Cargill is an American private multinational corporation that is involved in a number of businesses, including agricultural commodities, sale and manufacturing of feed and livestock, food ingredient production such as glucose syrup, starch, and vegetable oils and fats used in processed food (more…)

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, tax fraud is the carbon trading market’s most egregious form of cheating, affecting about seven percent of this $125 billion market in 2009.

In August 2009, seven people were arrested near London for not paying tax on the sale of carbon permits, for a total of £38 million (about U.S. $63 million). The taxes were levied as part of the European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading System, created in January 2005 and based on Directive 2003/87/EC, which was enforced beginning Oct. 25, 2003.

Carbon emissions trading, or cap-and-trade, is a system whereby governments tell industry how much carbon dioxide a particular factory or operation can emit. If the factory or operation manages to emit less than the mandate allows, it can sell its excess on the open market, but either it or its designated seller is required to report the transaction and pay taxes on it, as on any financial gain. (more…)

What makes energy start-ups succeed or fail? Are energy investments wise for venture capitalists? What will shape energy finance innovations and the adoption of the smart grid?

The 2009 Wharton Energy Conference will explore these questions and more October 30 in Philadelphia. CleanTechies is excited to serve as a media partner of this one-day conference and career fair.

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Author and scholar Michael Levi says in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that the odds of signing a climate treaty in Copenhagen this December are extremely small and argues that policymakers and environmental advocates should rethink their expectations for the summit.

Levi, a senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, contends that the conventional treaty model – which focuses on high-level agreements on emissions caps and carbon trading schemes – is fundamentally flawed because emissions caps are largely unverifiable and unenforceable. Short of bullying with punitive sanctions, nothing can be done if caps are exceeded.

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Earlier this year, everyone in the environmental punditocracy had an opinion on what domestic policy moves the leading economies and emerging nations might make to position themselves in advance of December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen.

The US? President Obama would arrive wearing a badge of victory: the world’s first-ever all-auction cap-and-trade system. China and India? The world’s fastest growing economies would put domestic Potemkin policies in place to demonstrate good faith. Western Europe? With a carbon cap in place and a bona fide legacy of environmental leadership, the Old West would continue to carry the mantle by pushing for significant advancement beyond Kyoto standards.

The global economic meltdown has rendered impossible any determination of how accurate those predictions might have been. Although things are looking up economically, there is no telling what history will be written in Denmark this winter.  The signs are not promising.

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Employers spend only about 2 seconds looking at most resumes — and grant only one interview for every 245 they receive. How can you write a knock-their-socks-off green resume that gets the job won? Read on.

You’ve got your mind made up: you’re going to follow your passion and look for one of the green-collar jobs everyone’s talking about. Unfortunately, that means you’ve got another job to do first: write a green resume. Resumes are the lifeblood of the job search process, giving future employees an instant glance at who you are, what you’ve done, and what you can do for them — all in a page or two. Make sure your resume makes an immediate, job-snagging impression. Follow the typical guidelines for good resume writing. Take a look at some samples, to make sure you’re on the right track.

Then green your resume using these tips:

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In the last few weeks both Shell and BP have pulled out of developing off-shore wind developments in the UK due to better incentives and support from the US government in the form of tax breaks and incentives.

The same is true for Spain where in the last few years the country has been unprecedented growth in wind farms along the majority of the eastern part of the country. Then just as the country was seeing clean and green as a way forward – they remove the tax break for further development. Almost overnight the work stops, new planned sites are abandoned and people are laid off.

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