2009 is a critical milestone in the arena of international efforts to address climate change. With the upcoming UNFCCC negotiations, it is crucial that we now evaluate the efficacy of the 1992 agreements made through the Kyoto Protocol. Assessing the efficacy of the Kyoto agreements is a critical need in order to inform the design of successful strategies this coming December in Copenhagen. International climate change agreements should be a part of an iterative process in which strategies are designed and implemented, learnings are gained and understandings are then applied in the design of future efforts.

About CDMs.
As we all know, climate change is a global crisis. That being said, strategies for combatting climate change represent opportunities for economic growth in developing nations. A key component of the Kyoto Protocol that sought to accomplish economic development and reductions in GHG emissions was the clean development mechanism (CDM). The CDM is an innovative arrangement that allows industrialized countries with a GHG reduction goal to invest in development projects that reduce GHG emissions in developing countries. The CDM represents an alternative to expensive reductions efforts in developed nations which at the same time, encourages economic growth in developing nations where typically, GHG emissions levels are steadily increasing with growing populations and energy demands.

CDMs: How effective are they?
To give you a sense for the scale at which these projects operate, 1,128 CDM projects have been registered (as of July, 2008) with 4,000 projects in the process of certification. Given that the energy sector is typically the largest emitter of CO2 in most countries, the energy sector has become the largest recipient of CDM projects throughout the world with China and India being the dominant national recipients.

Criticism against the efficacy of CDMs has recently increased as economists and scientists have begun to see flaws in the design of the mechanism and abuse in the CDM regulatory process. Perhaps, the greatest accomplishment of CDMs to date lies in the fact that their presence in the global market has raised valuable awareness in developing countries and among investors around the urgent need to reduce global GHG emissions. However, the goals of the CDM are not to raise awareness; the goals are to actually reduce emissions.

Criticisms of CDMs include:
Projects with embellished environmental accomplishments have been approved without the proper certification.
Projects that would have been implemented without the benefits of the CDM are benefiting from the financial support of being listed as CDM projects.
A majority of the certified projects address reductions in GHG emissions but do not focus on CO2 which scientists claim should be most aggressively addressed.
It is too difficult to measure additionality and as a result, a financial and science-based mechanism based on additionality is fundamentall flawed.

The future:
How will the talks in Copenhagen be shaped by the lessons learned from the failures and successes of the the CDM since it’s implementation? What innovative new strategies will the international community devise and how will these mechanisms improve upon what is offered by the CDM?

My hope is that we will see a measurable strategy that directly reduces the actual emissions counts of the polluting companies, not one that enables them to continue with current emissions levels. Additionally, my hope is that we will see the US government take a leadership role in shaping a new and more effective strategy for emissions reductions while at the same time setting an example to the international community by rapidly embracing global agreements and enacting the necessary legislation to bring new mechanisms to the market place.

San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy just brought distributed solar generation closer to a large scale with their acquisition of a 350 MW solar project pipeline from UPC Solar. The recent acquisition represents a significant milestone in Recurrent’s focus on smaller utility-scale assets across the Continental US, Hawaii and Canada. Read more about this exciting development.

Thank you Richard Nixon. I’d like to begin this post by thanking Richard Nixon for creating the historic opportunity for the US to work with China on the two most critical global issues challenging our world today: Economy and the Environment. Although current US – China relations have opportunities for improvement, Nixon laid the groundwork for political collaboration with China through his 1972 visit to Beijing. The opportunity that the US now has to work collaboratively with China to solve the economic and environmental crises may well be our greatest hope for change. The goal of this post is to highlight where we are today with regards to high level political cooperation between China and the US on the issue of a global climate change treaty. I will also add a few comments on the role of US consumers in Chinese GHG emissions.

Where are we today? Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern (of the Stern Report) met at the State Department this past Monday with a vice chairman of China’s National Development and reform Commission to discuss climate change, clean energy and strategies to increase cooperation aimed towards a positive outcome at the UNFCCC negotiation in Copenhagen this coming December. This is a positive indicator that both nations are working well in advance of the December meeting to lay the political groundwork for cooperation and agreement. My hope is that conversations such as this will set up China and the US to lead the Copenhagen talks from a platform of shared, ambitious goals.

What’s to come in the immediate future? In April, the G20 Global Summit which will be held in the UK represents an arena in which Hillary Clinton and her Chinese counterparts will be able to further the conversation on energy and climate change which they began this past February during Clinton’s visit to China. Additionally, the outcomes and tone of this meeting will provide critical indicators as to what can be expected of China in the upcoming Copenhagen talks. Given the current economic crisis and China’s acknowledged top priority of fixing their economy, the G20 talks will provide a valuable indication of exactly how high of a priority international collaboration on the climate change issue is for China.

The role of the American consumer: Some significant portion of the American public blames China for increasingly high levels of GHG emissions. Commonly known as “panda sluggers”, adopters of this view are misguided in their allocation of blame towards the Chinese public and government. As an economically developed nation, the US has already gone through our high-emissions stage of national development. Although we may not have known the environmental impacts of our growth at that time, the fact is that China is pursuing a path of economic liberty that we also pursued years ago. That being said, China is certainly not entitled to harmfully pollute our shared environment simply due to their economic development stage.

What most American consumers don’t realize is that a significant portion of Chinese GHG emissions are due to US consumption of Chinese-made goods. Between 2002 – 2005, 50% of CO2 emissions in China came from export production (60% of which was sent to Western nations). Only 7% of the emissions increase was contributed by household consumption in China. So, a few of us need to change the way we think about the Chinese public and the Chinese manufacturing industry.

Reductions in US consumer purchases due to the economic downturn will reduce demand for Chinese exported goods which will in turn, reduce Chinese GHG emissions, and that’s a positive outcome overall. However, there is a future to be worked towards in which strategies for manufacturing processes are fueled by renewable energy resources and in this new way of working, enormous economic benefits are available to both, US and Chinese markets.

In summary, I encourage us all to closely watch the conversations between the US and China as we approach the Copenhagen talks. The outcomes of these precursor talks will provide valuable insight into what we can expect from both nations in December.

A quick link to a recent NYTimes article on municipal financing for residential renewable energy infrastructures:
Harnessing the Sun, With Help From Cities

GE’s amazing application renders a 3D digital hologram of smart grid technology right in your hands. There are a variety of amazing opportunities for leveraging this type of a tool to shape the public’s visualization of what a world would look like if we embraced renewable energy resources.

One can not help but learn about biomimicry and be amazed by the incredible examples of the strength of a spider’s silk, the lotus flower’s self-cleaning abilities and the manufacturing process of an abalone shell. However, I think that the real “wow” factor of biomimicry lies in the aspect of nature as a mentor where humans learn to learn from natural forms and functionalities.

I believe the significance of biomimcry as a concept is not that we have more innovative designs based on natural processes and structures. The most meaningful take-a-way from the principles of biomimicry is that we have designers, engineers and business leaders who are learning from nature. Changing the way humans approach design, manufacturing and problem-solving is where I find the most significance in the principles of biomimicry.

There is a key aspect of biomimicry that I feel should not be overlooked and that is the notion that natural organisms evolve in a pattern where each attempted solution is better than it’s predecessor. The natural world has had millions of years to adapt to it’s surroundings and during that time, 99% of the species that have developed have eventually gone extinct. That being said, I do not feel that humans have the luxury of continuing the trend of evolving with new strategies that actually impede the security of our long term future. Consequentially, it is apparent that humans need to evolve not in our biological abilities to thrive in a world of depleted natural resources. We need to evolve in our psychology of how we perceive design and manufacturing. Looking to nature as a model, measure and mentor is a critical paradigm shift that is required if we are to survive as a species on this planet.

In summary, I would like to highlight a quote from Janine Benyus’ talk at TED:

“…the most important thing, besides all of these adaptations is the fact that these organisms have figured out a way to do the amazing things they do while taking care of the place that’s going to take care of their offspring.”