Carbon market lobby group names new director
Austin joins the lobby group from JPMorgan-owned carbon credit aggregators EcoSecurities, where he was head of European regulatory affairs.
"Following the outcomes of the Copenhagen summit, 2010 will undoubtedly be one of the most challenging and interesting years for the future of international climate change policy," Austin said in a statement.
"Amongst the many pressing topics we will be focusing on will be the fate of draft U.S. and Australian domestic emissions trading legislation."
National climate change bills, which would launch emissions trading markets in both countries, faced fierce opposition late last year, casting doubt on their successful passage in 2010.
Carbon market sentiment is also raw following a failed United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December, where efforts to seal a legally binding global pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions were stalled.
The international market for carbon credits edged up to $136 billion last year, compared with a World Bank estimate of $126 billion for 2008, Oslo-based Point Carbon said in a recent report.
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The biggest problem facing the U.S. electric grid isn't demand. It's climate change
NEW YORK - The power grid in the U.S. is aging and already struggling to meet current demand. It faces a future with more people — people who drive more electric cars and heat homes with more electric furnaces.
Alice Hill says that's not even the biggest problem the country's electricity infrastructure faces.
"Everything that we've built, including the electric grid, assumed a stable climate," she says. "It looked to the extremes of the past — how high the seas got, how high the winds got, the heat."
Hill is an energy and environment expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served…
