Zuwy's Pandora

The price of carbon hit a record low in Europe on Monday as the over-supply of emissions permits during the global economic downturn continued to undermine the carbon market. The price fell below 4.8 euros in early trading, before recovering to above 5 euros by late afternoon. Carbon permits are a mechanism designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, as companies have to pay to emit C02. A sharp drop in demand for energy has led to a massive oversupply of permits. Critics of the EU's Emissions Trading System also argue that the European Union issued too many permits in the first place. The EU has proposed freezing up to 900 million permits to tackle this oversupply. "There are too many permits because of the recession," said Isaac Valero, spokesman for EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard. The price of carbon recovered slightly on Monday after demand for an auction of 3.5 million permits was stronger than ...

By Emily Haves, Ashden Research Programme Coordinator Energy access is an increasingly hot topic in development circles, but what does it actually mean? We talk about it as if it’s a binary state – either you have it, or you don’t – but is this helpful? And how much is enough? Is hauling a car battery across town to charge it up so you can power a few lights for a few hours considered ‘access’?  Most people would say that being connected to the national grid means you have energy access. But what if this regularly cuts out without notice, as we saw dramatically in India last summer ? From my internet trawl, everyone writing about and working in this field is generally clear that ‘energy’ means electricity and clean cooking. Yet startlingly, few actually define ‘access’. The three attempts at definition I found came from the International Energy Agency  (IEA), a paper by UNIDO/The Earth Institute , and UNDP .  The first thing I noticed is that they ar...

In Defence of Performing Public Servants - Right of Reply - By: Nasir El-Rufai on ThisDay Back Page on 13 Oct 2012 The article entitled “The Bully Called Sanusi” by my brother - Dele Momodu on yet another brother of mine - Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is as evidently self-contradictory as it lacks objectivity. It also constitutes a disservice to the greater public good as to be expatiated in the course of this submission; hence the necessity for this rejoinder. Those who know me and read my Friday weekly column in THISDAY Newspaper know how critical I have been of the Jonathan administration, just as I was to its predecessor, the Yar’Adua administration; with the common thread being the lackluster performance of both administrations that has brought our beloved nation to its lowest ebb. Even so, there are exceptional public servants that have performed diligently with high level of intellect, uncommon integrity and outstanding record of public service that must not be rubbish...

Nigerians all over the social, print and electronic media have been voicing their opinion about the CBN's planned currency restructure, which has been greeted by diverse reactions from experts and laymen alike. This I have further broken down to 'Those who Know', 'The confused' and the 'Downright Clueless!!. Somehow it appears that those against the restructuring and review are more or in the majority, of which in my view they constitute the 'Agents of Disinfo' crew. This may not be entirely untrue, the reason being that they tend to be more vocal. However, 'The Clueless' takes the cake in terms of population/number who need to be thoroughly educated. Now let me expatiate a little more on these groups of individuals 1) The Experts a) Those Who know: Now this group consists of economists who are truly experts and tell the truth the way it should be and have refused to join the bandwagon just to become more popular. b) Agents...

A few weeks back I mentioned that power supply has improved, well I can authoritatively tell you that I didn't have light since 9p.m last  night till I left for work this morning. Coincidentally, I found an article that claimed there was drop in power supply, and I went 'exactly!!' Well, my belief about the steady power supply was hinged on the fact that, granted that i did not believe anything was done in terms of new infrastructure, I believed that Prof Nnaji had somehow got these lazy PHCN bunch to get to work. I speculated that it could be as a result of the imminent sale of PHCN(talks seem to have slowed a bit) and most staff want to be reabsorbed by the new owners or that Nnaji being an engineer knew what had to be fixed and ensured that was done by constant monitoring. Well as it appears by his exit and the events of today clearly, PHCN staff are back in their business of Sabotage! in just 2 weeks we lost 1000MW na im be say we go go back stone age in 2 months!...

Early enough in my marital life, even before the children started coming, l observed that hubby was the type who is so soft-hearted that he doesn't want to hurt a fly, so there will be a tendency for those around him to take him for granted. When the children started coming, especially from the first one, hubby was so enarmoured that he went shopping for both needed and unneeded items for the much cherished first son. Ordinarily, when you talk of an impulsive buyer, hubby has Grade A1. So when he bought stuff enough to last the baby for over a year, l wasn't surprised. As the children came, especially the first three, l observed that if l didn't tie my oja well, the children will climb on our heads and shit on them, so, the fights began. One thing a couple should realise very early in their marriage is UNITY in all disciplinary matters relating to their children.This is because children are very observant. They easily note the parent that is weak and ...

These people keep trying to pry this woman away from us what is going on? Anyway lucky her, Okonjo is unarguably the most sought after African female technocrat in the finance field. http://www.channelstv.com/home/2012/09/05/iweala-aganga-named-as-potential-replacements-for-outgoing-wto-head/