Germany plans to provide $31 million to help revive Brazil’s ethanol car program in exchange for CO2 emissions credits under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). At the UN Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last month, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced the creation of a joint task force charged with working out the details of the agreement by early December. The German funds will subsidize the production of new ethanol-powered cars, making each of the 100,000 planned vehicles 1,000 Reais ($310) cheaper for buyers. The deal’s organizers, Brazil’s Science and Technology Ministry and Germany’s Environment Ministry, hope German industry will provide the money in exchange for emissions-credit certificates granted under the CDM, says Gylvan Meira...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
The new $1.1 billion heavy-crude oil pipeline being built in Ecuador is facing fresh controversy with the release last month of a report by U.S. and German environmental groups suggesting that Germany’s Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) violated its policies in lending $900 million for the controversial project. The report finds that the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Heavy Crude Pipeline (OCP) did not comply with the World Bank Group’s social and environmental policies. WestLB had publicly stated that compliance with World Bank environmental guidelines is an “indispensable condition for any financial engagement with OCP,” says Kevin Koenig of Amazon Watch, one of the green groups that commissioned the report. The report was prepared by Robert Goodland, a former chief of the World Bank’s environmental department...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Brazil’s National Energy Policy Council (CNPE) last month postponed a decision on whether to build the $2.5 billion, 1,350-megawatt Angra III nuclear plant, deferring the question until May of 2003—four months after a new government takes office. The desire to leave the issue to new authorities clearly played a role in the decision of the CNPE, a body of government ministers and government-appointed civil-society representatives. But tough questions facing the Angra project also played a role, according to Sergio Bajay, coordinator of national energy policy at the Brazilian Mines and Energy Ministry. “The CNPE delayed a decision on Angra III because, as the technical, environmental, and financing issues surrounding the reactor remained unresolved, it preferred to leave the decision about whether...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a search for a new executive director for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The EPA is leading the search because it is now the United States’ turn to pick a chief executive for the Montreal-based CEC, created by Canada, Mexico and the United States. “The U.S. will be leading that process with the cooperation of the [CEC governing] Council members,” says CEC communications chief Evan Lloyd. “They’re working on the terms of reference, and an active search is on.” An EPA spokesperson says no deadline has been set for appointing a new director. The CEC, founded in conjunction with the North American Free Trade Agreement, is overseen by a governing council consisting of Mexican Environment...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
