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Carbon Market Watch criticizes the development of New Market Mechanisms (NMM) and the Framework for Various Approaches (FVA) following COP-17 and COP-18. The author argues that these initiatives risk increasing the supply of low-quality carbon credits in a market already severely oversupplied, where offset prices are below 0.20 EURO. The document highlights a conflict between countries seeking 'flexible' rules (such as Japan, the US, and New Zealand) and those advocating for stringent, CDM-like oversight (such as the EU) to ensure environmental integrity and avoid double counting.

The document discusses the tension between the EU's unilateral inclusion of international aviation in its Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and the need for a global agreement via ICAO. It warns against the use of low-quality offset credits, specifically industrial gas offsets and non-additional CDM credits, arguing that any global mechanism must prioritize real, permanent, and verified emissions reductions over supplementary offsets.

The report analyzes the design and operational experiences of various emissions trading systems, including the EU ETS, RGGI, WCI, NZ ETS, TMG ETS, and the Australian CPM. It highlights key design trade-offs regarding coverage, allowance distribution, and price management, while emphasizing that the EU ETS experience demonstrates that over-allocation does not necessarily preclude abatement. The document also provides a toolkit for policymakers to assess the environmental and economic effectiveness of such systems.

The report identifies heating oil as a significant economic and environmental drain on the Northeast U.S., costing the region over $14 billion annually. It compares natural gas and heat pumps as alternatives, concluding that heat pumps offer superior long-term economic savings and emissions reductions, particularly when paired with a renewable grid. The author identifies high upfront costs, lack of technical knowledge, and retrofit difficulties as primary barriers and suggests incentives, third-party financing, and leasing as solutions to scale the market.

The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that in 2012, the NRC oversaw 14 'near-misses'—events increasing core meltdown risk by at least 10-fold—at U.S. nuclear plants. The report argues that the NRC frequently fails to enforce existing regulations, such as allowing the Palisades Nuclear Plant to operate for nearly a month despite cooling water leaks that required shutdown within six hours. It also highlights a significant perception gap between NRC senior management and staff regarding the agency's internal safety culture, where half of the workforce reported negative reactions from supervisors after raising safety concerns.

The document analyzes Canada's 2012 carbon policy transition, marked by the official withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and the implementation of federal sector-based regulations for transport and coal-fired electricity. It highlights a growing trend toward 'equivalency agreements' where the federal government defers to provincial policies, potentially leading to a fragmented national landscape. The report also notes provincial initiatives, such as Quebec's cap-and-trade linkage with California and Ontario's coal phase-out, while recommending greater compliance flexibility and a clearer federal policy vision to reduce costs and meet 2020 targets.

The study uses the Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) system to model irrigation demand and supply in California's Cache Creek watershed. It finds that climate change will significantly increase irrigation demand, which cannot be fully met by reservoir releases due to legal limits, necessitating increased groundwater extraction. While changing cropping patterns alone are insufficient to offset climate-driven demand, combining diversified, water-efficient cropping with technology improvements can reduce demand to 12% below historical means and lower groundwater pumping.

The report analyzes a diverse array of cap-and-trade systems, from the established EU ETS to emerging pilots in China and South Korea. It argues that the success of these markets depends heavily on long-term political commitment, robust data collection, and centralized decision-making to avoid over-allocation. The authors highlight a shift in the center of carbon market activity toward Asia-Pacific economies, which are experimenting with novel scopes including buildings and indirect emissions.

The briefing argues that any ICAO market-based measure must rely on stringent requirements to ensure emissions reductions are real, permanent, additional, and verified. It recommends that only UNFCCC-guided offset credits be eligible, while specifically advising against the use of Joint Implementation (JI) credits, voluntary market offsets, and bilateral mechanisms due to quality and oversight concerns. Furthermore, it warns that any cap-and-trade system must avoid over-allocation and prohibits the use of surplus allowances from oversupplied schemes like the EU ETS to maintain environmental integrity.

The document advocates for a multi-scale analysis of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus to improve cooperative governance and resource management. It presents a continuum of assessment tools, ranging from qualitative index building and opportunity analysis to quantitative hydro-economic and integrated modelling (such as WEAP and LEAP). These tools are designed to identify trade-offs, mitigate supply bottlenecks, and support sustainable infrastructure planning in transboundary macro-regions and at the local level.

The document argues that current climate policies focus too heavily on the demand side, allowing fossil fuel exporting countries to increase production with little impact on their own territorial emissions accounts. It proposes 'extraction-based emissions accounting', which attributes CO2 emissions to the country where fuels are extracted, as a way to promote producer responsibility and identify economic vulnerabilities. The brief notes that countries heavily dependent on high-carbon exports face risks of 'stranded' assets if global demand declines, as projected in some IEA scenarios. Additionally, it suggests integrating life-cycle assessments (LCA) to account for varying upstream emissions, such as those from Canadian oil sands, which can be significantly higher than conventional crude.

The Orinoco River Basin in Colombia is experiencing rapid transformation due to increased public and private investment in oil extraction, industrial agriculture, and infrastructure. This development has led to significant ecosystem loss, including 32% of flooded savannahs over the last 20 years. To address these challenges, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute (IavH) are proposing a "nexus" approach that analyzes the interdependencies between water, energy, food, and habitat security. This framework aims to replace fragmented planning with integrated decision-making to protect biodiversity and human systems. The proposed research will utilize participatory methods and software tools like LEAP and WEAP to inform national climate adaptation and biodiversity strategies.

The document identifies China's urbanization as a critical factor for global climate change, noting that by 2030, China will have approximately 1 billion urban residents. It argues that the current development pattern of 'single use superblocks served by auto-centric transportation' is unsustainable and leads to congestion and pollution. To counter this, the authors propose six 'ingredients for success': permeable urban form (smaller, mixed-use blocks), transit-centered transportation (prioritizing walking, biking, and Bus Rapid Transit), effective and enforced building codes, municipal finance reform to move away from land-leasing incentives, new sustainability performance metrics for mayors, and a strengthened planning process with increased technical capacity.

The report examines how unilateral carbon pricing leads to carbon leakage—where emissions are shifted to foreign locations—across energy-intensive industries (EII) such as steel, cement, and chemicals. It evaluates the effectiveness of various policy remedies, including border adjustments and output-based free allocations, across different regional contexts. Findings indicate that while the EU can mitigate leakage from a 30% reduction target at moderate cost, a mandatory Japanese ETS would significantly impact steel and cement production. In China, a carbon price of 100 Yuan/t CO2 would most affect ferrous metals, basic chemicals, refining, and cement, potentially serving as a tool to reduce carbon intensity and restrain exports during high growth periods.

The fact sheet highlights the need for consistent energy efficiency data across the U.S. to support decision-makers in grid planning, finance, and regulatory compliance. It maps various drivers for harmonization—ranging from integrated resource planning to the Clean Air Act—and identifies existing initiatives like the Regional Energy Efficiency Database (REED) and the Uniform Methods Project that aim to standardize definitions and reporting formats.

The report evaluates the capacity of China, Germany, Italy, and the United States to meet evolving international and domestic MRV requirements for greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation actions. While most countries are well-positioned for emissions reporting, significant gaps exist in tracking the impact of specific mitigation policies and coordinating sub-national data.

The briefing distinguishes between two types of demand-response: 'capacity' and 'balancing'. Demand-response as capacity reduces the need for new power plants by moderating peak demand events, while demand-response as balancing uses automated technology to adjust electricity use in real-time to complement variable renewable energy output.

The document advocates for the public release of industrial audit data in California to maximize the public health benefits of the state's cap and trade system. It argues that transparency allows advocates and community members to pressure facilities to implement energy efficiency measures, which reduce both greenhouse gases and local air pollution. The author contends that the benefits of transparency, including the replication of best practices and increased public confidence, outweigh facility managers' concerns regarding competitive disadvantages.

A group of environmental and scientific organizations argues against the EPA's proposal to include Arundo donax (giant reed) as an approved advanced biofuel feedstock. They cite the species' status as a high-risk invasive weed that threatens native vegetation and endangered species, noting that the high cost of eradication makes the ecological and economic risks outweigh the benefits of its cultivation under the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The document details the U.S. effort to reach a goal of one million electric vehicles by 2015 through the development of 'deployment communities' and infrastructure. It describes federal initiatives like the Transportation Electrification Initiative and Clean Cities, regional efforts such as the Northeast Electric Vehicle Network, and commercial fleet adoptions by companies like Frito Lay and General Electric. It also lists specific legislative proposals aimed at increasing consumer tax credits and funding for community deployment and fleet upgrades.