Talking About Green

[This is important news for the ICT industry and academia. Although most people associate carbon trading with big power plants etc, the ICT technologies may be in the single most important tool to reduce carbon emissions, by as much as 15-20%. With proper baseline emissions measurements, accounting and auditing (ISO 14064) these abatement techniques can be sold as carbon offsets. More importantly ICT companies and network operators can trade these offsets with their customers for new “green” products and services (“gCommerce”) which creates a virtuous circle in carbon abatement. The market potential in the US for such gCommerce transactions could be $20 billion per year with carbon trading at $20 per ton and as much as $100 billion per year if carbon trades at $100 per ton (which is the number Stern report recommends if we are going to slow down climate change). For more details on the economic and business benefits of cap and trade to the ICT industry please see http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/. Extract from www.pointsource.comf—BSA]

http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.1037351

Canadian PM creates carbon trading minister position
Published: 15 Jan 2009 21:51 CET Last updated: 15 Jan 2009 21:59 CET
Canada’s prime minister has appointed an official to oversee North American carbon trading.
Bob Hamilton, formerly associate secretary of the Treasury Board, will become associate deputy minister of the environment, a newly created position.

His responsibilities will be to develop a continental North American carbon emissions trading scheme with the new US administration, said a source familiar with the matter.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s appointment of a minister that deals specifically with carbon trading demonstrates how serious the government is about going forward with a continental scheme with the US, said the source.

Some observers think the Canadian federal government has abandoned its own plans for a domestic carbon trading scheme in favour of developing a joint emissions trading programme with the US.

President-elect Barack Obama is scheduled to meet Harper soon after his inauguration. The heads of state are expected to discuss a North American cap-and-trade scheme among several other issues.

Obama has said he is committed to creating an economy-wide, mandatory cap-and-trade programme to help reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Financial experience

The source added that the appointment of a finance specialist within the Environment Ministry is unprecendented.

He said this move could have been in response to criticism that environment ministers have previously been appointed without much financial experience.

Hamilton was associate secretary of the Treasury Board since August 2008. Before that he was a senior assistant deputy minister in the tax policy branch of the Department of Finance between 2003 and 2005.