Features, June 2000 ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE WIRED REPORTS CARRY BARBS The internet would seem to be the ideal medium for distributing firm's environmental reports. But Paul Scott finds that internet revolution a mixed blessing. Internet reports are often difficult to access, time-consuming to download, risk excluding some stakeholders, and can allow companies to massage their results. More... CHEMICALS SECTOR FOCUS CHEMICAL COMPANIES EMBRACE STEWARDSHIP The 1984 Bhopal disaster was a grim wake-up call for the chemicals industry. Since then, the sector has been striving to reduce its environmental footprint. Mark Nicholls reports on its progress, and Environmental Finance ranks the five most sustainable firms. More... KYOTO PROTOCAL IS AUSTRALIA CHANGING ITS TUNE? The Australian government and civil service is debating whether Australia should become the first industrialised country to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, despite a 1998 decision not to move until the US does. Clive Hamilton reports from Canberra on the thinking behind this potentially radical decision. WEATHER RISK HEDGING OUTSIDE THE BOX Emily Saunderson looks at how some weather derivatives end-users are beginning to use more esoteric and complicated products to product themselves against adverse weather - such as critical day contracts, forecast temperature contracts, and precipitation derivatives. EMISSIONS TRADING THE COST OF CERTAINTY Overly rigorous requirements for companies to prove carbon dioxide reductions, and the costs of such accuracy, will discourage companies from voluntarily reducing emissions, argues Carlton Bartels, of Cantor Fitzgerald's environmental brokerage services division. HOW I SEE IT US CARBON TRADING PROJECT WINS FUNDING Environmental Financial Products (EFP), with a grant from the Joyce Foundation, is to design a voluntary greenhouse gas emissions trading system in the US Midwest. Richard Sandor, EFP's chairman and chief executive, sets out how it's to be done. FORESTRY PROJECTS INNOVATIVE FINANCING AND FOREST CONSERVATION Jeremy Weinstein is a lawyer involved with Pacificorp - an investor in the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project in Bolivia. Here he explains how the project combined sustainable development and biodiversity objectives with earning carbon credits through sequestration. KYOTO PROTOCOL ADDING UP KYOTO The industrialised world will be relying on Kyoto's flexible mechanisms if the Protocol is ratified. Christiaan Vrolijk, a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, considers where the carbon credits will come from, and what the effect would be of US non-ratification. MARKET VIEW COP 6 - BIG DECISIONS OR BIG DISAPPOINTMENTS Andrew Ertel and Anne Egelston argue that business could easily turn away from international carbon reduction projects if the wrong decisions are taken at COP 6. PROFILE DEFENDING THE PLANET Ð AND PINOCHET An interview with James Cameron, top international environment lawyer, head of Baker & McKenzie's Global Power and Energy Initiative, and, surprisingly, part of the legal team that freed Chile's ex-dictator from house arrest in the UK. FOR THE FULL STORY EVERY MONTH, SUBSCRIBE TO ENVIRONMENTAL FINANCE, OR CONTACT info@environmental-finance.com FOR OUR BACK ISSUES SERVICE