Stories: Walking the Talk: WRI’s Sustainability Initiative

This week WRI posted its latest CO2 Emissions Inventory report, the latest report that documents the organization’s CO2 emissions and efforts to reduce them.

There are two ways the U.S. government could bring consistency and credibility to the voluntary carbon offset market: endorse an existing program and provide guidance, oversight and/or enforcement.

Over the last year I’ve been visiting cities around the world, studying their bus systems. My review includes many aspects ranging from the political and managerial environments that allowed the different bus systems to be implemented to the actual design of the systems themselves.

Trends to Watch is WRI’s annual forecast of emerging issues that will have major impacts on environmental coverage in 2008. On climate change: what will happen between COP-13 in Bali, and COP-14 in Poznan? What role will China play? Will we see new legislation and regulations from Congress or the EPA? Where will biofuels and technology go? Where will the water come from? WRI President Jonathan Lash makes his predictions at the National Press Club.

Two major global warming gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are emitted in large quantities by the U.S. agriculture industry (70% and 30% of total U.S. emissions, respectively). Conservation programs in the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill offer opportunities to decrease these emissions, as well as broadly address climate change. The technologies to mitigate GHG emissions exist, and farmers could stand to benefit from their implementation.