A diplomatic cable published last month by the WikiLeaks website reveals that most of the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in India should not have been certified because they did not reduce emissions beyond those that would have been achieved without foreign investment. Indian officials have apparently known about the problem for at least two years. The revelations imply that millions of tonnes of claimed reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions are mere phantoms, she says, and potentially cast doubt over the principle of carbon trading. --Quirin Schiermeier, Nature News, 27 September 2011
But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore. --Ottmar Edenhoffer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
North Sea gas production has slumped by 25% in the second quarter of the year, an alarming increase in the rate of decline that will cut tax revenues and could put more pressure on government to agree controversial shale gas developments. --Terry Macalister, The Guardian, 30 September 2011
The costs of Alex Salmond’s green energy revolution are “going through the roof” and threaten to bankrupt companies by doubling energy bills, business leaders have warned the First Minister. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC) said electricity is currently about nine times more expensive to generate from wind farms than gas-powered plants. It warned this would hold back the Scottish economy and lead to businesses going under. --Simon Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 29 September 2011
Poland would veto any EU legislation that threatened its sovereignty in energy policy, Maciej Olex-Szczytowski, an adviser to the Polish foreign minister on economics and business, said yesterday. --Bloomberg, 28 September 2011
In an age of austerity, cheap gas—domestically produced and available in large quantities—could be a major tool for restoring European prosperity. It allows EU member states to directly tackle their alarming growth of fuel poverty while providing a new means to help rebuild competitiveness. That is an investment no country in Europe can afford not to make. –-Alan Riley, The Wall Street Journal, 30 September 2011
The shale boom of oil & gas is one of the few bright spots in the Obama economy. So it seems more than a bit paradoxical that Obama's EPA and Department of the Interior continue working in attempts to find an excuse to shut it down -- or at least slow it to a crawl. --Al Fin Energy, 29 September 2011
