A worldwide shift to energy-efficient and low-carbon technologies for power generation and transportation offers enormous economic opportunities, but the investment community will not be able to realize economic growth without a credible, global climate-change-framework treaty, says an international group of institutional investors.
At a Sept. 16 press conference in New York, a group of 181 investment institutions that collectively controls $13 trillion in assets issued a joint statement calling on governments around the world to pursue agreement on long term climate-change policies. Among the specific provisions of a climate change agreement is a global target for greenhouse-gas-emission reductions of 50%–85% (compared to 2000 levels) by 2050. In addition to calling for commitment from governments to an emission reduction target, the investor group advocated establishing an effective global carbon market through a cap-and-trade system, supporting the means to adapt to unavoidable climate-change impacts and putting in place measures to reduce deforestation.
Addressing greenhouse gas emissions has increasingly become a strategic issue for firms across the chemical process industries (CPI). Policy discussions involving climate change are occurring at local, national and international levels. Many CPI companies are actively exploring options to reduce carbon emissions in anticipation of climate change regulations in the future.
Although some measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions currently come with considerable capital costs, a significant number of CPI facilities that utilizing biomass as a carbon-neutral feedstock for fuels and energy is relatively simple and can actually reduce energy expenditures now. Chemical Engineering is offering a Webinar to supply information to those in the CPI interested in implementing biomass-based energy and fuel production systems. “The Biomass Energy Advantage: Cost-Competitive Today and Carbon Neutral for Tomorrow’s Energy and Fuels” will take place October 14, 2009 at 11:00 Eastern time. The presenters will be Tom McGowan, president of TMTS Associates Inc., Bill Bulpitt, senior research engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Thomas Reed, president of the Biomass Energy Foundation.
Among other topics, the Webinar will include practical information to promote understanding of environmentally friendly biomass-based fuels, basics of greenhouse gas calculation methods and a comparison of biomass costs to competing alternate fuels. For more information on the Webinar, visit https://www.chemengonline.com/biomasswebinar/.