An old Israeli joke describes how God led Moses through the desert to the Holy Land for 40 years, through hardships and dangers, only to lead the Israelite nation to the only spot in the Middle East where there isn’t a drop of oil.

Two thousand years later, things have remained pretty much the same. Today, Israel is considered an “island-state”, with over 99% of its capacity produced from imported fossil fuels.

In alignment with global trends, Israel has experienced a recent surge of new ventures in the field, comprising commercial, academic and regulatory initiatives. Although a pioneer and home to world leaders in the RE field, the post-80s low oil pricing era left the Israeli RE industry relatively dormant in comparison with its blossoming high-tech activity. (more…)

Delegates from developing nations at the Copenhagen conference were incensed after reading a leaked document purporting to show that a group of wealthy nations intends to sideline the UN in future climate change negotiations and place CO2 emissions restrictions on poorer nations.

The Guardian reported that the so-called “Danish text” — reputedly drafted by wealthy nations including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Denmark — would abandon the principles of the Kyoto Protocol requiring industrialized nations to commit to binding greenhouse gas emissions while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft text would hand control over financing climate change projects in the developing world to the World Bank and would make funds given to poorer nations for climate change adaptation contingent on those nations taking actions to reduce emissions.

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The climate talks in Copenhagen will not be the final chance for the world to confront climate change, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said. And while the historic negotiations should produce meaningful results on greenhouse gas reductions, he said, negotiators should avoid unrealistic goals.

“You have to bring more people along,” he told reporters during a briefing in Vienna, “So don’t tee it up as now or never.”

World leaders will gather in December in hopes of crafting the successor to the Kyoto Protocol. While some developing nations want richer countries to cut CO2 emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, Chu said targets that are too aggressive would not likely be approved by U.S. lawmakers.

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For the fourth year in a row, Europe has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions, with CO2 output falling by 1.3 percent in 2008.

The recession appears to be the main factor in the emissions reduction, as factories were idled across the continent. But European Union Environmental Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the EU’s emissions trading scheme and development of renewable energy sources also is playing a part in the reduction.

“This is a timely message to the rest of the world in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate conference,” said Dimas.

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Despite a global recession, carbon dioxide emissions rose by 1.94 percent in 2008 to 31.5 billion tons, the 10th straight year of significant increases, according to the German renewable energy institute, IWR.

The institute calculated the increase using official government figures, noting that CO2 emissions have risen by 40 percent since 1990 — the year against which emissions reductions were to be measured for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gases.

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“No doubts remain. Climate change is real and the build-up of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is increasingly at an alarming rate.” With these words, Rafael Quiroga, General Manager of Accion RSE, initiated the seminar “Corporate Strategic Management of Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions.” This is not another “green business” seminar from a European or North American city, it took place here — in Santiago, Chile.

The event brought together speakers from the Chilean private sector that gave concrete examples of their companies’ climate change and GHG management initiatives. First, it showed how Essbio, a water purification company, has been dealing with the ever-prescient and escalating challenges of decreasing water reserves due to climate change.  Second, it illustrated the emissions and energy reductions Xstrata Copper, a mining company, has committed to and the steps it has taken to minimize the release of contaminants in its industrial processes. Third, it explained what Natura cosmetics has done since 2007 to become a “carbon neutral” business by calculating all GHG emissions in the company’s supply chain, transportation, and production of its various cosmetics products, and purchasing the equivalent amount of CO2 tonnage in carbon credits on the international carbon markets.

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