A program to protect the Prairie Pothole Region, a 26,000-acre waterfowl-breeding habitat in the U.S. and Canada, has been validated as a greenhouse gas emission avoidance program, allowing carbon offsets from it to be sold.

Today, Rob Watson begins an indepth look at the 12 points Donella Meadows outlined in her seminal piece published by the Sustainability Institute, "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System." He starts with an examination of "constants, parameters (and) numbers” in the form of gas and carbon taxes.

The forestry sector was left out of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and faced restrictions under the Kyoto Protocol. Bur recent developments indicate forestry may play a key role in addressing climate change, while a new survey suggests offset buyers have a positive view of those originating in forestry projects.

OXFORD, U.K. and OAKLAND, Calif. -- A new study released today from EcoSecurities, Conservation International, the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, and ClimateBiz.com analyzes the perceptions and expectations driving corporate decisions to buy forestry carbon offsets.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A Point Carbon report published last week suggests greenhouse gas reduction targets outlined in the recent Waxman-Markey House climate change bill will require more carbon offsets than what will be available domestically.

Marc Stuart makes the case for fixing, not tossing, the Clean Development Mechanism.

The number of voluntary carbon offsets standards used in the market is vast and growing. So how can voluntary offset project developers and buyers wade through the mire of offsets to determine which credits are land mines and which are diamonds in the rough?

As the U.S. carbon and clean energy markets continue evolving, it’s important for everyone -- from policy makers to your average offset purchaser -- to understand why there's much more to it than building windmills.

Along with another major player in Google, the two companies are teaming up to harness and reuse the greenhouse gases released by a range of industrial operations.

MORAGA, Calif. -- A start-up company has begun promoting carbon offsets originating in smaller, mission-based projects throughout the world.

Everyone should go to www.350.org to see how s/he can contribute to dialing back our emissions so that we don't overshoot this figure by too much. Overshoot? Sadly, CO2 concentrations passed 350 ppm in 1988. Current concentrations are at 386 and climbing, a level that has not been seen for 43 million years!

Does global warming worry the Marriott hotel chain? "We face tremendous risk from climate change," Kathleen Matthews tells Marc Gunther. "Our hotels will be underwater, literally." Last week, Marriott invited its hotel guests to "green" their hotel stays by buying carbon offsets to protect rainforests in the Juma reserve in the state of Amazonas in Brazil.

Investors these days are rightfully leery of any product that isn't properly regulated, which is why a coalition of offset providers has formed the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance as a self-regulatory body for voluntary carbon offsets, according to this opinion piece. First on the agenda: a global code of conduct.