News

• Impax assets surge on environmental investment boom

  10 December 2009

  Environmental investment manager Impax saw its assets under management grow 15% to £1.26 billion ($2.30 billion) in the year ending 30 September 2009. The growth has continued since then, with assets reaching £1.42 billion on 30 November.

• Commission backs six sites for carbon capture and storage

  10 December 2009

  The European Commission has named the six carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects that will receive a share of the €1.05 billion ($1.55 billion) in funding from the €4 billion set aside for energy projects in the EU economic-stimulus package.

• Europeans to co-operate on offshore wind grid for North Sea

  10 December 2009

  Nine European countries have signed an agreement to co-operate on an electricity grid in the North Sea and Irish Sea, to connect up offshore wind farms and help the EU meet its target to source 20% of energy from renewables by 2020.

• Hudson clears $1bn for clean energy fund

  05 December 2009

  Private equity firm Hudson Clean Energy has closed its first fund at just over $1 billion, bucking a challenging fund-raising environment.

• Doubts build over US Senate climate bill

  05 December 2009

  The future of federal climate legislation in the US is heavily intertwined with the success of international negotiations in Copenhagen as doubts emerge about the Senate's ability to pass a bill in early 2010.

• Investors look forward, anxiously, to 2010

  05 December 2009

  Investors expect that 2010 will see a boost to investment in low-carbon technologies, on the back of expected progress towards a post-2012 climate change regime, continuing economic recovery and the accelerating disbursement of government stimulus cash.

• RWE in massive CO2 mis-statement

  05 December 2009

  German energy giant RWE overstated its own carbon dioxide emissions by 70 million tonnes – equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Denmark – in a report this year because of a classification mistake.

• EIB, World Bank sell $450m of green bonds

  05 December 2009

  Scandinavian institutional investors led purchases of $450 million worth of 'green' bonds recently issued by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank, which will finance projects that address climate change.

• CDP water initiative exposes disclosure challenges

  05 December 2009

  Investors have welcomed the launch of a water disclosure programme by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), but the initiative exposes a plethora of challenges in understanding the risks and opportunities associated with water scarcity.

• Australia's trading bills defeated in Senate

  05 December 2009

  Australia's government has vowed to reintroduce legislation to bring in an emissions trading scheme, after extraordinary developments that saw the main opposition alliance dump its pro-emissions trading leader for a climate sceptic, and the Senate vote down the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) bills.