The Singapore carbon tax is coming - applicable to emissions from 2019 onwards The price point by the Government is broadly aligned with a number of other schemes globally Businesses should seek to understand the direct or indirect impact of the carbon tax on them and consider exploring scenarios where the level of ambition for Singapore emissions reductions is increased Businesses can also consider what efficiency or alternative energy options might be available to them to r

In coming months, the world's biggest carbon market is planned to be launch. Current estimates suggest that China's national carbon trading scheme will be launched in November at the earliest, though the launch of the scheme has been delayed already from early 2017 to July 2017 and now to November. The model being proposed for China is a cap and trade emissions trading scheme. In this type of scheme, emitters are required to obtain and acquit permits for each tonne of emissio

In Australia, the Commonwealth Bank spent quite a bit of time in the headlines this week. There was one news story however that got lost amongst the other big stories. This week, proceedings were filed in the Federal Court of Australia on behalf of two Commonwealth Bank shareholders. The shareholders allege that the bank has failed to adequately disclose climate change risk in its 2016 annual report. They are also seeking an injunction to prevent these omissions in future ann

Electric vehicles (EVs) are in the news again this week. Last week, I gave some information about what manufacturers are doing and how EV uptake will be driven by consumers - as the costs of a new electric vehicle reduce over time; eventually becoming cheaper than a traditional internal combustion vehicle. The news this week is all about Governments and what they're doing to increase uptake of electric vehicles. This week saw an announcement by the UK indicating that sales of

This coming week, on the 28th of July, Tesla is expected to deliver the first 30 Model 3's - with a further expectation to deliver 100 cars in August and 1,500 in September. This will no doubt trigger a great deal of media interest and continued reporting on forecasted uptake of electric vehicles. Both the Chevrolet Bolt (for which the first deliveries were in December 2016) and the Tesla Model 3 are considered to be mass market electric vehicles. These are long range electri

Back in 2009, the G20 formed the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as the successor to the Financial Stability Forum. The FSB has a critical role in the reform of international financial regulation. At the G20 meeting in 2015, the FSB were asked to start to consider climate risk. The major economies that make up the G20 have a vested interest in ensuring financial systems are resilient to risks that may materialise in the future. In the years preceding the 2015 G20 meeting, the

COP21 targets The 21st session of the Conference of Parties (COP) at the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015 culminated in the Paris Agreement. The aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2°C, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase further to 1.5°C. Under the Agreement, signatory nations set their own emissions reduction targets; called Nationally Determined Contributions. Since COP21, 132 out of a total 19