Tiempo Climate Newswatch

A British jury has accepted that six campaigners had a "lawful excuse" in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station to prevent greater damage caused by climate change. James Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States testified at the trial regarding the dangers posed by global warming and called for a moratorium on all coal-fired power stations.

"This verdict marks a tipping point for the climate change movement," commented defendant Ben Stewart from Greenpeace. "When a jury of normal people say it is legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave Government energy policy? We have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy. It's time we turned to them instead of coal," he added.

The United Nations has launched the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Programme (UN-REDD), which could provide the foundation for a tradeable carbon credit system. "Forests are worth more alive than dead... and their ecosystem services and benefits are worth billions if not trillions of dollars if only we capture these in economic models," commented Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Nine countries - Bolivia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia - will receive assistance during the initial phase. It is hoped that UN-REDD will be included in any post-Kyoto agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. "Reducing deforestation in developing countries is a key element of addressing the global climate change challenge," said Ban Ki-moon, United Nations secretary-general.

The nation's first cap-and-trade market in greenhouse gas emissions has opened in the United States, with ten northeastern states, under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, conducting an initial auction of permits. By the year 2012, the region's power companies must stabilize emissions at current levels or else turn in permits bought in the market. The emissions cap will be lowered ten per cent from current levels by 2019.

There is concern regarding just how the revenue will be spent. "There is a real danger that auction proceeds will be diverted to state budgets rather than used to accelerate the transition to a clean-energy economy," warned a New York Times editorial. Laurie Burt, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, commented that "we need to develop creative ways to make sure the benefits of energy efficiency are going to all ends of the spectrum of energy consumers, not just large consumers, but low income citizens and tenants."