…
Papers & Publications
Introduction of Aviation into the EU ETS
On 2 February 2009, Directive 2008/101/C formally brought aviation into the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Aviation activities will be included in the EU ETS from 1 January 2012, although aircraft operators will have to submit benchmarking plans by 31...
Federal and Regional Climate Change Policy and Legislation in the United States
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a regional cooperative established in 2003 by states and provinces in the Northeastern United States and Canada to reduce GHG emissions. Current member are the US states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland,...
Federal, Regional and Provincial Climate Change Policy and Legislation in Canada
The Voluntary Challenge and Registry (VCR) is a government‐funded program that encourages organizations in the public and private sectors to voluntarily limit and reduce GHG emissions, and report annually on emission totals and reduction measures. The VCR was...
Investment Additionality in the CDM
The additionality of projects is crucial to the integrity of the Clean Development Mechanism. The CDM tool for additionality produces binary outcomes; projects either pass or fail. This paper uses ΔIRR (the difference between a project’s IRR with and without CDM...
A Practical Approach for Policies to Address GHG Emissions from Indirect Land Use Change Associated with Biofuels
Recent estimates of indirect land use change impacts associated with biofuel expansion have used forward-casting models to predict the effects of changes in feedstock use upon agricultural commodity markets and land use decisions. The predictive reliability of such...
Consequential and Attributional Approaches to LCA: a Guide to Policy Makers with Specific Reference to Greenhouse Gas LCA of Biofuels
Policies for supporting biofuels, such as the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive RED, the Renewable Fuel Standard in the US, and the UK’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), require life cycle carbon reporting to ensure that biofuels achieve greenhouse gas...
Is ‘Insetting’ the new ‘Offsetting’?
There has been a fierce debate about the benefits of ‘carbon offsetting’ and the associated term ‘carbon neutral’. This paper does not seek to add to this polarised discussion, instead we seek to describe an emerging trend which we call ‘insetting’ amongst leaders in...
What is a Carbon Footprint?
A carbon footprint is “the total set of GHG emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organisation, event or product” (Carbon Trust 2008). For example, the carbon footprint of flying from London to New York is 0.68 tonnes of CO2e1, and the carbon...