The recent Kyoto meeting taking place in
Montreal, Canada holds a special significance; it reaffirms the commitment of
various nations towards reducing GHG (green house gasses) which are thought to
be the leading cause of the global warming phenomena. As much as the treaty has
brought to light the affects of GHG it has been unsuccessful in convincing the
United States of America and Australia to join in At this moment there is too
much hype and little action in the right direction.
Profitability and social issues dominate the
agenda, while environmental issues have been put on the back burner. We can
only find a resolve to our current environmental issues if we get the market
involved.
This has
been successfully demonstrated by the Kyoto protocol, which has allowed for the
formation of the carbon credit market, where carbon credits are traded just
like stocks are traded in the stock market. At the present moment there is too
much too lose for the United States of America by signing the Kyoto protocol.
The US estimates that it will cost the US economy $400 billion and thousands of
jobs by signing the Kyoto protocol (The Wall Street Journal). Surely there must
be a better way to get the biggest polluter of GHG involved. There are other
issues that are slowing down the shift towards environmentally friendly
technologies or fuels.
The biggest of these issues is the lack of
resources. Lack of funding at the grass root level is hampering the process.
Young entrepreneurs like me find themselves in a fix when it comes to raising
financing for environmentally safe projects. Resources need to be made
available to help support environmental projects. Other issues that are
hindering the process are, high cost of initial investment (R&D), small
market for the products, and a long time frame needed for the ROI (return on
investment).
Slowly though, the realization is setting in
that some drastic measures need to be taken in order to curb the effects of GHG
and other pollutants. Companies such as Chevron, BP, Shell, Toyota and GE are
leading the way to help educate the public, gather momentum and apply indirect
pressure of companies and governments to take green action. The process of
implementing clean technologies to generate green fuel will take years if not
decades to commercialize.

