News

• RAN slams Citi, BoA on coal financing

  01 May 2008

  Despite big-number climate change commitments, Citi and Bank of America are continuing to bankroll the coal sector, acc­ording to a report by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN).

• Babcock & Brown pitches 2.2GW of wind assets.

  01 May 2008

  Babcock & Brown Wind (BBW) Partners has put up for sale 2.2GW of European wind energy assets, and has appointed Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan to advise on the disposal of some or all of the portfolio.

• Electricity users, generators at odds over ETS

  01 May 2008

  The International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (IFIEC) is calling for an overhaul of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), moving away from auctions of allowances towards free allocations based on a system of 'benchmarking' – a proposal slammed by generators.

• solar index launched

  01 May 2008

  MAC Indexing has launched an index to track global solar energy stocks.

• People moves this month

  01 May 2008

  ANDREI MARCU, former president and chief executive of the Inter­national Emiss­ions Trading Assoc­iation (IETA), has been appointed CEO of Paris-based carbon trading exchange Bluenext. Marcu spent seven years heading IETA and announced last July he was to join the World Business Council for Sus­tainable Development as senior managing director of energy and climate. Prior to IETA, he worked at the UN Development Programme and Ontario Hydro. Bluenext is Europe's leading spot market for EU allowances and is jointly owned by NYSE Euronext and Caisse des Dépôts.

• ANZ to follow SAM

  01 May 2008

  Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has launched a wholesale, capital-protected investment trust focusing on climate change.

• Global food crisis threatens EU biofuels target

  01 May 2008

  The European Commission's target to use 10% biofuels in petrol and diesel by 2020 has come under pressure from rocketing food prices and shortages in developing countries.

• China issues environmental insurance, securities diktats

  01 April 2008

  China's State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) has issued 'green insurance', 'green securities' and 'green trade' regulations, three of five expected 'green economic' schemes. The regulations are part of an ongoing policy shift from "top-down, administrative means" towards bottom-up, market-based solutions for China's environmental problems – but observers question the degree to which the agency will be able to enforce the new rules.

• New standards to boost NOx market

  01 April 2008

  The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lowered the eight-hour ground-level ozone standard to 0.075 parts per million (ppm) from 0.08 ppm, a move expected to have significant implications for new power sources and other emitters of ozone-creating nitrogen oxides (NOx).

• Auction roils SOx market

  01 April 2008

  Prices for US sulphur dioxide (SO2) allowances under the acid rain control scheme slumped at the end of March, following the annual Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) auction – in which compliance buyers were conspicuously absent.