It's great that climate change returns to the Senate agenda this week. The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, introduced by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) seems to be gaining some momentum, but the slow pace in the Senate makes it extremely unlikely that a vote will occur before the forthcoming U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December. Failure to move a bill means it will be difficult negotiators to cut deals on future emissions targets in Copenhagen. Even so, the climate talks are likely to see progress on deforestation issues, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) reform, …

Medina co-authored this post with Toby Tiktinsky, Senior Client Manager, at EcoSecurities. Amid the fallout from the near collapse of the global financial system and revelations of significant fraud by financiers like Bernie Madoff and R. Allen Stanford, an intense debate has emerged over the role of business in society. The increased scrutiny of Wall Street -- and by extension, corporate America -- has focused on profits, bonuses, and how compensation schemes can encourage excessive risk-taking. The fact that institutions deemed "too big to fail" were bailed out by the government and are now earning incredible profits only serves to …

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has already failed Africa, some observers believe, so why bother post-2012 when the existing CDM framework established under the Kyoto Protocol expires? But as the international community prepares to negotiate a new climate pact, we should care about extending the CDM, and care a great deal. After all, the CDM was created with the dual goals of promoting sustainable development in developing countries and reducing costs of compliance in regards to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in rich countries. In the early years of the CDM, the market rewarded the lowest hanging fruit -- reductions in …

Last month I went home to Barcelona to attend Carbon Expo, one of the major annual gatherings for professionals involved in the global carbon market. There were many interesting conversations and panel discussions over the course of the three-day conference, but one in particular focused on sectoral mechanisms as a way of sourcing international offsets from emerging economies. In my last post, I argued that a sectoral mechanism can be a powerful instrument to deliver cost-effective offsets -- provided it is able to clearly link investment and subsequent returns from a private sector perspective. In relation to this, one of …

At times certain words become quite fashionable, though nobody is quite sure why. Everyone wants to use them, even as they can have different meanings for different people. In the discussion of climate change in the United States, "sectoral" seems to have achieved this particular honor over the past few months. Before we start, let's do a quick test. When policymakers use the term sectoral, what do they mean? 1. A command-and-control measure at a national level, e.g. low-carbon fuel standard or a sector-specific tax? 2. A transnational cap-and-trade sectoral agreement, e.g. aviation or maritime? 3. A commitment by a …

A hot-blooded Spanish creature like me can get into an argument relatively easily, and I'm not afraid to argue strongly about what I know and/or believe. Can you picture Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona when she argues with Javier Bardem? Yep, that's me! In the last four months here in the United States, I have attended quite a few conferences, gatherings, meetings, cocktails, you name it. At all of them I have found myself discussing carbon offsets, specifically the contribution of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) -- the project-based market mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol that channels foreign investment …