably a lot of stupid money out there finding bad projects, but that may be more of an issue in the US.”
Yet, In the face of an asymmetrical— “unglobal” response to climate change and green house gas emission controls--the EU is taking a stiff upper lip and embodying the exact opposite in the Churchill maxim:  never surrender.  For now, the EU is standing relatively firm on its so-called Emissions Trading Scheme — in which producers of power, cement, pulp, paper and many other companies limit their carbon emissions by trading credits. It is the largest system of its kind and the main tool used by Europe to reach goals outlined under the Kyoto Protocol.
"New Industrial Revolution"
In the burst of proposals announced mid-January, the EU stepped further out on thinning ice, evoking the ghost of Marx and calling for a "new industrial revolution" to make additional reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, increase Europe's sources of renewable energy and raise competition among the largest energy producers.  The overall 20/20/20 goal: reduce green house gas emissions by 20% by 2020; with an up-tick to 30% if the world can come to an agreement. (That has to make world citizenry wonder if the UN up to the challenge.)
Among the proposals:
Requirements for construction companies to install energy efficient technologies in a larger range of new and renovated houses and offices.
Tougher requirements on electronics makers to manufacture and label energy efficient products.
Targets requiring electricity companies to burn fuel and transmit power more efficiently.
Requirements on electricity grid operators to connect to renewable energy like wind farms and solar cells for a minimum of 20% power source by 2020.
Incentives for industry and power generators to capture and store carbon waste.
Stiffer requirements on carmakers to lower emissions.
New requirements to use more biofuels in the transportation sector.
EU leaders will continue debate on the measures in March leading into the Kyoto Protocol-based Global Carbon Fair in Cologne, Germany in May.  Officials warned vigilant oversight in the form of antitrust laws would continue to prevent inefficient actions or anti-competitive measures of large energy companies. Adding to the argument that for every action on climate change that imperils jobs, there is another framed to suggest significant new green business opportunities can lift the economy as they improve the environment. 
For example, markets for low-carbon energy technologies, goods and services could be worth at least $500 billion each year by 2050, according to The Stern Review, last year’s 700-page report by the British government on the economic consequences of climate change.
Placid East; Leading up to an Olympic Moment
Even so, EU officials hope other countries grow more interested in replicating their model.  It may be shifting attitudes more East than West.  Citing the search for alternative fuel sources (prompted by the recognition of a limited global reserve of fossil energy, unstable world prices of oil, and worsening problems in the environment), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed an agreement that will boost freer trade on biofuels and encourage investments in energy infrastructure to lessen dependence on conventional fuels.  Counting Australia and New Zealand in the 12th ASEAN Cebu, Philippines Summit, a declaration on East Asian Energy Security spoke of the EU’s continuing commitment to emission regulatory standards as one of their influencing models.
Another positive sign was a lively (and sold out) North American Carbon Market conference sponsored by a unique alliance of Norway-based Point Carbon and US-operated Pew Center for Global Climate Change.  In late January this conference devoted over 50% of its theme to analysis of the EU model. Another illustration is a first of its kind International Climate Academy established by prominent business universities in the US and UK. Starting in 2007, Duke and Cambridge will host sessions to educate high-level business executives on how to seize the business advantage inherent in addressing global climate change.  The Climate Leadership Program implicitly steers executives toward identifying and implementing a profitable carbon management strategy based on the EUETS. The plan is to add a Chinese campus.  Signals from China indicate a new international agreement on energy efficiency could be signed during the Beijing Olympic Games in mid-2008. 
Beyond 2012 (How Each US State “Emits” on the World Stage)
That could help to create a more level playing field for European business to compete globally at a time when the EU is planning to bolster regulation to sectors like air travel, construction and automobile manufacturing. That same sentiment was on the mind of Joshua Hodge, the Washington D.C. Office Director of Carbon Point who said, “expansion into the North American Market builds on a strong foundation of analysis of global carbon and European energy markets to the benefit of the public and private sector.”  But key to expansion of global carbon trade is the premise of carbon market price stability. A point underscored by Nicholas Stern at the release of his report, “we must establish a carbon price, without this price there is no incentive to de-carbonize.”  Particularly if a long range framework in the carbon market is not in place after the current phase of Kyoto expires in 2012.  "But if there's movement toward a more encompassing global deal, then European industries could be a winner in a carbon-constrained world as they have prepared early and are used to this,” reminded Egenhofer of the Center for European Policy Studies" © The QEF, 02/07.  By R. T. Eady, President and Founder, Quest Educational Foundation
 
State/country equivalencies are approximations intended for illustrative purposes; for some states, there may be several countries whose emissions may be similar and vice versa.
This map was created using 2001 state-level GHG emissions from the Climate Analysis Indicator Tool.