may day may day may day

Following yesterday’s piece about JP Morgan buying Climate Care, BBC and several newspapers this morning report on another major collaboration between conservationists and money makers. This time the goal is to place a financial value on rainforests, those giant planetary utilities that have been so ravaged for so long. One of the directors of Canopy Capital (the financiers of a deal to protect Guyana’s pristine Iwokrama rainforest) puts it nicely in today’s Independent, asking “How can it be that Google’s services are worth billions but those from all the world’s rainforests amount to nothing?”
 
Expect to see a lot more work on valuing rainforests and creating financial incentives for their preservation in the months and years ahead. The Prince of Wales has launched his own Rainforests Project backed by a number of NGOs and multinationals, in an effort to find practical and profitable solutions to reverse the collapse of these vital eco-systems. As the profile of climate change peaks, it’s about time that rainforests (which of course play a central role in mitigating global warming by acting as a natural thermostat and storing carbon) took centre stage again. And if people make some money out of saving something of benefit to the whole world, at least it’s profit with a purpose. Iwokrama is one of just four intact rainforests left on the planet. So I’m 100% behind this deal.
 

It’s been a while. OK, so blogging isn’t as easy as I hoped, not with niggling things like work getting in the way. No point in recalling the last six weeks, but suffice to say they have been filled with some very interesting client work, some interesting new friends, and no holidays. On Monday Planet 2050 was pleased to sponsor the Green Alliance annual lecture, which marked the first environment speech by the newish leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg. Nothing particularly earth shattering about his speech, but as ever with the Green Alliance, the evening provided the opportunity to catch up with old friends from the environmental movement and engage in a bit of light plotting. Clegg can be amusing, especially off the cuff. He was handed one opportunity when, towards the end of what I found a rather wooden (and, unusually for Clegg, scripted) speech, the room suddenly fell into darkness. He coped well and raised a laugh. Later, after being asked a bundle of three questions which were, to say the least, somewhat dry and technical, he raised a titter in the back row with the observation that it was clearly going to be a light-hearted evening. Geoffrey Lean of the Independent (a giant in environmental reporting) asked the last question, which was mercifully cheeky and got the room ready for its post-lecture wine and nibbles. Was it true, Geoff asked, that Nick Clegg was the only member of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet who had not listed the environment in his top three interests? ‘Rubbish’, came the retort. I had some American clients in town. General verdict: Clegg is no Obama, but shows signs of promise. If you want a more serious account of the evening, see the BBC story here.