Search

The practice has yet to gain widespread acceptance, but internal carbon pricing is starting to catch on in the global business community. One of the companies setting the standard is Microsoft, which back in 2012 imposed what can be best described as an internal carbon tax in order to nudge the company closer to carbon neutrality.

Now, some results are in: During the COP22 climate talks in Marrakesh, Morocco, the company released a white paper that makes a strong business case for an internal carbon fee.

Microsoft’s argument is that such a policy can help a company become more efficient and also inspire social and economic impacts far beyond its headquarters.

Microsoft’s sustainability strategy sounded cliché at first, with its three pillars of “be lean, be green, be accountable.” Four years later, however, the company is arguably practicing what it preached.

It set targets to become leaner by decreasing its energy consumption, which includes the use of technology to reduce unnecessary business travel. In turn, the company’s drive to be “green” includes ambitious commitments to the purchase of more renewable energy. With such efforts comes transparency and accountability, as the company established an internal price on carbon. It also tracks emissions with software and encourages employees to change their habits through several sustainability awareness programs.

The results are certainly impressive. Microsoft reduced its carbon emissions impact by 9 million tons of CO2 equivalent since 2014. The company has in turn invested in more than 14 million megawatt-hours of renewable power. Microsoft suggests that 7 million people across the world benefited from its investments in carbon offset projects.

It is that last point by which Microsoft can offer companies ideas on how they can “create impact.” All companies say they want to have a positive impact – the trick is actually executing such a plan. Microsoft opted to purchase carbon credits that balance out its emissions, whether they come from business travel or the consumption of energy in regions where clean-energy generation is not a possibility.

The benefits, Microsoft says, can be seen all over the map. Its carbon offsets funded clean cookstove programs in countries such as Guatemala, Ethiopia and Nepal. Environmental conservation projects launched in regions as remote as Australia’s Tasmania and coastal Chile. The company even purchased carbon offsets in Mongolia, which fund energy-efficiency and home-insulation projects. (Citigroup is involved in a similar program in Mongolia.) Microsoft says these programs reached students, women, farmers and wildlife around the world.

This is not just one-way philanthropy. Microsoft has the opportunity to strengthen business ties across the globe due to its offering of technology that helps these projects succeed. After all, technology donated now could lead to contracts in the future. The company says its smartphones and tablets help locals working on the Rimba Raya REDD+ Project in Indonesia document the local environment – one that has suffered since palm oil companies moved into the region and disrupted the ecosystem and local economy. Microsoft partnered with other REDD+ (the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) projects in Madagascar and Malawi.

It is here where some may quibble with Microsoft’s insistence that is has actually affected the lives of as many as 7 million people; the REDD+ program has its fair share of critics, who suggest that while the program is noble, it lacks the necessary enforcement and due diligence mechanisms that could otherwise make the program far more effective.

But when it comes to creating a company culture that understands and values sustainability, Microsoft sets the bar high. Climate grants available to business groups and subsidiaries give the freedom to explore projects as mundane as improving energy efficiency, to the funding of initiatives that to some may seem the more outlandish -- as in Project Natick, the testing of a subsea data center off the U.S. Pacific shore.

The world may agree that the climate cannot warm any more than 2 degrees Celsius this century if society is to avoid risks and increased disasters due to climate change. The solutions will be difficult to achieve. And they will require plenty of experimentation, with some ideas failing as others will scale.

On that point, Microsoft is way ahead of the curve and will long serve as a case study for why the business community needs to take climate change more seriously; and better yet, the company offers ideas instead of hand-wringing.

Image credit: Robert Scoble/Flickr

By Travis Holtby

What’s the difference between ExxonMobil and the Sierra Club? In the eyes of the U.N. Conference of Parties (COP), not too much. Under the rules governing the U.N.’s international climate change negotiations, both are treated as accredited third-party observers and granted the exact same rights and privileges.

A group led by the delegations of Nigeria, Ecuador and the nonprofit Corporate Accountability International (CAI) believe the idea of having the very international corporations responsible for anthropogenic climate change influencing these international negotiations represents an unacceptable conflict of interest.

Advocating a solution similar to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), these groups want to break the hold of corporate capture on the COP, which they see as steering the climate change negotiation toward toothless agreements that keep fossil fuel companies’ profits high.

It is hard to argue against minimizing the power of corporate interests in climate negotiations, but using the exact framework as that of the FCTC may be too blunt an approach. Unlike tobacco, the world economy is completely dependent on fossil fuels, at least at present. Without a nuanced approach that carefully calibrates the transition to renewable forms of energy, the most vulnerable of the world’s population risk being further marginalized.

Few dispute the power of corporations to influence government affairs, particularly in developing countries. The resources they can bring to bear means corporations have close ties to the winning coalitions in most every nation. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing; private firms are fundamental to a market economy and as such should be taken into account in policy. The problem is that, more often than not, this power vastly overshadows the voices of other important actors, such as civil society and ordinary citizens.

This influence transcends national boundaries and affects international law as well. Since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, there has been no hierarchy or differentiation between accredited observers in international climate change negotiations. From civil society to business, they have all been seen by the U.N. process as equal.

In their efforts to influence negotiations, the group of country delegations headed by Ecuador and Nigeria believe that corporations use four primary tools:

1. Lobbying. This is the most direct approach and has quite a good return on investment: The CAI claims that for the $145 million the fossil fuel industry spent on lobbying in the U.S., it received $115 billion in subsidies. This lobbying influences international as well as national governance.


2. Create business interest NGOs, or BINGOs. BINGOs operate independently of the corporations they represent, but may be funded or administered by them. The purpose of these organizations is to advocate for policies that benefit the industry or groups they represent. There are a number of BINGOs at COP22, including Business Roundtable, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Business Europe, CAI says.


3. Agency events. These are often fancy and expensive affairs designed to bring representatives from a given industry together with government officials to allow them interact and network.


4. Direct partnerships with the U.N. These U.N. and corporate partnerships are a rather direct method, as they put corporate employees and executives into a direct working relationship with those of the U.N.

Again, the fundamental problem is not that business is influencing policy; that is a natural thing for any engaged societal actor to attempt. The problem is that the goals of the fossil fuel industry – high profits fueled by further extraction -- are fundamentally at odds with the action needed to combat climate change. This represents an irreconcilable conflict of interest.

However, this may be a harder issues to address than it has been in other forums. Unlike the WHO’s FCTC, which recognized a similar conflict of interest in allowing tobacco companies a seat at the table in determining national and international public health policy, the parties at COP have to take into account the fact that the world is dependent on fossil fuels -- at least for now.

Access to renewable energy is growing fast, but it still only represents a tiny fraction of the world’s power supply. This is especially true in developing countries, where coal-fired power plants are seen as the only realistic way to quickly connect the millions of people living in the dark to electricity.

It is easy for us in the developed world to advocate high taxes and other policies to disincentive the use of fossil fuels by increasing their cost. But we cannot forget that what would be a minor inconvenience for us could be an unacceptable burden for some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

But this scenario also takes its logic to the extreme. The parties at COP are unlikely to adopt measures that would raise fuel costs to untenable levels, especially with the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement being decided by each individual country. It is also naïve to think that barring fossil fuel companies from the international climate change negotiations would stop them from accessing politicians in other venues. But recognizing and denormalizing such activity is an important symbol and step in the right direction.

The dangers posed by allowing extractive industries too much power over the negotiations –irreversible climate change -- far outweighs the possible dangers of pushing to keep these companies at arms distance from the negotiation process. However, the danger does still exist and, for something as important as averting catastrophic global climate change, a sophisticated and approached solution that is both based on science and takes into account the realities of all people on this planet is needed.

Image courtesy of the author

Travis Holtby is a graduate student in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego.

By Travis Holtby

Desertification is increasing as anthropogenic climate change accelerates. The loss of arable land and the encroachment of deserts on populated areas present real challenges to people around the world. But these deserts also cause a secondary problem with far-reaching effects: more dust.

According to scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, the level of dust emission into the atmosphere could double in the coming years. This is due not only to changes in the global climate, but also to human activities that exacerbate the negative effects of climate change. The increasing population demands greater and greater amounts of water for homes, agriculture and industry. This depletes rivers, lakes and aquifers, which can take hundreds of thousands of years to recharge.

On the terrestrial side, desertification means soil-based seeds -- an important storehouse of the planet’s biodiversity -- are being depleted and destroyed by heat and changing soil types. It also affects erosion: As these areas become dryer and dryer, root systems that hold the soil in place begin to die, leaving the land prone to greater levels of erosion when the rains do come.

Dust can also spread infectious diseases, like meningitis and valley fever. The tiny particulates that are sucked up into the atmosphere and blown across national borders are big enough for microbes to attach themselves to, putting in danger populations that have historically never had to worry about these microorganisms.

But the dust also affects the weather. Particles in the atmosphere are essential for the formation of clouds, and clouds are the shield that reflects the majority of solar radiation away from the earth and back into space.  The dust swirling up into the atmosphere from these expanding deserts can travel thousands of miles from its source, influencing clouds and rainfall in other countries and on other continents.

It is also important to note that dust and other aerosols’ effect on clouds is more uncertain than any other major factor in climate models. This uncertainty, combined with the effect of greenhouse gases on the earth’s rising temperature, could mean a rise in both the ferocity of storms and the damage they cause through winds and flooding.

It is science like this that needs to be spread and understood to inform smart policy that can work to mitigate the effects of climate change. One of the most important part of the COP22 process is that it provides scientists, like those at Scripps Oceanography, with the venue to connect with decision makers and help them understand the facts.

Image credit: Pixabay

Travis Holtby is a graduate student in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego.

With a busy week behind you and the weekend within reach, there’s no shame in taking things a bit easy on Friday afternoon. With this in mind, every Friday TriplePundit will give you a fun, easy read on a topic you care about. So, take a break from those endless email threads, and spend five minutes catching up on the latest trends in sustainability and business.

Next week is Thanksgiving. This day of food and family is followed quickly by what many call a long weekend of overconsumption. Some shoppers head out after the big turkey dinner for rock-bottom deals, while others wait until the wee morning hours of Black Friday. Those who don't want to risk an elbow in the eye opt to max out their credit cards on Cyber Monday.

But for the past four years, the following Tuesday brought us back to our roots with a global day of philanthropy and giving -- and it paid dividends for nonprofits. Created by the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Giving Tuesday boosted online donations on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving by an estimated 470 percent since its inception in 2012. It now includes 30,000 partners in 68 countries.

It's easy for companies to make a big hoopla over Black Friday. But fewer large American firms strive to lead the pack when it comes to its philanthropy-oriented cousin. The following nine companies are a few of the exceptions.

1. PayPal

PayPal is a lead supporter of philanthropy on Giving Tuesday and every day through its PayPal Giving Fund. The platform connects donors and charities through sites like PayPal and eBay, and it's responsible for millions in donations every Giving Tuesday.

Starting Nov. 29 (Giving Tuesday) through Dec. 31, PayPal will add 1 percent to donations made through its holiday campaign and delivered by PayPal Giving Fund.

2. eBay

eBay is a pioneer in the digital fundraising space. Growing from a single auction in response to 9/11, eBay for Charity now houses over a million charitable listings and raised $650 million in funds. Last year, eBay for Charity raised $176 globally every minute in partnership with PayPal Giving Fund. Over a million customers made a donation during checkout.

This year, eBay will introduce a new service: Gifts That Give Back. The American Cancer Society, American Red Cross, ASPCA, CARE, March of Dimes and the Nature Conservatory are on board for the charitable gift program. Shoppers can purchase gifts with 100 percent of proceeds going directly to the nonprofit organizations.

3. CVS Health

Each year for Giving Tuesday, CVS Health invites employees to nominate their favorite charity to receive a #GivingTuesday grant from the CVS Health Foundation. Most employees volunteer all year, so they have plenty of stories to share.

The grants, awarded on Giving Tuesday, provide much-needed funds to dozens of charitable organizations. Since 2013, CVS Health has granted $125,000 to 75 charities across the country through this Giving Tuesday campaign with an employee engagement twist.

4. Bitcoin

The company behind the cryptocurrency that rocked the Web is a longstanding Giving Tuesday partner. Bitcoin calls Giving Tuesday "the first ever open-source, decentralized philanthropic movement." Nice.

Through the GivingTuesday Bitcoin Challenge, the company partners with the GIV3 Foundation, which helps Canadian nonprofits get to the next level on fundraising and stakeholder engagement. The donations, of course, are in bitcoins.

5. Microsoft

On the first Giving Tuesday, Microsoft launched YouthSpark on Global Giving, a Microsoft fundraising program allowing the broader public to help empower youth. This year the company will match donations on the site, up to $350,000, to create technology education opportunities for young people around the world.

The site has raised $4.8 million and helped more than 131,000 youth since it launched in 2012, thanks in large part to donations made on previous Giving Tuesdays. This year the movement is going global, with Microsoft expanding its promotion of the day to 10 countries beyond the U.S.

6. GoFundMe

This month, GoFundMe is challenging people to #GoBeyondGiving by starting a GoFundMe for those in need, community improvement projects, or a charity. By using the hashtag #GoBeyondGiving, campaign organizers will be entered to win a $10,000 donation to their cause.

The company will ask employees to nominate their favorite #GoBeyondGiving campaigns, and it will surprise over 100 campaigns with $1,000 donations on Giving Tuesday. Additionally, all GoFundMes started on behalf of charities will be part of the company's new partnership with PayPal Giving Fund, with over a million charities to choose from.

7. ACCO Brands

The company behind school supply labels like Mead and Five Star will partner with the Kids In Need Foundation this Giving Tuesday. "We hope that by providing essential school supplies to children nationwide, we are energizing youth with the confidence that comes from having the tools needed to succeed," Tom Tedford, president of ACCO's North America office, said in a statement.

8. Thirty-One Gifts

This Giving Tuesday, Thirty-One Gifts will match any donation made to World Vision with a donation of their own product, up to $2 million in value, to families and communities in need around the world.

The products include sturdy utility tote bags and warm clothes that can provide much needed help in the winter months to vulnerable families in Africa, eastern Europe and Central America. This is the third year World Vision and Thirty-One Gifts, which sells purses, totes and home décor, have partnered for Giving Tuesday. In 2015, volunteer health workers in Burundi received utility tote bags, which helped them carry their equipment and keep medical supplies clean and safe as they visited remote, low-income houses for checkups.

9. QVC

This year, QVC says it will become the first company to globally support Giving Tuesday. The video and e-commerce retailer will offer a specialty shirt from Peace Love World, a line of inspirational women's clothing. Sixty percent of the purchase price of every shirt will benefit Nest, a global nonprofit committed to the social and economic advancement of women by supporting female artisans.

"This Giving Tuesday, we are celebrating the women who embody the same tried and true spirit that we so value in our QVC entrepreneurs," Rachel Ungaro, vice president of fashion and beauty merchandising for QVC, said in a statement.

Want to get involved?

Fantastic! Just remember that all nonprofits are not created equal. Some have shady records. And others simply aren't managed well, meaning fewer resources go toward those who need it most. Make your dollar go further by using a charity rating system. Before donating, look up the benefiting nonprofit on a service like Charity Navigator, Charity Watch or GiveWell.

Where will you be donating this holiday season? Let us know on Twitter by tagging @triplepundit or share your thoughts in the comments!

“I’m not a Cassandra, but I am a realist. Time is not on our side,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at COP22.

Secretary of State John Kerry pulled no punches in a speech at the COP22 climate talks now in their second week in Marrakesh, Morocco. A stalwart champion of climate change action throughout his career, Kerry made clear the outgoing Obama administration will do all in its power to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from scuttling the hard-fought success of the Paris Agreement.

After decades of wrangling and contentious negotiations, nearly 200 nations agreed to the landmark multilateral climate treaty -- marking a milestone not only for international climate change cooperation, but also for human history. More world leaders assembled at Le Bourget in Paris at the start of COP21 last year. Two weeks later, imbued with a persistent sense of purpose and optimism, all nations adopted the Paris Agreement. I was there, and I felt it myself: a stark contrast to the disappointing end of COP15 six years earlier.

As one month after another broke climate records, momentum for the agreement continued through 2016. The thrilling promise of Paris was capped on Nov. 4 when the Paris Agreement marched past the threshold for enforcement and became international law. We knew there was much hard work yet ahead, but the groundwork was laid. The global community began COP22 in Marrakesh as the first U.N. climate meeting under the Paris Agreement, officially labeled CMA1.

Then, on Nov. 8, Donald Trump secured the electoral college and the U.S. presidency. Trump, a man who appears to understand or care little about climate change, or science in general, vows to end U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement. Though not as easy as he likely imagines, his actions portend a looming climate disaster for billions of people across the globe, including all Americans for whom he now leads.

A sense of hope

In a Nov. 5 article in the Guardian, economist Nicolas Stern said his landmark 2006 assessment underestimated the risk of climate change inaction.

“With hindsight,” Stern wrote, “I now realize that I underestimated the risks. I should have been much stronger in what I said in the report about the costs of inaction. I underplayed the dangers.

"We have been too slow in acting on climate change," Stern continued. "In particular, we have delayed the curbing of greenhouse gas emissions for far too long. When we published our review, emissions were equivalent to the pumping of 40 to 41 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year. Today there are around 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. At the same time, science is telling us that impacts of global warming – like ice sheet and glacier melting – are now happening much more quickly than we anticipated.”

Stern went on to say that the “dramatic success” in Paris last December and the “subsequent rapid ratification by more than 90 countries” (110 countries as of this writing) gives him “a sense of hope.”

But with that hope comes a stark warning:

“People have not sufficiently understood the importance of the next 20 years,” Stern wrote. “They are going to be the most decisive two decades in human history.”

Obama’s climate legacy

In Marrakech, John Kerry said the outgoing Obama administration would do all it can to ensure that the United States does not withdrawal from the Paris Agreement before handing the reins of power to Donald Trump. With that he also sent a message to the president-elect:

“I ask you on behalf of billions of people around the world: Do your own due diligence before making irrevocable choices,” Kerry said in Morocco. “No one has the right to make decisions that affect billions of people based solely on ideology or without proper input.”

Many say Donald Trump possesses no particular political ideology. He appears reactionary, incurious and wholly unprepared for the task before him. He seems to seek power for its own sake and admire authoritarianism; he is antithetical to the spirit and promise of Paris and indeed for a healthy, living planet. Living in the gilded Tump Tower, he is completely divorced from the reality before us.

This is no time to be equivocal about climate change. It is a real and present danger. We must oppose any attempt the Trump administration makes to turn its back on the future. If Trump succeeds on climate inaction, America will not be “great again,” and he threatens to bring down the rest of the world with him.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lzEA7UgjCOs

Image credit: Manav Gupta, courtesy flickr

Editor's Note: This post originally published in GlobalWarmingisReal.com

Crates that stop pigs from turning around and cages that cause the restrictive confinement of egg-laying hens are under increasing scrutiny from consumers. Two weeks ago, voters in Massachusetts passed a groundbreaking measure that bans certain types of farm animal containment.

Massachusetts Question 3 will prohibit breeding pigs, egg-laying hens and calves raised for veal from being too tightly confined and takes effect in 2022. The measure was designed to minimize the suffering of animals raised for eggs and meat and to avoid the spread of infectious diseases, such as salmonella.

The initiative amassed considerable support from nonprofits, farmers and veterinary clinics. The Humane Society of the United States, Animal Rescue League of Boston, Zoo New England, the Massachusetts Sierra Club, MSPCA, ASPCA, the Center for Food Safety, Center for Science in the Public Interest, the John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and United Farm Workers are just some of the groups that came out in support of Question 3. In addition, more than 80 veterinary clinics, 150 farms or farmers and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker support the ban.

A trip to the grocery store reveals how consumers are seeking foods with higher animal welfare, such as cage-free eggs and grass-fed beef. Support from Massachusetts voters for the ballot referendum was strong.

"What I find most interesting is that the ballot referendum passed with 78 percent of the vote,” said Janice Neitzel, CEO of Sustainable Solutions Group, a management consulting firm that guides foodservice companies in making animal welfare sourcing improvements. “This really speaks to consumer demand for animal proteins raised in better living conditions."

Opposition to the bill raised concerns that such restrictions will increase food prices, while others voiced concerns that more types of farm animals weren’t included, such as beef cattle and broiler chickens. Neitzel believes the public is largely unaware of the animal welfare issues that are relatively common with current farming practices.

"My guess on why this measure passed so overwhelmingly is that consumers think farm animals are already being raised where they can stretch their legs and wings,” Neitzel said. “The social media videos [that portray poor animal welfare conditions] are a surprise when consumers find out that is not the case, especially for pigs and egg-laying hens. People are surprised to find out the densities of stocked animals in huge barns, and [they are] surprised to see the cages and crates."

Opponents also say excessive confinement of farm animals is very rare in Massachusetts, implying that new restrictions are unnecessary. Neitzel responded: "This ballot measure affects animal proteins being imported for sale into the state, as well as livestock producers in the state. The former is likely to have more impact."

Image credit: Flickr/Nate Saltmarsh

Representatives from around the world are meeting for climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco, this month. The Under2 Coalition announced new signatories at the talks last week. Under2 brings together states, regions and cities that are willing to commit to limiting greenhouse gas emissions to two 2 per capita, or 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The group now has 29 new signatories representing over a billion people, most of whom joined at a ceremony last week at the climate talks in Marrakech.

The new signatories include the Australian Capital Territory; the Indonesian provinces of South Sumatra, East Kalimantan and West Kalimantan; the Italian region of Abruzzo; and the Mexican states of Tabasco and Michoacán. Twenty-three city members of China’s Alliance of Peaking Pioneer Cities, including Beijing, also endorsed Under2.

“With the Paris Agreement entering into force last week, all levels of government in every part of the world need to come together and push forward solutions to secure a climate safe future,” Damian Ryan, acting CEO of the Climate Group, said in a statement last week. 

Under2 focuses its work on three areas:

• Supporting the signatories to develop short- and long-term goals and pathways toward deep decarbonization.


• Putting in place the policies that work through knowledge-sharing and cooperation between government signatories, endorsing nations and partners.


• Ensuring governments have the expertise and systems in place to assess their emissions accurately and track progress against their targets, by aligning them with the UNFCCC's Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system.

In 2015, two members of the Climate Group’s States and Regions Alliance -- California and the German state of Baden-Württemberg -- established Under2. Since then, the coalition grew significantly to include 165 jurisdictions that represent 33 countries and six continents. The group offers states, regions and cities an opportunity to share ideas and practices on reducing GHG emissions and promoting renewable energy. It specifically does that in four ways:

• Provides a model for other sub-national governments to join.


• Brings international attention to the actions and ambitious reduction goals of sub-national governments.


• Demonstrates the collective impact of the actions and commitments across states, regions, cities, and countries.


• Highlights the diversity of approaches to reducing emissions.

California shows how states and cities can lead the way in climate change action

Given that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly denied that climate change is occurring, it is a safe bet that he will likely undermine current President Barack Obama’s environmental initiatives. California, as one of the two original parties of the Under2, highlights how states and cities can lead the way in reducing emissions during the tenure of Donald Trump’s presidency.

California is a leader when it comes to taking action on climate change. In 2006, during President George W. Bush’s administration, then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). The law requires California to reduce its GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

In 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order that established a GHG emissions reduction target for 2030 of 40 percent below 1990 levels. The target is the most ambitious one in North America. To meet the 2030 target, Brown’s executive order specified certain policies, including increasing electricity from renewable energy sources to 50 percent, doubling energy efficiency in existing buildings, and reducing short-lived climate pollutants like methane and black carbon.

California also has an economy-wide cap-and-trade emissions trading system. It is the only trading system of its kind in the U.S. It is building a high speed rail system and is the world’s leading market for electric vehicles and stationary storage. And all that California is doing to tackle climate change is making a difference. Over the last five years, the state’s GDP has grown by five percent while its carbon emissions have decreased. California’s actions are creating jobs and saving its residents money. Solar companies in the state employ over 44,000 people. The state’s appliance and building efficiency policies have saved consumers over $65 billion and created 1.5 million jobs over four decades.

Image credit: Flickr/Kevin Stanchfield

Twitter's trolling problem is storied and long. And a vitriolic presidential campaign is among the many reasons why online abuse morphed into a nightmare for the social media site. Celebrities such as Leslie Jones of Saturday Night Live jumped off the platform -- some never to return -- as they became the target of hate speech, and other users went dark as Twitter appeared lacking any ideas on how to find solutions.

Earlier this week, the company announced it had made “progress” on halting online abuse and harassment. The solution: an expansion of the mute feature. The problem, however, is that Twitter puts the onus on users to decide what hashtags, phrases, keywords or even entire conversations they do not want to see in their feed. As Alex Eule succinctly describes in Barron’s, Twitter’s new policy amounts merely to, “Ignorance is bliss.”

The feature will not do anything to avoid hate speech, as the mute option will only apply to a user’s notification. Similar Tweets could still appear in a search, on a timeline or on a third-party app such as TweetDeck. Furthermore, not many users will be thrilled about the task of having to go to Urban Dictionary or other online sources to type in a list of words that are pejoratives for their gender, ethnicity, race, profession or sexual orientation.

Twitter claims to have hired teams to monitor hate speech and also said it suspended thousands of accounts known for spouting hateful rhetoric. Those moves come when many citizens are rethinking social media’s role in society – especially as it turns out that “fake news” on Facebook outperformed verifiable news sources in the weeks running up to Election Day. The perversion of what qualifies as news has reached a point where one fake news writer told the Washington Post he had a huge role in catapulting Donald Trump into the White House.

The toxic swamp into which social media has morphed made it even more difficult for Twitter to find a buyer. The company has long under-performed financially as it has not figured out how to monetize its catchy 140-word platform, and the endless headaches resulting from online trolling have not helped matters. Salesforce.com and Google shied away from opportunities to add Twitter to their empires. Bloomberg reported that Disney also backed away the company out of fears the uncivil discourse rife on the site would mar its family-friendly image.

“We should all stand together” is Twitter’s mantra, as it begs for users to be patient and take steps to protect everyone from trolling. The problem for Twitter is that more users refuse to stand around while a bunch of supposedly technology geniuses find an answer to curb the online vitriol that has made the site a font for hateful speech. Instead, they are running away and finding social media channels that provide a safe zone in which to share their ideas, musings and photos.

Image credit: Anthony Quintano

This week, Apple partnered with the Conservation Fund to donate an easement on 32,400 acres of forest, which the tech giant purchased last year, to the Forest Society of Maine. Apple's gift connects over 1 million acres of forest that reach far beyond Maine’s border with Canada.

Forests by far define Maine's landscape: Approximately 90 percent of this New England state is covered by trees, more than any other U.S. state. The 12 million acres nestled against the Canadian border is home to few people, but they offer residents and visitors diverse wildlife, plenty of recreation choices, and economic opportunities. But unlike much of the western U.S., the vast majority of Maine's forests are privately owned – as much as 93 percent according to one survey.

Over the last several years, changes in the U.S. forestry sector caused shifts in ownership for millions of acres with little certainty about their eventual fate. Hence steps taken by companies such as Apple are important in order to allow for some economic activity on this land, while protecting wildlife and permitting recreational activities such as kayaking and fishing.

Apple’s donation of land and funds will protect the Reed Forest in Aroostook County, located in the northern region of the state, according to the Forest Society of Maine. The endowment allows for sustainable timber harvest that helps employ 38,000 locals, ensures clean water for local communities and provides a carbon sink as a buffer against future climate change risks.

This is not Apple's first forestry initiative. Last year the tech giant entered into an agreement with WWF to halt deforestation in China. Its project aims to transition 1 million acres of forested lands to responsibly managed forests by 2020. The paper produced from trees grown within these forests will be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). With the world’s population growing and demand for paper products rising in kind, Apple views these partnerships as a way to groom sustainable development while reducing any encroachment on natural forests.

“For Apple, this is the beginning of a worldwide effort, one that represents a new approach as it reassesses its impact on the world’s paper supply chain,” wrote Lisa P. Jackson, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and who now serves as VP of environment, policy and aocial initiatives for Apple, upon announcing the company’s work with the Conservation Fund last year.

Apple has long been called out for its lack of transparency, and the company has been opaque about where it sources the paper and cardboard needed to box its product suite of electronics and accessories. As Philip Elmer-DeWitt has pointed out on Fortune, Apple’s purchase and donation of forest lands is a way to counter the amount of pulp and paper consumed by its supply chain. Critics of the company will not be mollified until Apple sheds more light how it procures its paper supply; others will see this as a sign that the company is trying to do its part to mitigate its impact on the planet.

Image credit: Lee Coursey/Flickr

By Joe Madden

The surprise of Donald Trump was felt across the world — perhaps in Marrakech, Morocco, at COP22 most of all. President-elect Trump has said he will “cancel” the Paris Agreement that was hailed as a breakthrough for humanity less than a year ago.

I happened to be in Marrakech during the U.S. presidential election, and there was a tangible pall in the air the morning that the results came in. Since that time, there has been a tremendous amount of valuable analysis of the potential paths a Trump administration might take on climate, and even the best-case scenarios appear a setback from the alternative outcome.

Beyond analysis of scenarios going forward, it is worth looking at some of the core drivers behind decarbonization beyond high-level policy or regulation.  Signs pre-dating the U.S. election signaled that momentum and resolve may be such that U.S. actions — even in a worst-case scenario -- may not be as devastating to global climate action as immediately perceived. Sound data suggests that elemental market forces, not political or regulatory action, are driving the trend toward decarbonization. The market key forces driving de-carbonization are twofold and consist of (a) unit economics and (b) risk.

Regarding unit economics, coal’s biggest challenge is economics, not climate-related policy or regulatory actions. Its demise is due to the abundance of natural gas which is a lower-priced alternative (that happens to be less carbon-intensive as long as methane leakage associated with its use remains less than 3.2 percent). Second, the cost of renewable energy, particularly solar, is decreasing rapidly. While solar has benefitted from subsidies to date, the percentage of solar power generation in the U.S. now exceeds that of coal. Coal is simply becoming less and less competitive on a cost basis when compared with its alternatives.

Risk is more nuanced, but it increasingly factors into the large-scale move toward decarbonization through the allocation of capital. Investors, particularly institutional ones, hold large asset allocations across all sectors of the economy and geopolitical regions within their portfolios. As evidence of resource constraints -- beginning with carbon — become increasingly apparent and quantifiable, the risk associated with action in the form of political, regulatory, or stakeholder (shareholders, customers, etc.) action to address those resource constraints is increasing. This creates a direct correlation between carbon intensity and financial risk.

This link is acknowledged by the world’s largest asset holder BlackRock. Groups like CarbonTracker, CDP, Ceres, and many others are developing increasingly sophisticated ways to analyze, report and communicate this risk in a format that investors and global markets can digest.

I do not mean to downplay the importance of the Paris Agreement (or the value of sound climate policy and regulatory approaches broadly). It is an incredibly important global agreement and worth embracing for many, many reasons. In the case of risk, the Paris Agreement provides a “North Star” citing a scientific 1.5- to 2-degrees Celsius target.

This target, in turn, allows for the development of science-based GHG targets within each sector. Then, institutional investors can begin to compare the performance of companies within a given sector based on their exposure to carbon risk (i.e., their respective carbon intensity per unit of revenue or profit). This creates competition among companies to demonstrate reduced exposure to carbon risk by demonstrating decarbonization.

Disruption of the Paris Agreement does not change scientific reality. From an investor perspective, a void at the al level could lead to a myriad of less uniform efforts at the subnational level, actually creating more uncertainty (read: even more “risk”) for investors. This means that pressure for multinationals to decarbonize all aspects of their operations and products is likely to continue.

Time will tell, but the reality of scientific constraints means that global markets will find a way to incorporate the cost of GHG emissions.

Image credit: Flickr/wbr_deluz

Joe Madden is the CEO @ EOS Climate