Rio+20 paints a target on its back

It’s always easy to take the piss out of climate conferences. Thousands of activists and diplomats flying across the planet to sign a milquetoast, watered-down, pre-negotiated statement (when they even manage to do that) are crying out to be lampooned by anyone who follows the issue (and of course, a plethora of indignant environmentalists angry they didn’t get invited).

In a rare display of maturity I’ve decided not to bang this particular drum when it comes to the Rio+20 meeting scheduled for June, a United Nations sponsored meeting on sustainable development that marks the 20^th anniversary of a 1992 Rio environment summit. But when it comes to the venue for the event, I simply can’t keep my trap shut.

Rio’s new take on carbon markets

Rio de Janeiro next year will launch a market for carbon credits with an interesting twist – it’s based primarily on forestry. Most emissions trading systems evolved from the 1980s campaign to cut pollution that was causing acid rain, and are generally focused on emissions of carbon dioxide from factories and power plants. Rio had talked about a system like this, but it didn’t make a huge amount of sense because most of Rio’s emissions come from cars and trucks and from illegal landfills.