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Loading ...Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Valley of Mexico
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Earlier this year the City of Mexico released an inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2006 in the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico (Zona Metropolitana del Valle de México – ZMVM) to accompany its new plan of action on climate change (something I’ll cover separately in a forthcoming blog entry). I found […]
Uruguay Gets Its GEO
Friday, July 25th, 2008Earlier this month Uruguay’s GEO was finally unveiled with much fanfare by top Uruguayan environment officials and the local representative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). What’s a GEO? It’s probably the best known type of comprehensive environmental diagnosis available. “GEO” was the acronym for “Global Environment Outlook” first prepared by the in the […]
Why is LAC Slow to Tap Carbon Funds?
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008The Dominican Republic’s Environment Secretariat (SEMARENA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) recently co-hosted an event in Santo Domingo designed to prompt Dominicans into tapping the many international funding opportunities for projects related, directly or directly, to climate change (“carbon markets”). And well they should! For some reason […]
Two More World Bank Carbon Facilities
Friday, October 12th, 2007From the World Bank: Two New World Bank Carbon Facilities Will Help Fight Climate Change And DeforestationThe World Bank is working to increase significantly the world’s ability to tackle global climate change and deforestation with two new carbon finance facilities to benefit developing countries. An innovative Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) would prevent deforestation by […]
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 […]
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007It’s the type of photo-op you probably see on environment ministry or agency websites around the world, especially as World Environment Day (05 June) approaches. The Environment Minister, praising some company or group or individual for doing something deemed environmentally-friendly, often followed by a representative of the company touting the measure as a sign of […]
When is a Biogas Subsidy an Incineration Subsidy?
Monday, March 19th, 2007Recently a notice was forwarded to me about public hearings in Brazil on giving special breaks to projects that tap landfills for biogas to generate electricity. Well, if you've read this blog long you probably realized by now that anything having to do with waste interests me, so no surprise that I looked into it. […]
Anatomy of a Landfill Controversy
Thursday, March 15th, 2007Working on waste issues in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), you see a lot of controversies involving disposal sites. Many times it is some neighborhood that does not want a landfill anywhere near them, either because they fear it will affect their health or property values, they dislike the smell a badly managed site […]
Trash Photos XI: A Visit to the Landfill
Thursday, February 8th, 2007Someone recently asked whatever happened to my “Trash Photo” series. No, folks, I did not run out of trash- or recycling-related photos — not likely to happen anytime soon! No, I didn’t tire of posting in the series. I’m always ready to “talk trash.” (All right, keep the groans about my puns to a minimum!) […]
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 […]