Climate change: Gurría welcomes calls for further emissions reductions

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría has welcomed the call by ministers in France, Germany and the UK for Europe to adopt a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 1990 levels by 2020.

“Securing an agreement on greenhouse gases that will engage a wide enough coalition of countries to make sufficient progress is one of the most important outstanding items on the international agenda. It is encouraging that these countries are prepared to advocate an ambitious way forward.”

Mr Gurría noted that if countries were to take on the ambitious targets needed to minimise the risks of a global temperature increase in excess of 2oC, a cost-effective policy mix would be essential. But contrary to claims from some quarters, he said that the 30% target need not imply heavy economic costs.

See full Press Release.

Cities and Green Growth : Mayors and Ministers Roundtable

Who: Mayors from many of the world’s most influential cities, with Ministers and senior business executives, will exchange ideas about how cities and regions can grow their economies and create jobs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing high quality urban services for their citizens.

What: They will focus on ideas such as:
• Grow the economy and reduce pollution through ‘green jobs’ by promoting research and development in eco-innovative infrastructure, transport and energy conservation.
• Hard-hit by the financial crisis, governments are having difficulty meeting the increased demand for social welfare funding and a cleaner environment.

Where: OECD Headquarters, 2 rue André Pascal, Paris 16.

When: at 9:00am Tuesday 25 May OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria will open the Roundtable. From 9:00-11:00, participating mayors, ministers and executives from GDF Suez, Oracle, GE and the European Investment Bank will discuss new ways to factor environmental and social objectives into urban economic polcies.

See full Details.

FASB in midst of "religious war" on fair value

Attempts to bring in fair value standard "almost like a religious war" board member claims.

A member of the US accounting standard setter has likened attempts to bring in fair value to a “religious war” in a speech with regulators this week.

Lawrence Smith, board member with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), made the comment in a panel discussion with US audit regulator, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, in the midst of a far ranging consultation on the accounting principle.

See full Article.

Banks voice fears at IASB proposals

IASB still receiving comments and complaints over new accounting proposals for loans despite the consultation period ending more than two weeks ago

Banks have been quick to condemn the new accounting proposals for loans, which they argue are impractical, costly and misguided.

Letters are still pouring into the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), despite the formal comment period closing more than two weeks ago, with Lloyds TSB, RBS and Barclays all sounding similar notes of alarm at the new rules.

See full Article.

Women on ASX200 increases to 9.2 per cent

The WOB Boardroom Diversity Index launched on International Women's Day in March 2010 is the first comprehensive publicly available data measuring female participation on the boards of organisations in the sectors listed below. The index components were selected because of their economic and social importance. The scarcity of women directors is a key aspect of the wider economic disadvantage experienced by women in the Australian workforce. In publishing the Boardroom Diversity Index, Women on Boards is seeking to alter the perspective of 'it just takes time' and provide practical strategies and resources for willing Chairmen and their advisors to improve female participation on boards.

See full Press Release.

Regulator fears small auditors over-reaching their ability

Small auditors causing concern for regulators

Smaller firms are accepting audit work without the resources needed to carry them out, the UK’s reporting regulator has warned.

Yesterday’s Audit Inspection Unit report found a higher proportion of audits conducted by smaller firms required significant improvement.

See full Article.

Multi nationals ready for anti avoidance reform

Details due for controlled foreign companies

Details of the reform of the anti tax avoidance regime for multi-national companies should be revealed this week, according to a report in the Financial Times.

See full Article.

Marriage, Work, and the Gender Education Gap in Latin America

In this paper we establish six stylized facts related to marriage and work in Latin America and present a simple model to account for them. First, skilled women are less likely to be married than unskilled women. Second, skilled women are less likely to be married than skilled men. Third, married skilled men are more likely to work than unmarried skilled men, but married skilled women are less likely to work than unmarried skilled women. Fourth, Latin American women are much more likely to marry a less skilled husband than is the case in other regions of the world. Five, when a skilled Latin American woman marries down, she is more likely to work than if she marries a more or equally educated man. Six, when a woman marries down, she tends to marry the “better” men in the sense that these are men that earn higher wages than those explained by the other observable characteristics. We present a simple game theoretic model that explains these facts with a single assumption: Latin American men, but not women, assign a greater value to having a stay-home wife.

See full Article, in pdf format.

Foreign bribery: South Africa should take a more proactive stance, says OECD

South Africa should step up its efforts to detect, investigate and prosecute cases of bribery in international business deals, according to a new report by the OECD’s Working Group on Bribery.

The 38-country OECD Working Group on Bribery, in the context of its regular cycle of reviews, has just completed a review of South Africa’s enforcement of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and related instruments.

Other main recommendations of the Group are that South Africa should:

See full Press Release.

América Latina es "la región más desigual del mundo"

América Latina y el Caribe "conforman la región más desigual del mundo" y esa desigualdad no sólo es alta, sino también muy persistente, concluyó el Informe Regional presentado en San José, Costa Rica, por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), que busca no sólo comprender las causas de este fenómeno, sino también ofrecer soluciones.

De acuerdo al estudio, 10 de los 15 países más desiguales del mundo "pertenecen a esta región".

Ver Artículo completo.

Inspectors call for ‘significant improvement’ in major audits

FRC's Audit Inspection Unit raises concerns after investigating 109 audits in the UK

Two FTSE 100 audits needed “significant improvement”, according to an annual review of the UK’s largest eight audit firms released this week.

Auditors have also been accused of altering documents before handing them to regulators and putting cost savings ahead of quality, in the review by the Audit Inspection Unit (AIU). It has raised a number of concerns following its inspection of 109 audits in the UK.

See full Article.

Industry regulation improving gender diversity on ASX200 boards

Women on Boards welcomes the news that more than 20 per cent of director appointments to ASX200 companies in 2010 have been women.

Executive director, Claire Braund, says this contrasts sharply with 2009, when only five percent of appointments were women.

"This excellent result has seen the number of women on ASX200 company boards increase from 8.7 per cent at the end of 2009 to 9.2 per cent in June 2010."

See full Press Release, in pdf fomrmat.

Mujeres latinoamericanas educadas "son menos casaderas"

Los hombres latinoamericanos valoran más la capacidad de una mujer en el hogar que su preparación académica a la hora de elegir una esposa. Y las mujeres más educadas tienen menos probabilidad de casarse que sus congéneres latinoamericanas sin una buena preparación escolar.

El estudio señala que, en la región, las mujeres más educadas tienen más dificultad para contraer matrimonio.

Esas a grandes rasgos fueron las conclusiones emitidas por un estudio llevado a cabo por la Escuela de Gobierno Kennedy de la Universidad de Harvard en Estados Unidos.

Ver Artículo completo.

Does income inequality threaten economic and social stability?

Income disparity could threaten economic stability and social fabric

Income inequality has increased significantly in the U.S. during the current recession, perhaps more than at any time in recent history, a trend that may have significant damaging effects on the economy and social fabric.

The BBC reported startling economic equality figures in a recent documentary: the top 200 wealthiest people in the world control more wealth than the bottom 4 billion. But what is more striking to many is a close look at the economic inequality in the homeland of the "American Dream." The United States is the most economically stratified society in the western world. As The Wall Street Journal reported, a recent study found that the top .01% or 14,000 American families hold 22.2% of wealth, and the bottom 90%, or over 133 million families, just 4% of the nation's wealth.

See full Article.

How Reid's Parliamentary Maneuvering Could Doom Reforms to the Oil Industry

With hopes for a comprehensive climate bill dead, the latest question for climate-watchers is whether or not Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid will offer a vote on Sen. Jay Rockefeller's amendment to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases for two years. Without a carbon pricing scheme or even a renewable electricity standard, the EPA is the only remaining avenue to restrict carbon emissions. The agency has drafted a slew of new regulations that would begin in January, but Republican senators and some moderate Democrats who fear the economic effects of unwieldy new restrictions have mounted a campaign to halt or stall these rules.

President Obama came out against Sen. Lisa Murkowski's bid to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases altogether, and a White House official said on Friday that the President would veto legislation that included Rockefeller's two-year delay.

See full Article.

No progress for women in UK boardrooms

Efforts to increase the number of women in the boardrooms of Britain's largest companies have failed, according to new research, with almost no change in the number of female directors over the past year.

The overall proportion of women on the boards of UK FTSE companies rose only marginally from 12.2% in 2009 to 12.6% in 2010, according to figures compiled by headhunters Egon Zehnder International.

See full Article.

Outsourcing threatened by poor risk management

From consumer electronics made in China to software written in India to call centres based in the Philippines, the global outsourcing market is worth thousands of billions of dollars annually, with around 95 per cent of organisations either buying, providing or both buying and providing outsourced services and functions.

But as a new global study has found, the management of outsourcing projects still leaves much to be desired. In fact according to a new global study, fewer than half of organisations are managing the risk of outsourced projects as effectively as they might be.

See full Article.

MIT Creates Global Award for Sustainability, but Only if You're in the U.S.

Why are sustainable innovations for the developing world limited to inventors based in the U.S.?

MIT once again takes the lead in driving bottom of the pyramid innovations with its latest announcement of the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability. From the Lemelson-MIT website:

The $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability honors inventors whose products or processes impact issues of global relevance, as well as issues that impact local communities in terms of meeting basic health needs, and building sustainable livelihoods for the world's poorest populations.

See full Article.

Are we entering The Age of Women?

For the past century women's progress has been cast as a struggle for equality with men. But what if equality isn't the end point? What if modern postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?

That's the question posed by Hanna Rosin in a provocative article in The Atlantic Monthly.

Men in ancient Greece tied off their left testicle in an effort to produce male heirs; women have killed themselves (or been killed) for failing to bear sons. Simone de Beauvoir suggested women so detested their femininity that they regarded their newborn daughters with irritation and disgust.Rosin says that now the centuries old preference for sons is eroding, and may even be reversing. Many successful women today want daughters who are like them, not sons.

See full Article.

Recalling the Salad Days of Greenpeace

With offices in 40 countries and some three million supporters, Greenpeace is unquestionably one of the world’s most influential environmental groups.

Yet its origins are humble, tracing back to a chaotic and impulsive boat journey into the intended blast zone of a nuclear weapons test off the coast of Alaska in 1971. Although the mission failed to achieve its aim — President Richard Nixon postponed the test while the boat was still en route to Alaska — the voyage stirred worldwide protests and drew media attention, providing a blueprint for the direct but nonviolent confrontations the group specializes in today.

See full Article.

Study: Boards Use Peers to Inflate Executive Pay

Corporate boards appear to routinely use compensation peer groups to artificially inflate pay for their chief executives, helping to contribute to the cascading increases in executive compensation over the last several years, according to an academic study on corporate governance.

While the rate of pay increases was nearly 11 percent in one recent year, the study highlights one of the various ways that corporate boards go about determining huge compensation packages for executives.

See full Article.

Bulls 1 supporters 0: torturing animals is unacceptable, for whatever reason

Now they are arguing that it is a reduction in liberty. However, liberty has its limits and enjoyment of the torture of animals is not liberty, nor culture nor history.

Toros 1 aficionados 0: torturar animales es inaceptable, por la razón que sea

Ahora nos dan los argumentos de que hay menos libertado. Pues que se enteren que no tenemos libertad sin límites y disfrutar de la tortura de animales no es ni libertad, ni cultura ni historia.

Experts demand reform of international standards

IFRS need more oversight - possibly even the UK Parliament

A group of experts hascalled for a radical overhaul of international accounting standards blaming them for producing "adverse consequences" in the financial crisis and describing them as "flawed".

The broadside came in a letter to The Times signed by eight academics, fund managers and politicians.

See full Article.

Audit watchdog says profession must up its game

Professional Oversight Board says it has "significant concerns" about the regulatory work of institutes and efforts to open up the audit market have had little impact

Watchdogs have warned that accountancy institutes must improve their monitoring of auditors as the profession continues to come under fire for its work in signing off company accounts.

In a report to business secretary Vince Cable, the Professional Oversight Board said it had "significant concerns" about the work of the institutes charged with keeping an eye on audit firms.

See full Article.

City minister to set out plans to disband FSA

Mark Hoban kicks off a hectic two days for the Treasury tomorrow as he gives top bankers and business leaders further details of the coalitions plans for reform

Mark Hoban, the City minister, will use a speech to an audience of top bankers and business leaders tomorrow to flesh out the coalition's plans to tear up Labour's regulatory system and disband the Financial Services Authority.

See full Article.

Pushed Along by Wind, Power Storage Grows

The rapid growth of wind farms, whose output is hard to schedule reliably or even predict, has the nation’s electricity providers scrambling to develop energy storage to ensure stability and improve profits.

A battery system in Presidio, Tex., is intended to improve reliability in the town, served by only one major transmission line.
As the wind installations multiply, companies have found themselves dumping energy late at night, adjusting the blades so they do not catch the wind, because there is no demand for the power. And grid operators, accustomed to meeting demand by adjusting supplies, are now struggling to maintain stability as supplies fluctuate.

See full Article.

Accountant's work is complete fiction

TS hears an accountant turned children's author is trying to topple D-list celebrities and chefs from their lofty perch at the top of the Christmas bookselling charts.

Tim Lerwill is a partner at Bath firm Richardson Groves by day but in his spare time, has also carved out an alternative career writing children's stories, inspired by his childhood growing up on a farm in North Devon.

See full Article.

T. Boone Pickens Just Dropkicked The American Wind Industry

T. Boone Pickens' newest version of the Pickens Plan to reduce oil imports depends almost entirely on natural gas. Wind power, which played a key role in the original Pickens Plan, isn't even mentioned.

Which is clearly a bearish sign for US wind.

Forrest Wilder at Texas Observer has more on the Pickens turnaround:

See full Article.

Filling in the 'Missing Pieces': How Mary Ellen Iskenderian and Women's World Banking Are Redefining Microfinance

Mary Ellen Iskenderian remembers the moment when she discovered her purpose in life.

As a child, her parents often took her to visit her father's family in Turkey where she saw, for the first time, people living in utter poverty. She remembers thinking, "I don't want to spend my life looking the other way." She hasn't. After graduating from Georgetown University and Yale with degrees in management and international finance, she worked for 17 years for Lehman Brothers and an affiliate of the World Bank -- largely in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union -- linking newly freed entrepreneurs with sources of capital. In 2006, she became president and CEO of New York City-based Women's World Banking (WWB), a global network of 40 microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks in 28 developing countries.

See full Article.

Who Cooked the Planet?

Never say that the gods lack a sense of humor. I bet they’re still chuckling on Olympus over the decision to make the first half of 2010 — the year in which all hope of action to limit climate change died — the hottest such stretch on record.

Of course, you can’t infer trends in global temperatures from one year’s experience. But ignoring that fact has long been one of the favorite tricks of climate-change deniers: they point to an unusually warm year in the past, and say “See, the planet has been cooling, not warming, since 1998!”

See full Article.

What will happen to Financial Reporting Council?

The Treasury has put out its consultation paper covering its big plan for restructuring financial regulation in the UK.

Has heavily trailed the Bank of England wins most of the spoils creating a vast superstructure of regulation that is intended to be the all-seeing and all-knowing guardian of our financial system.

At the heart of the proposals is a question about what to do with the Financial Reporting Council - the body that supervises public company audit, UK accounting standards, the disciplining of errant accountants, corporate governance and financial reporting.

See full Article.

California's global warming law is creating state jobs

The state's landmark global warming law has yet to create the promised bonanza of green jobs, but it has boosted payrolls in another sector of the economy: state government.

At a time of budget cuts and state worker furloughs, the state agency primarily responsible for regulating global warming has bulked up its staff as it prepares to enforce AB 32, the climate change law signed in 2006 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

See full Article.

Government looks at merging FRC and FSA

Accountancy regulator could be merged with Financial Services Authority

The government has proposed merging the UK's listing authority, the Financial Services Authority, with the Financial Reporting Council, the body that regulates the accounting profession and financial reporting in the UK.

The proposal comes in a paper published by The Treasury today as part of proposals for sweeping reform of financial regulation in the UK.

See full Artcle.

How New Environmental Regulations Are Pushing Speculators Into Chinese Commodities

Sharp inflation for a variety of Chinese commodities is leading many in China to suspect investment speculation as the underlying cause, rather than simple consumption demand.

When commodity prices are volatile, farmers become traders:

See full Article.

Why It Pays to Link Executive Compensation with Corporate Debt

The recent financial crisis, triggered primarily by bad bets in the financial sector, has brought the reality of corporate failure to the fore, adding momentum to the idea that executive compensation should be tied more closely to corporate debt rather than equity. For example, American International Group (AIG), after being bailed out by taxpayers, announced that it will link incentive pay to the value of the troubled insurer's bonds.

For decades, companies have tied executive compensation to equity, such as stocks and options, but the idea of adding debt-like instruments to the mix -- such as pensions or deferred compensation paid to executives from inside the firm (known as "inside" debt) -- is gaining new attention.

See full Article.

CEBS has commented on the IASB's Fair Value Option for Financial Liabilities ED

CEBS has submitted its comments on the IASB's Exposure Draft ED/2010/4 Fair Value Option for Financial Liabilities.

See Comment Letters.

Can I use water and be green?

It's not too late to chance your wasteful ways with water

It's a piece of water-based folklore to rival St Swithin's 40-day hypothesis, but when a hosepipe ban is enforced it usually starts raining. Unfortunately even a good soaking won't fill up these parched aquifers. We've had the driest January to June for 71 years. A crowded island, the wrong type of rainfall (frequent deluges) on the wrong type of surface (increasingly concreted) and a Victorian system all conspire to give us less available water per person than Israel.

See full Article.

US Senate drops bill to cap carbon emissions

Plan to charge large polluters abandoned in favour of narrower legislation focusing on increasing firms' liability for oil spills

Senate Democrats hope to pass a narrower energy bill next week that would increase the liability of companies for oil spills, for instance in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features
A major climate change bill that would have capped carbon emissions has been abandoned by Democrats in the US Senate in the face of opposition from both sides of the house.

See full Article.

The Trust Gap

Amazon deforestation in dramatic decline, official figures show

Increased use of satellite data and new tactics to deter loggers have led to drop, says Brazilian environment agency

A deforested area in the Amazonian rainforest. Government figures say deforestation is in dramatic decline. Photograph: Jefferson Ruddy/AFP/Getty Images
Large-scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell dramatically last year, according to official figures released yesterday.

See full Article.

China jails writer for 15 years for 'endangering state security'

Human rights organisations attack heavy sentence on Uighur journalist who had warned about ethnic violence in Xinjiang

Human rights groups have attacked the heavy sentence a Chinese court has imposed on a Uighur writer who posted critical articles online and spoke to foreign journalists after last year's riots in Xinjiang.

A court jailed Gheyrat Niyaz – known in Chinese as Hailaite Niyazi – for 15 years at a hearing on Friday for endangering state security. The 51-year-old had been detained since October.

See full Article.

CEBS has commented on the IASB's Reporting Entity ED (part of the Conceptual Framework review)

CEBS has today submitted its comments on the IASB's Exposure Draft ED/2010/2 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting - The Reporting Entity.

See all comment Letters.

Air-conditioning: Keeping cool and green

Innovations in air-conditioning systems mean cooling down buildings is going to require less energy

“AN ABSOLUTE dog’s breakfast” is how David Collins describes the standard of fan blades in air-conditioning systems. This might seem to be something that would vex only an engineer like Mr Collins, the boss of Synergetics Environmental Engineering, based in Melbourne, Australia. But it is a big problem. If blades were designed for better aerodynamic efficiency, instead of for being stamped from sheet metal as cheaply as possible, the electricity consumption of many cooling systems could, he says, be cut by a third.

See full Article.

Encuesta del gasto de las empresas en protección ambiental. Año 2008

Las inversiones más importantes3 se destinaron a reducir las emisiones atmosféricas (aunque su importe total registró una disminución del 0,7% respecto al año anterior), a la gestión de las aguas residuales (su importe creció un 4,5%) y a la gestión de residuos (aumentó un 5,6%).

Datos por sectores industriales
El sector eléctrico fue el mayor inversor en protección del medio ambiente en el año 2008, on 567,2 millones de euros, un 14,3% más que en el año anterior.

Ver Nota de Prensa completa, en formato pdf.

Corporate governance in America: The fight for better boards

Financial reformers try to redefine what it is to be a shareholder

NEW regulations are emerging from Congress in response to the meltdown in the financial industry. Yet their impact, likely to be felt by every public company in America, may weaken rather than strengthen corporate governance.

It was the glaring weaknesses exposed in the boards of Wall Street giants such as Citigroup and Lehman Brothers that prompted some in Congress to propose making it easier for shareholders to nominate candidates for election as directors—something that had hitherto been costly and time-consuming. CalPERS, a big Californian pension fund, is said to have been recruiting a bench of candidates in expectation of a sharp increase in contested elections.

See full Article.

Dropping the ball on global warming - How the World Works

As temperatures rise, the chances for meaningful climate change legislation fall. But that can't last forever

Environmentalists are upset at Obama for putting more effort and political capital into health care and bank reform than climate change. Their frustration is understandable. As the hottest year on record marches forward, with extraordinarily high temperatures registered all over the world in recent weeks, the chances that the Senate will pass a meaningful energy bill have steadily dwindled. David Leonhardt excellent summary of the incredibly shrinking scope of energy legislation ambition in today's New York Times makes for glum reading.

See full Article.

Banyan: Asia's alarming cities

How Asian cities are built will determine the prospects for global carbon emissions. Oh dear

IF YOU are the sort to worry at night about man-induced climate change, then book a stay at any of the new high-rise hotels going up on the edge of China’s big cities—start looking for them around the third ring road. When you stagger red-eyed out of bed to peer into the murky dawn, you will see rank upon serried rank of raw “superblock” developments, a mile apart, marching into the distance. You think of the emissions involved in their carbon-hungry construction, the traffic jams on the arteries tying them into the expanding city, and the new coal-fired power stations being built to light them up. And you wonder how Asia can change its habits—energy consumption grew by 70% in the ten years to 2008—before it is too late for all of us.

See full Article.

The controversies in climate science: Science behind closed doors

Two new reports say the science of climate change is fine, but that some scientists and the institutions they work in need to change their attitudes

THE winter of 2009 was a rough time for climate science. In November, in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate conference, over 1,000 private e-mails from and to researchers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), a part of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Britain, appeared on the internet, presumably after being stolen. At the same time a controversy was bubbling up in India over a claim in the 2007 assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the Himalayas could lose all their glaciers in 25 years, which was wrong.

See full Article.

CEBS organised a public hearing on transparency issues

The Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) organised a public hearing in to preview the findings of this year’s follow-up work assessing banks’ transparency. CEBS will present the findings of its analysis of disclosures provided i) in banks’ 2009 audited annual reports and ii) under Pillar 3 and seek the industry’s views on these conclusions prior to the reports' publication.

See full Discussion Notes, in pdf format.