Tag Archives: european
Wood Panel Firm Slammed For ‘Opportunistic’ Anti-Biomass Ads
6 June 2013 Ads placed by Norbord attack biomass subsidies A wood panel maker that placed adverts campaigning against biomass subsidies has been accused of opportunism, as it continues to profit in the UK. Norbord is behind a series of ads claiming that subsidised energy generators are able to pay “more than double” the price paid by manufacturers for wood. That has driven up UK prices 60 per cent in the last five years, it claims. The biomass industry prefers to cite official statistics from the Forestry Commission showing that over the past twenty years, average timber prices have fallen by 29 to 42 per cent in real terms. Norbord’s financial results show its profits are up, increasing more than fivefold to the first quarter of 2013 from the same period last year. The Canadian-based company expects stable performance of its European business, which includes three UK factories. Richard Crowhurst, editor of Enagri BioenergyWeekly, which highlighted the figures, said: “With such a large rise in its profits and European output at a time when UK timber prices are falling and forestry investors are losing money on their day-to-day activities, the fact that Norbord Inc. is lobbying MPs and the public to oppose the use of biomass to generate low carbon renewable energy on the grounds that it raises wood prices is at best opportunistic and at worst deeply cynical.” The Norbord campaign also cites a joint report published by the RSPB, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace last November that claimed burning biomass could be more environmentally damaging than coal. The “Dirtier than Coal?” findings were rejected by the government and widely criticised at the time for extrapolating from an unrealistic worst-case scenario. Source: Utility Week Continue reading
Worry Over Scarcer Credits Propels US Carbon Market RGGI
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/25cf4754-cfb6-11e2-a050-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2VuVXa62r June 9, 2013 11:52 pm Worry over scarcer credits propels US carbon market RGGI By Gregory Meyer in New York and Pilita Clark in London A pioneer US carbon market is climbing after an intervention meant to grapple with a surplus of credits that has also dogged Europe’s emissions trading system. Last week’s quarterly auction by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, operated by nine northeast states, was twice oversubscribed. The clearing price of $3.21 per short tonne was the highest in four years. Companies on a list of potential bidders included energy traders EDF Trading, Koch, Mercuria and Vitol as well as Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street bank. The programme began in 2009 as a means to reduce emissions in states including Massachusetts, Maryland and New York. Power plants of 25 megawatts or larger must purchase a permit for each short tonne of carbon dioxide produced. But prices plunged as financial crisis damped electricity demand and a shale drilling boom encouraged generators to burn natural gas instead of higher-carbon coal. In February, the states cut the cap on annual emissions by 45 per cent to 91m short tonnes from next year, with 2.5 annual reductions afterward through 2020. Paul Tesoriero, director of environmental markets at Evolution Markets, a New York broker, said anticipation of scarcer credits had lifted prices. “It has everything to do with the rule change,” he said. The policy shift boosted futures markets pegged to credits. RGGI volume at the ICE Futures US exchange more than quadrupled on the year to 4,285 contracts in May. Still, a stockpile of about 100m credits has been banked by traders. This will weigh on prices for years to come, Mr Tesoriero said. In the European Union’s eight-year-old emissions trading system, the largest carbon market in the world, benchmark prices have collapsed to less than €4 a metric tonne, down from more than €30 five years ago, as the weak EU economy exacerbates a glut in the supply of credits. A surplus of about 2bn permits, or roughly a year’s worth of emissions, has built up in the scheme. That is because of weak EU economic conditions – which reduce industrial activity, and therefore demand for permits – and because the EU gave away too many permits for free when the scheme started. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has been trying to approve a plan that would temporarily take 900m tonnes of permits out of the market, and put them back in later when it was hoped demand might be stronger. The measure, known as “backloading”, was rejected by the European Parliament by 334-315 votes in April after business group lobbyists said it would erode EU competitiveness, sending prices down to less than €3. Prices have recovered slightly since then as the parliament prepares for another vote on July 2. “There is some optimism in the market that it could make it through parliament this time, which is definitely pushing prices up,” said carbon analyst Marcus Ferdinand of Thomson Reuters Point Carbon. Even if the backloading plan does pass, however, many analysts believe it will only push prices up by around €2 from what they would have been otherwise. Continue reading
REFILE-Elite Flyers Pressure United Airlines To Act On Climate Change
Mon Jun 10, 2013 6:25pm EDT By Valerie Volcovici (Reuters) – A group of United Airlines’ most frequent flyers, including billionaire investor Tom Steyer, on Monday called on the big airline to stop blocking climate change actions. United Airlines Inc has opposed “multiple efforts to curb climate change pollution, at home and abroad,” the group, Flying Clean, said in a letter to Chief Executive Jeff Smisek. Flying Clean, launched by several nongovernmental organizations seeking to reduce carbon emissions from airplanes, sent its letter ahead of United’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday in Arlington, Virginia. It had 85,000 electronic signatures including 2,700 elite frequent flyers. “If United wants to stay competitive, it needs to take climate change seriously and act in its customers’ – and the planet’s – best interest,” said Steyer, a former hedge fund manager turned environmental campaigner. The letter criticized United for leading a lawsuit to fight a European law that would make airlines pay for carbon dioxide they emit on flights to and from EU airports; lobbying in the United States against emissions initiatives; and trying to reverse California’s low-carbon fuel standard. United Airlines spokeswoman Megan McCarthy disputed the claims, and said the airline is on a task force of the International Air Transport Association, an industry lobbying group seeking a global solution to airline emissions. “The entire industry got together to say that we supported a global approach rather than a regional approach,” she said. Flying Clean also asked United to support a global market-based approach to cutting emissions in the U.N.’s International Civil Aviation Organization. That effort would cut emissions by more than current voluntary goals. Last week, the industry lobbying group said it will ask governments to create a system through which airlines would offset any increase in emissions after 2020 by buying carbon credits from projects that reduce emissions in other sectors. Some analysts doubted whether the airline industry would actually pressure governments to ink a deal in time for the U.N. group’s general assembly in Montreal beginning Sept. 24. Frank Loy, a former airline executive who led U.S. climate negotiations in the U.N. under President Clinton, said airlines should put their energy into pressure governments into securing a deal rather than trying to block one. “A major airline like United being a leader would make a big difference,” he said. Continue reading
