But, not so fast. We are not like some sort of mice chasing a piece of cheese whenever it is placed in front of us. Unlike mice, we are not so singular in focus. We actually care who is placing the cheese and we may even ignore the cheese if it is not placed in the right way.

In short, pricing is never contextually or politically inert. Contrary to what many would like to think is a quick fix, a price for carbon is but one tool that must be accompanied by others to make sure that markets respond effectively and efficiently. Put too much faith in pricing as the only answer and success will be either elusive or found through sheer luck.

Consider the gasoline price spike of two summers ago. The market responded efficiently with the sales of gas-guzzlers dropping like a stone and consumers flocking to their fuel efficient neighbor. Pricing worked! But consider an alternative scenario. Imagine we faced the same price spike, but instead of its cause being the invisible hand of the market it was the very visible hand of a government gas tax.

Would consumers have been so pliable? Would auto suppliers have been so flummoxed? No, unlike our friends in Europe who accept government inflated gasoline prices, there would have been widespread revolt with defiant customers and auto execs remaining intractable.

Consider another example. In 2002, the Irish government instituted a 15 cent fee (aka tax) on plastic grocery bags. Within one year, plastic grocery bag use dropped by 94 percent. Score one for pricing-induced behavior change! Well not entirely. Unlike the experience in many US cities that are trying to institute similar initiatives (for example, San Francisco), the context in Ireland was ripe for the "plastax."

The reasons, in no particular order, include: there are no plastic bag manufacturers in Ireland to mount an organized opposition; there is no problem of leakage from neighboring countries or states that did not have a similar tax; almost all markets are parts of chains that are highly computerized with cash registers that already collect a national sales tax, so adding the bag tax involved a minimum of reprogramming; the country has a young, flexible population that has proved to be a good testing ground for innovation, from cell-phone services to nonsmoking laws.

In fact, the country was primed for change having just shifted from the Pound (or Punt) to the Euro; and people generally didn't mind paying the tax as the litter from the bags was seen as a common nuisance. All of this led up to the development of a norm that it was socially unacceptable to be seen carrying a plastic bag. In fact, it was downright rude, with violators being treated much in the same way as someone who did not curb their dog.

What does all this have to do with carbon pricing? Plenty.

But as has been the norm for Cape Wind, two steps forward, one step back. In short order, the Massachusetts Historical Society agreed with local Native American tribes that the Nantucket Sound is eligible to be listed as traditional cultural property on the National Register of Historic Places. Such a listing, if affirmed by the National Parks Service, would significantly delay the project by imposing additional permitting requirements. At Massachusetts’ Fifth (Annual) Conference on Clean Energy on Nov. 12, Mark Rodgers, Communications Director for Cape Wind, expressed optimism that the wind project would still be approved before the end of the year. “We think the National Park Service is going to make an expeditious decision in just a few weeks,” said Rodgers. “Never before has open ocean been declared traditional cultural property.” If the Department of Interior and the National Park Service rule in EMI’s favor, Rodgers said Cape Wind could begin construction by the end of next year and have the wind farm up and running by the end of 2012.

Guest blogger Yoni Cohen is focusing on green business as a joint-degree student at the Yale Law School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

How? The link is an obscure tax provision in the House version of the health care bill, explains tax attorney Jerome Breed, a partner at Bryan Cave LLP. The provision actually has nothing to do with health care either—its purpose is to raise revenue.

The provision centers around the idea of “economic substance.” It puts into legislation the idea that a transaction (such as putting solar panels on a business) has to have some economic substance (i.e. an economic return) to be eligible for a tax credit. In the case of solar panels, the federal government offers a tax credit of 30% of the cost of systems business owners or investors install. But what if the return is mostly in the tax credit—so that the owener or investor really doesn't get any other economic benefit? “It’s not clear if, when you take away the effect of the credit, there has been a meaningful change in their economic position,” explains Breed. So if an economic substance requirement passed, the owner or investor would no longer be eligible for the tax credit.

Renwables power isn’t the only industry that could get hit by this provision. The economic substance doctrine would also make it harder to use the low income housing tax credit, the credit for rehabbing historical buildings, and others, says Breed.

Why is the provision in the bill at all? It’s a revenue raiser. The House expects to get about $5.4 billion, mostly from penalties levied from transactions that don’t meet the economic substance test. The provision is also supposed to discourage people from entering into transactions that don’t result in economic substance, thus preventing tax money for being used for dubious purposes.

Clearly, some sort of provision disallowing dubious transactions is needed. Otherwise, “there could be fraud,” says Breed. “Someone could claim tax credit for building 1000 solar panels in the desert that don’t exist, or could claim that the panels cost $1 million when they only cost $100,000. So it’s appropriate to protect against that type of transaction.”

The worry is, though, that a blanket prohibition against transactions without economic substance will also knock out many legitimate transactions. Tax lawyers have been meeting with the Joint Committee on Taxation to push for a compromise position, so far without success.

The Environmental Defense Fund and the Asia Society are running a full-page ad in the NYTimes tomorrow using the dramatic disappearance of Himalayan glaciars to call on Obama and Hu Jintao to get serious on addressing climate change. The water that flows from the Tibetan Plateau is used by hundreds of millions of people. The Asia Society, showcasing the work of mountaineer and photographer David Breashears, who, during the past year, began doing expeditions to take photos that could be compared with photos from the early part of the century to show just how dramatic the melt has become.

Last week, three organizations: the Asia Society, the Center for American Progress and the Natural Resources Defense Council, released two reports calling on the government to put more funding into carbon capture and sequestration innovation. China, now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is furiously building new coal plants and the U.S. depends on coal for a little over 50% of its energy.

“We’ve got to keep our eyes on China,” said Alexander “Hap” Ellis of Rockport Capital Partners, five of whose portfolio companies have Chinese manufacturing facilities. “China is becoming a leader in the deployment of clean technology and … will be superb in manufacturing and in stimulating demand.”

“Ten years fast forward and this is an Asian game,” added Jörg Sperling of WHEB Ventures. “The days of billion dollar IPOs of European solar companies are gone.”

No kidding. Of the 16 European firms that pitched investors at the venture event, not a one was a solar startup. “Two years ago, it would be half solar companies” at a European cleantech venture day, said Howard Berke, a co-founder of thin-film solar company Konarka Technologies and a senior advisor to Good Energies, a renewable energy investment firm. “Solar is overbuilt, with too many non-differentiated products and names that have no brand recognition. Strong players with competitive technologies and scale of manufacturing will survive, but the solar sector has decreased significantly in terms of investment.”

In solar’s place, other technologies caught venture capitalists’ eyes. Sweden’s Chemrec generated the most interest in the event’s informal investor poll. The company’s technology converts paper mills’ waste byproduct into biofuels, biochemicals or power. Chemrec’s solution is already operating in both Swedish and American plants.

France’s Watteco has also made significant progress. A system on chip manufacturer, Watteco developed a smart-grid device to help home owners measure and manage their energy use. The firm has partnered with Cisco and negotiated a large deployment in China.

What about younger European firms? Given capital constraints and “competition coming from every province in China, I would encourage my fellow energy entrepreneurs to think of strategic corporate partnering earlier in the build out of your companies. That would also solve the problem of access to the US market and China,” said Berke.

Guest blogger Yoni Cohen is focusing on green business as a joint-degree student at the Yale Law School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

So how will this affect business? A key figure to focus on is $150 billion. That's the amount of investment developing countries will need each year by 2020 to tackle climate change, according to the European Union. Under proposals still being worked out, money would come from both (mostly Western) public coffers and the private sector (tentatively under an expanded version of the Clean Development Mechanism that provides economic incentives for companies to invest in emerging economies). Billions more will be spent in developed countries to cut carbon output.

If countries agree to the $150 billion goal, it could open up new opportunities for business. For one, existing plans for renewable energy generation in emerging economies, particularly in China and India, may get a shot in the arm. But the money wouldn't just focus on green energy. Agriculture, water management, and energy efficiency -- to name a few -- could also fall under the financial program. Ancillary industries, such as project management and carbon reporting, may similarly become sought after services.

For sure, issues still remain. At a G-20 summit in Scotland on Nov. 7, leaders failed to agree who should finance climate change investment. The sticking point: should developed countries, especially the U.S. and Europe, pick up most of the tab, or should emerging giants, like China and India, also put money on the table? Other issues relate to how much cash should come from public sources (and whether that money is new support, or just taken from other budgets)? And how would the private sector guarantee investment if a post-Kyoto agreement isn't in place?

Answers to these questions are needed before any money is doled out. But with expectations of a wide-ranging agreement at Copenhagen fading by the minute, politicians will want some good news to come out of the summit. That could make investing $150 billion a year in developing countries a high priority.

1) Smart grids/meters will take the world by storm. Annual global spending on the technology will jump to $33 billion by 2014 vs. $12 billion in 2008. That could increase electricity grids' efficiency two-fold and reduce consumers' energy consumption by 30%.

2) Oil-producing countries (particularly in the Middle East and North Africa) will become hotbeds for renewable energy. Close proximity to European markets, abundant cash to invest from oil revenues, and ideal weather conditions, especially for solar power, could pay off in a big way.

3) Sector-specific carbon cap-and-trade systems, say for the shipping or aviation industries, may take precedent over unwieldy national, regional, or global plans. Under the schemes, companies, wherever they're based, would agree to binding targets, then trade carbon credits between themselves.

That sounds all well and good, but I'm not sure I agree with all the predictions.

1/ This week a universal cell phone charger was adapted by the International Telecommunication Union, the industry's standards setting body. Sounds boring? Well imagine how many chargers the world would save if spares could be carried over from an old phone to a new one. GSMA reckons that every year, 51,000 tons of this sort of redundant chargers are made every year. The new standard also promises to cut standby power draw by 50%...

2/ Using technology from France’s Alstom, a 29-year-old power plant operated by American Electric Power in New Haven, W.V. became the first coal-fired power plant in the U.S. to capture a share of its greenhouse gas emissions and store them underground...

3/ And the Pew Research Center released authoritative survey data showing that sharply fewer Americans see solid evidence of global warming. Reasons for the shift remain unclear -- especially since other recent polls have found no such change -- but could it be that recession has soured voters' willingness to address uncertainty of any type?

As part of the 2009 Global Green Challenge, a driving duo has set a new distance record by going 311 miles on a single charge in a Tesla battery-powered car. That’s nearly 30% farther than the vehicle’s official specs.

Drivers Simon Hackett and Emilis Prelgauskas aren’t your everyday drivers. They set the record in Australia as part of the Eco Challenge, an 1,860-mile green car contest that includes vehicles powered by a variety of green fuels, from commercial diesel and hybrid cars to exotic solar-powered buggies built specifically for the race. Hackett and Prelgauskas told PC Authority that they kept the car at a constant, fairly low speed, averaging around 34 mph, to squeeze the most distance from the car’s 6,800 lithium battery cells.

Last week, I caught up with Martin Eberhard, co-founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors. At a manufacturing conference sponsored by Siemens in Minneapolis, Minn., Eberhard talked about the challenges of bringing Tesla from concept to showroom. Check out our chat below:

Siemens Thought Leadership from mabel lau on Vimeo.

"The Arctic is a special and fragile place on this planet,” said Jane Lubchenco in the release. She is under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “Climate change is happening faster in the Arctic than any other place on Earth — and with wide-ranging consequences. When I visited the northern corners of Alaska’s Arctic region earlier this year, I saw an area abundant with natural resources, diverse wildlife, proud local and native peoples — and a most uncertain future. This year’s Arctic Report Card underscores the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas pollution and adapting to climate changes already under way,” she added.

The 2009 report card highlights a number of changes:

· A change in large scale wind patterns affected by the loss of summer sea ice,
· The replacement of sustained multi-year sea ice by first-year sea ice than melts and reappears yearly,
· Warmer and fresher water in the upper ocean linked to new ice-free areas,
· A continued loss of the Greenland ice sheet,
· Less snow in North America and increased runoff in Siberia, and
· The effect of the loss of sea ice on Arctic plant, animal, and fish species.

Check out the whole report card at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard

1. York University, Schulich School of Business, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
2. University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, Ann Arbor, Mich., US.
3. Yale University, School of Management, New Haven, Conn., US.
4. Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, Palo Alto, Calif., US.
5. University of Notre Dame, Mendoza School of Business, Notre Dame, Ind., US.

For the full listing of the Global 100, and deeper details on each program, click here:
http://www.beyondgreypinstripes.org/rankings/index.cfm

And find more on this over at BW's MBA blog, "Getting in".

“Sembra” went on to hold a Q&A session, elaborating on the Chamber’s purported new position. But suddenly, Eric Wohlschlegel, the Chamber’s real press person, burst in through the back door of the Press Club’s Zenger Room. “This press conference is a hoax,” he said. “I don’t know who these people are, but they don’t represent the Chamber!”

Wohlschlegel had heard about the event just a few minutes before, when a reporter mistakenly turned up at the U.S. Chamber itself looking for the press conference. Press conference? What press conference? Hearing what it supposedly was about, Wohlschlegel rushed over to the Press Club to confront the imposters. A number of the 'reporters' in the room were also not real reporters.

It was too late for at least one media outlet. Reuters had already run a story on its webpage with the news of the Chamber’s reversal—and the story had been also picked up by the New York Times web page. Reuters ran a hasty correction. CNBC also was taken in.

Who was responsible for the hoax? My first thought was Greenpeace. After all, it was a well-organized, not inexpensive stunt. The hoaxers rented the room at the Press Club, created their own Chamber of Commerce stationary and website, and even had a phone number which led to voice mail saying “you have reached the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

But while a Greenpeace staffer was impressed by the stunt, he said his organization was not invovled. Instead, the imposters came from a prankster group called the Yes Men. In the past, they’ve been successful at impersonating everyone from a Dow Chemical spokesman (and appearing as such on BBC news) to ExxonMobil representatives.

From the first flight at Kitty Hawk, it took about 50 years to engineer the switch from spinning propellers to more efficient jet engines. Now wind technology could be about to make a similar design leap, barely a decade after the commercial industry’s birth in the U.S.

Using features drawn from jet engine design, FloDesign Wind Turbine (shown above in an artist's rendering) has developed a prototype that is three times more efficient at turning the wind into electricity than today’s towering, three-bladed models, according to CEO Stanley Kowalski III. Carefully shaped cowlings channel air into patterns that create spinning vortexes – like miniature tornadoes – as the currents exit the device. This trick accelerates the air as it pass through.

The technology could transform the commercial wind business with units that are easier to install, longer lasting, and more adaptable to a variety of environments. Today’s wind turbines can top out at 300 feet or taller, requiring a train of tractor trailers to haul tower sections and blades that are as a long as a football field. FloDesign’s new approach fits on a single rig.

Because its blades are lighter and smaller, the design starts spinning and making energy at lower wind speeds and is more tolerant of volatile wind patterns, making it a natural for windy niches where big turbines can’t fit, such as in cities, on ridgelines and beaches.

Scaled down blades also spin faster, reducing the need for the costly gear boxes that today's windmills must use to connect slow-moving rotors to a high-speed generator kits. With fewer gears and other moving parts, the company claims it can reduce the parts count in a turbine by up to 75%, thereby boosting reliability, too.

The Wilbraham (Mass.)-based company, which has also received funding from the Energy Dept., is hunting for another $25 million to deploy full scale test rigs. Last year, it landed two start-up awards from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including cash grants of $300,000. Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers committed $6 million in venture capital in an initial funding round in 2008.

Check out more here:

That's a sizeable amount of cash, though Soros didn't specify where the $1 billion would be spent other than saying 'stringent conditions' will be used to evaluate potential investments. And in an ironic twist, Soros, who made a sizeable chunk of his fortune through currency speculation, put his support behind carbon taxes, not cap-and-trade systems. His reason? Financial investors can too easily manipulate carbon markets.

Soros is wise to keep his cards close to his chest. With so much money on the table, potential deals could be given a 'Soros premium' if the billionaire focuses on a too-narrow clean energy brief. But some of his likes/dislikes are already known. Soros, for instance, has invested in clean coal technology, including Portsmouth (NH)-based Powerspan Corp that specializes in carbon capture technology.

Yet before we start speculating too much on where Soros will spend his cash, a word of caution is merited.