Climate Technology
All Stories
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Trick or Treaty
Ten years after the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted, controversy continues over the environmental consequences of increased trade between the U.S. and Mexico. Some experts who bitterly opposed NAFTA at the start now feel that the treaty has led to some improvements in quality of life in U.S. border areas — but they […]
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Tripping Out
A government-supported pilot project in Alberta, Canada, is offering companies greenhouse-gas credits for every employee who works from home, in order to reduce emissions associated with commuting. The plan is the first step in an effort to produce a Canadian carbon-credits market, whereby firms that cut greenhouse-gas emissions will be able to sell credits to […]
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Electric Avenues?
What do Detroit billionaires do with their cash after they retire from the upper echelons of the auto industry? The answer, in the cases of Lee Iacocca and Robert Stempel, may surprise you: They start electric-car companies. Stempel, the former head of General Motors, helped create the emissions-reducing catalytic converter in 1966 and has always […]
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Michigan residents fight for control of the state’s water
Until two years ago, the 40,550 generally well-behaved Midwesterners of Mecosta County, Mich., regularly attended church, sent their children off to school on yellow buses, and never for a moment worried that their clean, freshwater supply would ever run dry. Mecosta County, after all, sits near the center of Michigan’s lower peninsula, which itself sits […]
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Trade Wins
The market for carbon dioxide emissions credits across the world could more than triple this year as companies prepare for the enactment of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Under Kyoto, companies that reduce CO2 emissions beyond the caps set by their countries can sell credits to firms that do not meet the reduction requirements. […]
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You Will Live a GM-free Life … in Bed
Until recently, China seemed to be positioning itself as a world leader in bioengineered foods, spending tens of millions of dollars on new technologies and touting the benefits of genetically modified rice, soybeans, and other crops. Now, though, the nation has imposed tough restrictions on domestic planting of genetically modified (GM) crops and strict labeling […]
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Massive a Tax
New Zealand has unveiled a carbon tax to help it meet the goals of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which the country expects to ratify by year’s end. The tax, which would be implemented in 2007 assuming Kyoto has come into effect, would boost retail gas prices by up to 6 percent, diesel prices […]
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The Slush of Kilimanjaro
The snow-capped peak of Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro is one of the most famous vistas on the African continent. Soon, though, you might not be able to see it in person: The mountain’s 11,000-year-old snow cap shrank by 80 percent in the past century and could be gone within two decades if temperature trends continue, according […]
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The Sub-zero Continent
Sun-scorched India is fast becoming one of the world’s hottest markets for air conditioners, as manufacturers rush to capitalize on an unsaturated market and a consumer base with rising disposable incomes. The average price for air conditioners in India has dropped by about 20 percent over the past two years, and sales have been booming; […]
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Greens in the Red
It’s not just investors who are bearing the brunt of the bear market: U.S. and Canadian environmental nonprofits are learning that when the stock market shrinks, so do the coffers of their financial supporters. A recent survey found that 10 leading private foundations in the U.S. lost $8.3 billion in the first six months of […]
