On the global stage, our team of experts will continue to press for an international pact<\/a> in 2010 that includes the participation of the United States, other major emitters and developing countries in a transparently managed international carbon market.<\/p>\n In December, the 193 nations taking part in the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen agreed in principle to conserve rainforests. The burning of forests accounts for more than one-sixth of global warming pollution worldwide.<\/p>\n Although the world’s leaders failed to produce a legally binding treaty for ratification, a coalition of environmental groups, business interests and developing countries began hammering out a framework to pay developing countries for not <\/i>cutting trees<\/a>. This is an idea EDF has long championed and developed with our Brazilian partners.<\/p>\n Called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), the plan makes rainforests worth more alive than dead, by awarding countries that reduce deforestation with credits to be sold on the international carbon market. Norway and other countries have pledged billions in financing.<\/p>\n A successful international treaty must include a strong, verifiable system for monitoring emissions. EDF played a central role in spurring progress towards enforceable monitoring standards in Copenhagen. Anticipating the importance of this issue, we showed how reduced deforestation can be verified accurately using satellite-based radar sensors.<\/p>\n Two decades after EDF first sounded the alarm on global warming, we won a huge victory in June 2009, when 219 House members voted to cap global warming pollution, passing the American Clean Energy and Security bill<\/a>. EDF was instrumental to the victory, the result of the largest advocacy campaign in our history.<\/p>\n We contributed scientific and economic research, expert testimony in Congress and nonstop efforts to persuade undecided House members in 40 key districts to vote yes.<\/p>\n EDF helped build momentum for national action by winning key state-level victories and defending them in court. We also co-founded the U.S. Climate Action Partnership<\/a>, an influential business-environmental alliance that provided a blueprint for legislation in the House and Senate.<\/p>\n With jobs at the center of the debate, we mapped businesses in major manufacturing states<\/a> whose employees are part of the new green economy. This helped convince legislators of the significant economic opportunities that will be unleashed by enacting a declining cap on carbon.<\/p>\n Passing a strong climate bill in the Senate. <\/b>Building on our efforts in the House, EDF’s climate team, more than 50 strong, now has its sights on the Senate<\/a>, where we must overcome an expected filibuster. To meet this formidable task, EDF co-founded a nonpartisan coalition of more than 70 environmental, civil rights, faith, labor and veterans groups.<\/p>\n Staff at the war-room-like headquarters in Washington, D.C. call supporters, enlist new allies and conduct opposition research. Our efforts range from buttonholing senators one by one to delivering 400,000 messages from our members urging legislators to pass a climate bill. “This is the defining environmental issue of our time,” says our legislative director Elizabeth Thompson. “We must act now, for our climate, our economy and our children.”<\/p>\n Engaging China and India on climate. <\/b>No international climate agreement can be successful without concrete commitments from China and India, Asia’s economic tigers. The U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen moved China<\/b>, the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, one notch closer to setting firm targets for emissions reductions.<\/p>\n EDF has worked in China since 1991<\/a>, helping to create a national market to cut sulfur dioxide pollution. Now we’re helping China tackle greenhouse gases in the same way. <\/p>\n Working with us, the China Beijing Equity Exchange established an environmental commodities exchange and completed its first trade in 2009, with emission credits generated by Green Commuting, a program EDF first developed for the Beijing Olympics that has expanded to more than 20 cities. The stage is now set for China’s eventual engagement in a global carbon market. <\/p>\n For India<\/b>, a decentralized nation of 1.2 billion people, action to control rapidly rising global warming pollution must begin at the local level. To reach the country’s 700 million people under the age of 35, we helped launch the Indian Youth Climate Network<\/a>, now 300,000 strong, that advocates climate action. <\/p>\n We also helped produce a popular film called A New Beginning, dramatizing the link between global warming and rural poverty. EDF will continue to engage China and India to meet the global warming challenge.<\/p>\n “India’s going to be a central climate player, so we’re positioning EDF as an honest broker for change,” says Richie Ahuja, the Delhi-based director of our India program.<\/p>\n Revolutionizing the electric grid.<\/b> Imagine if America’s aging electric grid were interactive, like the Internet. When the supply of electricity runs short, an intelligent grid could signal unneeded appliances to operate later. When solar or wind generation peaked, the grid could route excess power to the batteries of plug-in hybrid cars. Consumers could even sell their stored power to their utility.<\/p>\n That’s the vision of the Pecan Street Project<\/a>, an initiative developed by the City of Austin in collaboration with EDF, Austin Energy and the University of Texas. Our team’s goal is to reinvent the way electricity is generated and used. More than a dozen leading companies, including Dell, GE and IBM, have partnered with us this year to make that vision a reality.<\/p>\n Pecan Street puts Austin at the forefront of a movement to deliver electricity in ways that reward conservation and integrate clean energy sources, while creating jobs around the country. With its partners, EDF is preparing recommendations for smart-grid innovations like cooperative solar farms that can be replicated by cities nationwide. <\/p>\n Global warming is the most profound environmental challenge of our time — and the impacts are accelerating at an alarming rate. The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting faster than predicted and could begin to raise sea levels significantly. Rising waters threaten to submerge 52 low-lying island states by mid-century. Avoiding irreparable harm to our planet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Breakthrough: Hope for saving rainforests<\/h3>\n
Success story: House of Representatives passes historic climate legislation<\/h3>\n
Goals for 2010<\/h3>\n
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