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Federal regulations requiring an average renewable fuel content of 5% in gasoline have been finalized and will come into effect starting December 15, 2010. The 5% renewable fuel content requirement in gasoline will require about two billion litres a year of renewable fuel across Canada, a volume estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about one megatonne a year.

GERÊS, Portugal, Aug 31, 2010 (IPS) - Environmentalists are alarmed: fires have destroyed close to 100,000 hectares of forest in Portugal this summer, releasing one million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Worst of all, the forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon.

Version 3.2 of the Climate Action Reserve’s Forest Project Protocol continues to ensure integrity of forest offset projects

According to the office of Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council, China had decided to remove tariffs on 4,762 commodities imported from 33 of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Commodities with zero tariffs include wood products. The zero tariff treatment came into effect on 1 July 2010.

The countries involved are 26 African countries and 7 other countries, including Ethiopia, Benin, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Maldives, Nepal and Bangladesh.

25 August 2010 | The first Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) methodology to quantify the climate benefits for projects reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is now approved and available for use after going live this Monday. 

The advocates of renewable energy have long chanted a mantra of “green jobs, energy security and lower emissions”, but in country after country we continue to see a fork in the road emerging whereby individual nations are forced to make choices between lowering (global) emissions or developing (local) green jobs.

The landmark approval of a carbon accounting methodology to underpin REDD projects in Asia shows the project-based voluntary carbon market leading the way in the development of mechanisms to halt the destruction of climate-critical tropical forests.

Urgent Action Needed On Climate-Forestry Research

Seven western states and four Canadian provinces have joined forces in a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions. An entire new source of long-term revenue is available to British Columbia's government, which will enable protecting massive tracks of old growth forests and fresh water supplies.

The Western Climate Initiative includes: Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Washington, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, and they have agreed to cut the region's carbon emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Pulp mills may be getting back on the black liquor gravy train.

Paper and pulp makers, including a number of mills in southwest Alabama, collected $8 billion or more last year in federal cash and tax credits by doing what they've done for decades -- burning the carbon-rich leftovers from the pulp-making process to fuel their mills.

The liquid, known as black liquor, was declared eligible for alternative fuel tax credits if mill operators mixed in a little diesel fuel.

(Reuters) - Aid promises from rich nations to help poor countries slow global warming are reaching the $30 billion goal agreed in Copenhagen but analysts say much of that is old funding dressed up as new pledges.

Officially, the promises total $29.8 billion, Reuters calculations show, apparently meeting a pledge of "new and additional" funds "approaching $30 billion" for 2010-12 made at the U.N. summit in Copenhagen in December.

COMMENT In the last three weeks, Sarawak was abuzz with news of a particular climate change mitigation mechanism called REDD (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries).

First, a news article by Reuters informed that an Australian carbon trading company has signed a carbon offset deal with nine tribal leaders that would purportedly preserved more than 100,000ha of forests in the state.

(Reuters) - An Australian carbon services firm has signed a deal aimed at protecting tropical forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as boosting renewable energy there, a senior company official said on Wednesday.

Shift2Neutral and its partners would help value the carbon storage from forest and land protection, certify carbon related services to communities in the DRC and help sell certified carbon offsets.

24 August 2010: Frances Seymour, Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), delivered a keynote address titled "Forests, Climate Change, and Communities: Making Progress up the Learning Curve" at the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress, being held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, from 23-28 August 2010.