News

• Conservation bank eyes £100m for UK pilot

  03 June 2010

  Conservation groups are backing a pilot scheme in the UK to generate large-scale financing for habitat remediation using "conservation credits". The Environment Bank is hoping to raise £100 million ($146 million) into the pilot, by incentivising property developers to buy credits to compensate for the ecosystem services lost by new developments.

• Forecasters warn of active hurricane season, as cat bond issuance steams ahead

  03 June 2010

  North America should expect an active Atlantic hurricane season this year, according to leading forecasters. The predictions coincide with a slew of catastrophe (cat) bond issued in the past month.

• Brazilian companies hijack GRI awards

  03 June 2010

  Brazilian businesses scooped the pools in the latest awards from Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), sparking questions over the survey's methodology and credibility.

• Biodiversity policy could learn from carbon market – EIB

  03 June 2010

  Policy-makers should look to the carbon market in seeking solutions to biodiversity loss, delegates were told at Green Week, the European Union's annual environment conference, in Brussels on Wednesday.

• Practical action needed to build climate deal consensus – Zoellick

  03 June 2010

  World Bank president Robert Zoellick said today that practical, on-the-ground actions in developing countries, on issues such as energy efficiency and avoided deforestation, will be key to to building a consensus for a global climate change deal.

• Weather markets vet joins Vyapar

  03 June 2010

  Lynda Clemmons, a veteran of the weather risk management markets, has taken up a full time role at New York-based brokerage firm Vyapar Capital Market Partners.

• UK set to badly miss domestic, EU renewables targets

  27 May 2010

  Around 6% of UK energy demand will be met using renewables by 2020, falling far short of the country's legally binding EU target of 15%, according to a forecast by Cambridge Econometrics.

• Global firms to ramp up climate spending

  27 May 2010

  Seventy percent of global executives plan to increase investment in climate initiatives over the next two years, according to an Ernst & Young survey.

• National Grid earmarks £22bn for clean energy infrastructure

  27 May 2010

  National Grid, one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the world, is planning a major increase in capital expenditure over the next five years to enable it to deal with a sharp rise in low-carbon energy sources.

• Bank financing of nuclear power exposed on NGO site

  27 May 2010

  Banks are coming under pressure for financing the nuclear power sector, with a group of NGOs launching a website which names the top 10 "nuclear banks".