CHINA WATCH The Chinese government plans to raise the tax on environmental pollution, because it thinks current taxes are too low to stop firms polluting. As Chinadaily reports: “The taxes and fees on environment are insufficient and nonstandard to rein in the use of fossil fuel,” said Chang, a research
This week’s Economist has an interesting article about Europe’s carbon trading markets, which suggests that few firms are taking full advantage of them–partly due to a lack of market know how, it seems. The root of the problem, says Guy Turner of New Carbon Finance, is that
The new energy bill voted in over the weekend has had a mixed reception, broken down by partisan lines in the US. As the NY Times reports, the Democrats seem to like it: “It’s a big, big deal,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and a longtime
After a few weeks of media splashes and headlines decrying the bottled water industry, they’re fighting back. According to TreeHugger, a trade group has taken out big ads in US papers to argue their case (check out a copy of the ad here). the bottled water industry, led by
Greenbang went to the marvellous Innocent Village Fete this weekend. As well as blagging a VIP ticket, he decided to ride the helter skelter for the first time in years and also managed to scoff a good number of the free scones on offer. The fete was fabulous – great English
The US House of Representatives voted over the weekend (astonishing in itself) in favour of a new bill that chops some oil funding and diverts it into various renewable energies, as Reuters reports (or see the Bill’s full detail here): The bill, the New Direction for Energy Independence, National
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE ) is apparently having the desired effect, as retailers are reviewing the way they buy and sell equipment. Computer Weekly has this… “Currys is reviewing the way it buys IT products, purely in response to demand,” explained Patrick Frizoni, marketing manager for the
Greenbang’s old mate Andy McCue got this one on green IT for the olympics. BusinessWeek republished silicon.com‘s piece: “Organisers have also set out to make London 2012 the most environmentally friendly Olympic Games ever, and with around 10,000 PCs, two data centres and 1,000 servers
EcoGeek has a story up about another electric bike on its way. The Vectrix is a scooter that can hit 100km/h, buzz (well, whirr, perhaps) around for about 5 hours in a city and give out precisely zero emissions (not counting the driver, of course). Simply put, it’s
CHINA WATCH As China starts preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, one big problem stands in its way: ensuring the hundreds of world-class athletes don’t arrive on the track with face masks on to cope with the pollution. As a feature in this month’s Wired highlights,
When the orb starts flashing red, start cutting your energy use. That’s the ever-so-simple simple premise behind the energy orb, which is already being used by one US utility firm to start changing people’s behaviour in terms of how they think about energy. And it’s working, as
CHINA WATCH Just spotted an interesting article that quotes a senior exec from China’s meteorological department, in which he says the extreme weather being experienced in the country is due to global warming. Such extremes are likely to get worse and more common in the future, said Song Lianchun,
