Climate Capitalism

Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., Co-Author, Climate Capitalism Writing this last Saturday afternoon, the nation and the world are warily observing the path and wrath of Hurricane Irene.  There have already been documented losses of life as well as reports that more than a million Americans have been left without power so far. Given that the changing [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Co-author, Climate Capitalism Many public policy gurus and economists will tell you that if we truly want to decarbonize our economy we need to actually put a price on carbon.  Just last week I conducted a book launch for Climate Capitalism in Portland with the support of Sustainable Business Oregon, Net Impact and [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Climate Strategist As many of this column’s readers know, I am from the U.S. and have lived in Europe and most recently Canada for the 10 years since getting my Ph.D. at the University of Colorado.  While I am no economist (my Ph.D. is in business), I believe that the recent U.S. debt [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., Climate Strategist George Monbiot would argue we need to stop jetsetting around the world if we want to get our carbon emissions in check and instead fly infrequently for “love miles” only (see video explanation below). He definitely has a point since we are on pace to emit 1.5 billon tons of [...]

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Today, ICLEI has more than 1200 local government members from 70 countries representing nearly 600 million people around the globe.  Members of ICLEI are committed to sustainable local development.

With such a mission, it’s not a huge surprise that the organization has come under fire from the Tea Party.

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By Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., CO2 IMPACT and Co-Author, Climate Capitalism Resilient cities, those that are working to transition towards a low-carbon economy while also preparing to avert the worst of climate change, are gaining interest and attention from policy makers, city councils and others worldwide. In fact, today, leaders from the public and private sector, [...]

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Lately I have been profiling cities and politicians who are leading the way towards a low-carbon future.  As many of the readers of this column know, I recently published a book with Hunter Lovins entitled Climate Capitalism Capitalism.  Hunter and I were disappointed by the lack of progress on climate action in North America largely [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., CEO, CO2 IMPACT I grew up in a conservative family. However most of my adult life I have leaned to the left, despite all my business training and capitalist tendencies.  I now live in Canada (Vancouver), but I of course continue to pay attention to developments in my native homeland. And naturally [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., CO2 IMPACT Cities are now home to a majority of the world’s population and are on the front line in the battle against climate change.  While action at the federal level in the U.S. has been painfully slow, cities in the U.S. are starting to lead by example at a local level. [...]

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By: Kate Shaw Capitalism, as we currently understand it, is failing and has been failing for some time.  Just as we adapted our wings, we need to adapt our understanding of capitalism and the framework within which it functions. First we assume that the last several decades have viewed capitalism as it is defined by [...]

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Here are my top 10 elected officials (or recently departed) who are showing courage in leading their communities, states and countries towards a profitable low carbon economy.

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By Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT Elizabeth May, Canada’s Leader of the Green Party, won an historic election on May 2nd.  She is the first ever elected Member of Parliament in Canada for the Green Party.  Despite an overwhelming victory for the Conservative party in Canada’s national elections on Monday, Elizabeth May made history. The Greens [...]

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By Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT Good old Donald Trump.  We all know there is no way he will ever be President of the U.S. and I think he knows it too. But that doesn’t mean he can’t use his media smarts to grow his brand.  Mr. Trump managed to briefly make a media storm out [...]

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I must admit that I have been heavily focused on renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro and biofuels as the medium-long-term path towards meeting our growing energy needs while minimizing our impacts on the climate and the environment.  And recently I spoke out against nuclear’s role in the long-term energy mix. I am [...]

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By Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., CO2 IMPACT Well, here we are again, Earth Day 2011.  Some of the readers of this weekly series on Climate Capitalism are well aware of my general dissatisfaction with the role that events like Earth Hour and even 350.org actually have in moving the needle on massive issues like climate change. [...]

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By Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., Co-Author, Climate Capitalism One lucky 3p reader who retweets this article will receive receive a signed, hardback edition of Climate Capitalism. Click the Tweet button above and tweet this article to enter! It is hard to believe, but about two years after I first suggested the crazy idea to Hunter Lovins [...]

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The past few weeks I have been openly critical of Earth Hour (from WWF) and even 350.org because I believe they could do so much more to mobilize the world to really move the lever on climate change.  I personally believe that in order to change our trajectory on this planet, we need to make [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., CO2 IMPACT A few weeks ago I was pretty critical of the potential impact of events like Earth Hour can actually have on the planet.  In subsequent interviews I referred to Earth Hour as green tokenism. I recently read a Guardian article about Climate Week in the UK.  Climate Week, founded by [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Ph.D. CO2 IMPACT Despite the weak regulatory environment at the federal level in both the U.S. and Canada, there is growing demand for helping executives understand how to mitigate climate change at a profit.  This demand comes from local regulation, such as California’s cap and trade program and Ontario’s regulation phasing out coal-fired [...]

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Amongst those of us in the climate strategy world there has been an ongoing debate about the potential role of nuclear energy as a transition technology until we can truly get to ubiquitous renewable energy.  Of course environmentalists have largely spoken out against nuclear for a long time.  Greenpeace, for example, has an entire campaign [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Ph.D. CO2 IMPACT In recent blog posts I have discussed the need to accelerate solutions that will move the needle on climate change as fast as possible in hopes of thwarting the worst impacts of climate change. Something I have yet to discuss in this series on Triple Pundit is the topic of [...]

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Boyd Cohen, Ph.D. CO2 IMPACT Yes, I am committed to playing my part to reducing my personal carbon footprint.  And yes, it is a good idea to raise awareness of the impacts our behavior and consumptive ways have on the planet. There is no arguing that programs like Earth Hour (March 26th) do raise some [...]

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Triple Pundit kindly offered me this digital real estate to discuss a range of topics related to intersecting commerce and climate change.  I like to call this “climate capitalism.” The past month or so I have done a deep dive on universities around the world who are starting to show an interest in promoting climate [...]

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Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT In 2009, I co-founded a company called CO2 IMPACT to develop high quality carbon offset projects in the Americas. While I have a Ph.D. in business, I have frequently been too focused on my values to justify the business case for a lower carbon footprint. I guess I care too much [...]

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Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT Last week in this column I wrote about a real “clean coal” solution, torrefied wood.  While I truly believe torrefied wood holds significant potential to assist in phasing out coal burning in power plants, coal is here to stay for a while, whether we like it or not. Surely there are [...]

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Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT Do you believe what the coal industry has spent millions on to convince Americans that the industry is cleaning itself up?  They argue that carbon sequestration and storage is right around the corner and that soon enough coal will be almost as clean as renewables. I suspect 99% of Triple Pundit’s [...]

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By Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT I remember going to a screening of Inconvenient Truth with Vancouver’s ex-mayor back in 2006, feeling a bit disappointed. While I am no climate scientist, I had been aware for some time of the scientific evidence that the climate is changing and humans are partially to blame. I was happy to [...]

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By Boyd Cohen, Ph.D. CO2 IMPACT As an American living in Canada I have been watching U.S. policy on clean energy from across the border for the past decade.  As an entrepreneur in the carbon market space, I also have a vested interest in seeing U.S. Federal policy advance with respect to promoting a low [...]

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By Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT In previous posts, I have written about climate capitalists generating carbon offsets, and climate capitalists pursuing opportunities across three generations of biofuels.  There was significant interest in both topics that I thought I should write about the potential for integrating carbon offsets with biofuels.  This Wednesday, from 4-5 Pacific Time, [...]

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By: Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT Our “addiction” to highly polluting and emitting fossil fuels presents serious challenges to achieving meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases (GHGs) in North America. Beyond that, the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China continue to grow and contribute to our unsustainable path. China even recently surpassed the U.S. as [...]

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