Subscribe to My Feed
Loading ...IDB Backs Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative / BID respalda Iniciativa para la Transparencia en las Industrias Extractivas / BID endossa Iniciativa pela Transparência nas Indústrias Extrativistas
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009From the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB): IDB Backs Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative The Inter-American Development Bank has endorsed the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which encourages governments and companies to disclose revenues and payments generated by oil, gas, and mining industries. The endorsement was approved today by the IDB’s Board of Executive Directors. EITI is […]
IFC: Financial Institutions Still Not Integrating Environment Issues Into the Investment Process
Friday, January 30th, 2009From the International Finance Corporation (IFC): New Report Urges Financial Industry to Integrate Sustainable Investing Practices A new report by IFC, the United Nations Global Compact, and the Swiss government finds that although the financial industry understands the necessity of developing methodologies and tools that examine environmental issues in the investment process, it is still […]
Lozano: Environment Institutions Need to be Accountable
Thursday, September 20th, 2007Synopsis in English: Last month Colombia's Environment Minister, Juan Lozano Ramírez, signed a Standard Internal Control Model (MECI) agreement between his Ministry (MAVDT) and the Comptroller General to signal his intention to have the Ministry utilize internal controls and audits to ensure proper handling of the resources under its purview. He took the occasion to […]
Chile Reforms Its EIA System
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007Synopsis in English: Last week in a joint press conference featuring the Chilean Ministers of Environment, Treasury, Economy, Energy and Mining presented a package of measures intended to make the national Environment Impact Assessment System (Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental – SEIA) more “efficient” and “agile.” The measures were mostly drafted by the National […]
Digitizing Environmental Enforcement
Saturday, August 4th, 2007Minas Gerais is moving to accomplish something no other Brazilian state — or probably any Latin American/ Caribbean (LAC) nation, for that matter — has yet done: digitize its environmental inspection and enforcement. Currently Minas is winding up a pilot project in which its 21 waste and sanitation inspectors do much of their work utilizing […]
Combatting Deforestation II: Agriculture and Forests
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007When I launched my series on deforestation in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) many months ago, I said I’d try to address different facets of the question in separate posts. My first tackled the question of just how serious is deforestation across LAC. Today, a look at the interface between agriculture, poverty and deforestation. […]
Camisea Revisited
Thursday, July 5th, 2007On 04 June a public hearing at Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) headquarters in Washington, D.C. was held on the recently released audit reports of the controversial Camisea project in Peru. The official IDB summary of the meeting (in Spanish only) is a bit difficult to find on the Bank’s special website on Camisea (unless of […]
Loan to Expand/Upgrade Uruguay’s Water and Sanitation Services / Préstamo para ampliar/mejorar servicios de agua y saneamiento
Thursday, June 28th, 2007From the World Bank: Uruguay: World Bank Approves US$50 Million to Expand and Upgrade Water and Sanitation Services The World Bank today approved a US$50 million loan to help Uruguay expand water and sanitation services to reach more residents in the country’s smaller towns and cities as well as improve the efficiency and sustainability of […]
Toxics in Electronics Redux: Greenpeace Responds
Monday, October 30th, 2006As I noted here previously on the Temas Blog, a few weeks back Treehugger invited me to guest blog about my reservations concerning Greenpeace’s handling of its report on the testing of laptops for certain substances. My entry drew quite a few comments, including a long, detailed reply reputedly penned by the scientist who did […]
Judging the Electronic Firms Revisited
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006Since I wrote my prior Temas blog entry on the Greenpeace “report card” on “greener electronics,” I have read a number of interesting reviews of the GP report written by other blogs. Two examples I suggest reading: Treehugger’s analysis and the debate in Dan Dilger’s “Roughly Drafted” blog on all things Apple. Reading these have […]