Download or read book Climate Change Issues Options for Addressing Challenges to Carbon Offset Quality written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Climate Change Issues written by U. s. Government Accountability Office and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-06-21 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GAO-11-345. Carbon offsets are reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in one place to compensate for emissions elsewhere. Examples of offset projects include planting trees, developing renewable energy sources, or capturing emissions from landfills. Recent congressional proposals would have limited emissions from utilities, industries, or other "regulated entities," and allowed these entities to buy offsets. Research suggests that offsets can significantly lower the cost of a program to limit emissions because buying offsets may cost regulated entities less than making the reductions themselves. Some existing international and U.S. regional programs allow offsets to be used for compliance with emissions limits. A number of voluntary offset programs also exist, where buyers do not face legal requirements but may buy offsets for other reasons. Prior GAO work found that it can be difficult to ensure offset quality--that offsets achieve intended reductions. One quality criterion is that reductions must be "additional" to what would have occurred without the offset program. This report provides information on (1) key challenges in assessing the quality of different types of offsets and (2) options for addressing key challenges associated with offset quality if the U.S. adopted a program to limit emissions. GAO reviewed relevant literature and interviewed selected experts and such stakeholders as project developers, verifiers, and program officials. This report contains no recommendations. According to experts, stakeholders, and available information, key challenges in assessing the quality of offset projects include the following: (1) Additionality. According to many experts and stakeholders GAO interviewed, additionality is the primary challenge to offset quality. Assessing additionality is difficult because it involves determining what emissions would have been without the incentives provided by the offset program. Studies suggest that existing programs have awarded offsets that were not additional. (2) Measuring and managing soil and forestry offsets. For projects that store carbon in soils and forests, it is challenging to estimate the amount of carbon stored and to manage the risk that carbon may later be released by, for example, fires or changes in land management. Some studies have estimated that projects involving soils and forestry could constitute the majority of offsets under a U.S. program. (3) Verification. Experts and stakeholders said that verifying offsets in existing markets has presented several challenges. In particular, project developers and offset buyers may have few incentives to report information accurately or to investigate offset quality. According to experts, stakeholders, and available information, policymakers have several options to choose from in addressing challenges with offset quality. These approaches often involve fundamental trade-offs, such as increasing the cost of offsets.~
Download or read book Climate Change Issues written by United States Government Accountability Office and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate Change Issues: Options for Addressing Challenges to Carbon Offset Quality
Download or read book Climate Change Issues written by U.s. Government Accountability Office and published by . This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Carbon offsets are reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in one place to compensate for emissions elsewhere. Examples of offset projects include planting trees, developing renewable energy sources, or capturing emissions from landfills. Recent congressional proposals would have limited emissions from utilities, industries, or other "regulated entities," and allowed these entities to buy offsets. Research suggests that offsets can significantly lower the cost of a program to limit emissions because buying offsets may cost regulated entities less than making the reductions themselves.Some existing international and U.S. regional programs allow offsets to be used for compliance with emissions limits. A number of voluntary offset programs also exist, where buyers do not face legal requirements but may buy offsets for other reasons. Prior GAO work found that it can be difficult to ensure offset quality-that offsets achieve intended reductions. One quality criterion is that reductions must be "additional" to what would have occurred without the offset program.This report provides information on (1) key challenges in assessing the quality of different types of offsets and (2) options for addressing key challenges associated with offset quality if the U.S. adopted a program..."
Download or read book Climate Change Issues written by U. S. Government Accountability Office ( and published by BiblioGov. This book was released on 2013-06 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.
Download or read book Climate change issues written by United States. Government Accountability Office and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report provides information on (1) key challenges in assessing the quality of different types of offsets and (2) options for addressing key challenges associated with offset quality if the U.S. adopted a program to limit emissions.
Download or read book Carbon Offsets written by John B. Stephenson and published by . This book was released on 2009-03 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carbon offsets -- reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from an activity in one place to compensate for emissions elsewhere -- are a way to address climate change by paying someone else to reduce emissions. To be credible, an offset must be additional, among other criteria. Assessing credibility is challenging because it is difficult to make business-as-usual projections. This report examines: (1) the scope of the U.S. voluntary carbon offset market, including the role of the fed. gov¿t.; (2) the extent to which mechanisms for ensuring the credibility of offsets are available and used and what, if any, related info. is shared with consumers; and (3) trade-offs associated with increased oversight of the U.S. market and including offsets in climate change mitigation policies.
Download or read book Carbon Offsets written by United States. Government Accountability Office and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carbon offsets--reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from an activity in one place to compensate for emissions elsewhere--are a way to address climate change by paying someone else to reduce emissions. To be credible, an offset must be additional--it must reduce emissions below the quantity emitted in a business-as-usual scenario--among other criteria. Assessing credibility is inherently challenging because it is difficult to make business-as-usual projections. Outside the U.S., offsets may be purchased on compliance markets to meet requirements to reduce emissions. In the U.S., there are no federal requirements and offsets may be purchased in the voluntary market. GAO was asked to examine (1) the scope of the U.S. voluntary carbon offset market, including the role of the federal government; (2) the extent to which mechanisms for ensuring the credibility of offsets are available and used and what, if any, related information is shared with consumers; and (3) trade-offs associated with increased oversight of the U.S. market and including offsets in climate change mitigation policies. This report is based on analysis of literature and data, interviews with stakeholders, and GAO's purchase of offsets.
Download or read book Carbon Offsets written by Karen T. Morningstar and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at carbon offsets which provide a way for individuals, businesses, and governments to address concerns about the impact of their greenhouse gas emissions on the earth's climate by paying others to undertake activities that reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gases. A carbon offset can be defined as a measurable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions occurring elsewhere. For example, a U.S. manufacturer might offset its emissions by funding an external project that captures methane, a greenhouse gas emitted from agricultural sources and landfills. The emissions reduced, avoided, or sequestered by such projects are collectively termed carbon offsets, though they may involve different greenhouse gases. Carbon offsets are a potentially attractive option for those interested in addressing concerns about climate change because they can offer a potentially low-cost and convenient means of reducing, avoiding or sequestering greenhouse gas emissions relative to other options, such as altering manufacturing processes or using less fossil fuel. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.
Download or read book Handbook of Carbon Offset Programs written by Anja Kollmuss and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-08-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greenhouse gas (GHG) offsets have long been promoted as an important element of a comprehensive climate policy approach. Offset programs can reduce the overall cost of achieving a given emission goal by enabling emission reductions to occur where costs are lower. Offsets have the potential to deliver sustainability co-benefits, through technology development and transfer. They can also develop human and institutional capacity for reducing emissions in sectors and locations not included in a cap and trade or a mandatory government policy. However, offsets can pose a risk to the environmental integrity of climate actions, especially if issues surrounding additionality, permanence, leakage, quantification and verification are not adequately addressed. The challenge is to design offset programs and policies that can maximize their potential benefits while minimizing their potential risks. This handbook provides a systematic and comprehensive review of existing offset programs. It looks at what offsets are, how offset mechanisms function, and the successes and pitfalls they have encountered. Coverage includes offset programs across the full swath of applications including mandatory and voluntary systems, government regulated and private markets, carbon offset funds, and accounting and reporting protocols such as the WBCSD/WRI GHG Protocol and ISO 14064. Learning from the successes and failures of these programs will be essential to crafting effective climate policy. This is an essential reference for all regulators, policy makers, business leaders and NGOs concerned with the design and operation of GHG offset programs world-wide. Published with SEI
Download or read book Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-01-07 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global climate change is one of America's most significant long-term policy challenges. Human activity-especially the use of fossil fuels, industrial processes, livestock production, waste disposal, and land use change-is affecting global average temperatures, snow and ice cover, sea-level, ocean acidity, growing seasons and precipitation patterns, ecosystems, and human health. Climate-related decisions are being carried out by almost every agency of the federal government, as well as many state and local government leaders and agencies, businesses and individual citizens. Decision makers must contend with the availability and quality of information, the efficacy of proposed solutions, the unanticipated consequences resulting from decisions, the challenge of implementing chosen actions, and must consider how to sustain the action over time and respond to new information. Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change, a volume in the America's Climate Choices series, describes and assesses different activities, products, strategies, and tools for informing decision makers about climate change and helping them plan and execute effective, integrated responses. It discusses who is making decisions (on the local, state, and national levels), who should be providing information to make decisions, and how that information should be provided. It covers all levels of decision making, including international, state, and individual decision making. While most existing research has focused on the physical aspect of climate change, Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change employs theory and case study to describe the efforts undertaken so far, and to guide the development of future decision-making resources. Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change offers much-needed guidance to those creating public policy and assists in implementing that policy. The information presented in this book will be invaluable to the research community, especially social scientists studying climate change; practitioners of decision-making assistance, including advocacy organizations, non-profits, and government agencies; and college-level teachers and students.
Download or read book Climate Change Issues written by United States. Government Accountability Office and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming written by National Academy of Engineering and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 945 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global warming continues to gain importance on the international agenda and calls for action are heightening. Yet, there is still controversy over what must be done and what is needed to proceed. Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming describes the information necessary to make decisions about global warming resulting from atmospheric releases of radiatively active trace gases. The conclusions and recommendations include some unexpected results. The distinguished authoring committee provides specific advice for U.S. policy and addresses the need for an international response to potential greenhouse warming. It offers a realistic view of gaps in the scientific understanding of greenhouse warming and how much effort and expense might be required to produce definitive answers. The book presents methods for assessing options to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, offset emissions, and assist humans and unmanaged systems of plants and animals to adjust to the consequences of global warming.
Download or read book The Land Grabbers written by Fred Pearce and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Wall Street, Chinese billionaires, oil sheiks, and agribusiness are buying up huge tracts of land in a hungry, crowded world. An unprecedented land grab is taking place around the world. Fearing future food shortages or eager to profit from them, the world’s wealthiest and most acquisitive countries, corporations, and individuals have been buying and leasing vast tracts of land around the world. The scale is astounding: parcels the size of small countries are being gobbled up across the plains of Africa, the paddy fields of Southeast Asia, the jungles of South America, and the prairies of Eastern Europe. Veteran science writer Fred Pearce spent a year circling the globe to find out who was doing the buying, whose land was being taken over, and what the effect of these massive land deals seems to be. The Land Grabbers is a first-of-its-kind exposé that reveals the scale and the human costs of the land grab, one of the most profound ethical, environmental, and economic issues facing the globalized world in the twenty-first century. The corporations, speculators, and governments scooping up land cheap in the developing world claim that industrial-scale farming will help local economies. But Pearce’s research reveals a far more troubling reality. While some mega-farms are ethically run, all too often poor farmers and cattle herders are evicted from ancestral lands or cut off from water sources. The good jobs promised by foreign capitalists and home governments alike fail to materialize. Hungry nations are being forced to export their food to the wealthy, and corporate potentates run fiefdoms oblivious to the country beyond their fences. Pearce’s story is populated with larger-than-life characters, from financier George Soros and industry tycoon Richard Branson, to Gulf state sheikhs, Russian oligarchs, British barons, and Burmese generals. We discover why Goldman Sachs is buying up the Chinese poultry industry, what Lord Rothschild and a legendary 1970s asset-stripper are doing in the backwoods of Brazil, and what plans a Saudi oil billionaire has for Ethiopia. Along the way, Pearce introduces us to the people who actually live on, and live off of, the supposedly “empty” land that is being grabbed, from Cambodian peasants, victimized first by the Khmer Rouge and now by crony capitalism, to African pastoralists confined to ever-smaller tracts. Over the next few decades, land grabbing may matter more, to more of the planet’s people, than even climate change. It will affect who eats and who does not, who gets richer and who gets poorer, and whether agrarian societies can exist outside corporate control. It is the new battle over who owns the planet.
Download or read book The Greenhouse Gas Protocol written by and published by World Business Pub.. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard helps companies and other organizations to identify, calculate, and report GHG emissions. It is designed to set the standard for accurate, complete, consistent, relevant and transparent accounting and reporting of GHG emissions.
Download or read book Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2013 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greenhouse gas emissions by the livestock sector could be cut by as much as 30 percent through the wider use of existing best practices and technologies. FAO conducted a detailed analysis of GHG emissions at multiple stages of various livestock supply chains, including the production and transport of animal feed, on-farm energy use, emissions from animal digestion and manure decay, as well as the post-slaughter transport, refrigeration and packaging of animal products. This report represents the most comprehensive estimate made to-date of livestocks contribution to global warming as well as the sectors potential to help tackle the problem. This publication is aimed at professionals in food and agriculture as well as policy makers.
Download or read book Climate Change and Forests written by Charlotte Streck and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2009-10-30 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global climate change problem has finally entered the world's consciousness. While efforts to find a solution have increased momentum, international attention has focused primarily on the industrial and energy sectors. The forest, and land-use sector, however, remains one of the most significant untapped opportunities for carbon mitigation. The expiration of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012 presents an opportunity for the international community to put this sector back on the agenda. In this timely, wide-ranging volume, an international team of experts explain the links between climate change and forests, highlighting the potential utility of this sector within emerging climate policy frameworks and carbon markets. After framing forestry activities within the larger context of climate-change policy, the contributors analyze the operation and efficacy of market-based mechanisms for forest conservation and climate change. Drawing on experiences from around the world, the authors present concrete recommendations for policymakers, project developers, and market participants. They discuss sequestration rights in Chile, carbon offset programs in Australia and New Zealand, and emerging policy incentives at all levels of the U.S. government. The book also explores the different voluntary schemes for carbon crediting, provides an overview of best practices in carbon accounting, and presents tools for use in future sequestration and offset programs. It concludes with consideration of various incentive options for slowing deforestation and protecting the world's remaining forests. Climate Change and Forests provides a realistic view of the role that the forest and land-use sector can play in a post-Kyoto regime. It will serve as a practical reference manual for anyone concerned about climate policy, including the negotiators working to define a robust and enduring international framework for addressing climate change.
