The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now admits that it was wrong about a prediction that some Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035. The IPCC now admits that its 2007 prediction was “poorly substantiated” and that “well-established standards of evidence were not applied properly.”

The prediction of the early demise of Himalayan glaciers was made in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report on global warming. CNN reports that IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri came clean during an energy meeting in Dhabi.

The mistaken claim of the glacial melting in the Himalayan region was traced back to a 1999 article in the popular science magazine, The New Journal.

However, Pachauri also insisted that the mistake does not alter the IPCC’s claims that climate change is made worse by human activity. He said that although the IPCC “slipped on one number, I don’t think it takes anything away from the overwhelming scientific evidence of what’s happening with the climate of this Earth.”

CNN reports that the World Glacier Monitoring Service says part of the problem is that there is very little data of any kind to measure if or how fast these glaciers are retreating.

The bombshell admission that at least one prediction in the IPCC’s document was fudged is sure to flame the opposition against cap-and-trade legislation in the U.S.

However, it’s unlikely to actually change the Obama administration’s commitment to put America on course to reduce GHG emissions.

Now that EPA officially says carbon dioxide (CO2) is a dangerous air pollutant, what’s it mean for business?

It’s high time to embrace concepts like energy efficiency or energy conservation or whatever you want to call it. Most smart money’s on those who are looking for ways to use less energy and rely more on power made by renewable sources like solar, wind and geothermal to reduce their company’s carbon footprint.

Reason: EPA’s action gives the Obama administration the ticket to force radical changes throughout the American economy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. So, the fewer GHG emissions your facility creates directly, or indirectly by buying electricity produced by burning fossil fuels, the cheaper it will be for you to operate and the fewer regulatory hassles you’ll have to deal with.

Benefit: Whether your company makes these changes willingly or not, everybody can claim green credits for reducing GHG emissions and helping fight climate change.

In the short term, the biggest changes flowing from this “endangerment” finding is that it clears the way for EPA to:

1. impose tailpipe standards on GHG emissions from cars and trucks.  It will be the first time EPA sets GHG tailpipe emission standards, and
2. force industrial facilities to actually control and reduce their GHG releases by installing what’s known as best available control technology.

EPA is expected to break regulatory speed records to get both Clean Air Act rules out in final form by March 2010.

At first, EPA says regulation will be limited to the 13,000 largest facilities — the ones that emit 25,000 metric tons or more of GHGs a year. But many fear EPA will be forced to regulate smaller facilities as well, and all EPA has to do is to lower this 25,000 ton threshold.

There’s already precedent to do this. Oregon’s GHG reporting rule, for example, starts by regulating those that emit 25,000 metric tons per year. But in year two of the program, the reporting threshold falls to 2,500 metric tons per year. The reporting threshold in Washington state is 10,000 metric tons per year.

The tailpipe GHG emission standard will force U.S. automakers to make more fuel efficient vehicles.

Normally, the auto industry would raise all kinds of ruckus to avoid making more efficient cars. However, now that GM and Chrysler fell into bankruptcy and were bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer, President Obama gets to call the shots on this issue, so they won’t be able to oppose the new standards.

Most agree that EPA’s regulation will be far tougher on industry and business than the proposed cap-and-trade program being negotiated in Congress.

Obama has said he prefers the national cap-and-trade program and will restrain EPA if Congress approves emission trading program legislation.

Will the Democrats ever line up enough votes to get climate change legislation out of the Senate?

It’s looking doubtful now because Sen. James Webb (D-VA) is speaking out against pending cap-and-trade legislation, and he says he won’t support it. That’ll make it tough to get the 60 votes needed in the Senate to overcome Republican filibustering.

Webb announced this week he’s no fan of the bill from Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) that calls for a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Webb’s possible defection and “no” vote against the pending cap-and-trade bill seems to offset the Republican’s lone supporter of cap-and-trade, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

The cap-and-trade idea is too complex, would create a costly government bureaucracy and eventually run the coal industry out of business, Webb says.

Plus, the Virginian predicts that the only winners in cap-and-trade will be all the middlemen in the trading game who will make all the money. Webb is not joining the global-warming denier crowd. He just seems to think the cap-and-trade bill won’t get the job done — the job meaning energy security.

Instead of spending all that cap-and-trade money on carbon reductions, Webb has a different idea. He wants the government to spend $10 billion to eventually $100 billion to help prop up the nuclear power industry. To do this, he and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) have proposed their own Clean Energy Act of 2009. Their use of terms like “clean” and “carbon-free” are generally euphemisms for nuclear power.

The Webb/Alexander proposal would also direct taxpayer money to study:

• carbon capture technologies
• non-ethanol biofuels
• electric vehicles and electrical storage
• cost-competitive solar power, and
• technology to reduce nuclear waste generation.

Webb and Alexander do not address greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. They say they hope to get their bill passed separately from the Boxer/Kerry climate change bill.

Note: The Webb/Alexander push to emphasize a nuclear option is echoed in a Graham/Kerry plan to expand nuclear power in the U.S. in exchange for creating the GHG cap-and-trade law.

The sales are flowing instead to companies that embrace a variety of green or eco-friendly practices, products and services. Companies that commit themselves to sustainable programs because they’re ethically, socially, economically and environmentally the right thing to do are outperforming the market in terms of sales.

This message comes through loud and clear in a new market survey by Retail Systems Research (RSR) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. Their survey defines winners as those whose sales growth exceeds 3% percent a year.

How did they do it? They’re cutting costs like everybody by investing in energy efficiencies to reduce electric bills and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and other air pollutants. But they’re also promoting environmentally sound practices within their companies, and they’re touting these green initiatives to their employees and customers.

The sales winners also work hard to project an image of corporate and social responsibility, according to the analysis provided by the survey researchers.

On the other hand, companies that only focus on cutting overhead expenses routinely fall short of the 3% sales-growth threshold. These companies are dubbed “laggards” in the survey.

Some comparisons:

• 45% of winners say green means reducing use of fossil fuels; only 11% of laggards agreed
• 64% of winners want their public image to say “we care,” while only 33% of laggards said so
• 50% of winners invest in reducing their carbon footprint; only 22% of laggards do, and
• 60% of winners push to limit energy usage in their supply chains; 44% of laggards do.

The RSR survey is available here.

This analysis dovetails nicely with another consumer survey that notes why winners are gaining sales while laggards fall behind. The North Carolina polling firm, Capstrat, reports that an overwhelming majority of consumers — 83% — value a company’s green image and make their purchasing decisions based on it. Click here for the news.

Sure, improving energy efficiency helps the bottom line, but it’s not enough to break into the burgeoning green market.

The sales are flowing instead to companies that embrace a variety of green or eco-friendly practices, products and services. Companies that commit themselves to sustainable programs because they’re ethically, socially, economically and environmentally the right thing to do are outperforming the market in terms of sales.

This message comes through loud and clear in a new market survey by Retail Systems Research (RSR) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. Their survey defines winners as those whose sales growth exceeds 3% percent a year.

How did they do it? They’re cutting costs like everybody by investing in energy efficiencies to reduce electric bills and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and other air pollutants. But they’re also promoting environmentally sound practices within their companies, and they’re touting these green initiatives to their employees and customers.

The sales winners also work hard to project an image of corporate and social responsibility, according to the analysis provided by the survey researchers.

On the other hand, companies that only focus on cutting overhead expenses routinely fall short of the 3% sales-growth threshold. These companies are dubbed “laggards” in the survey.

Some comparisons:

• 45% of winners say green means reducing use of fossil fuels; only 11% of laggards agreed
• 64% of winners want their public image to say “we care,” while only 33% of laggards said so
• 50% of winners invest in reducing their carbon footprint; only 22% of laggards do, and
• 60% of winners push to limit energy usage in their supply chains; 44% of laggards do.

The RSR survey is available here.

This analysis dovetails nicely with another consumer survey that notes why winners are gaining sales while laggards fall behind. The North Carolina polling firm, Capstrat, reports that an overwhelming majority of consumers — 83% — value a company’s green image and make their purchasing decisions based on it. Click here for the news.

That’s the rude analysis from Greenpeace, which thinks the top IT companies are failing — badly — to take action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

They’re far from cutting their GHG emissions 15% or more by 2020 — a goal touted as a realistic in last year’s Smart 2020 report — according to Greenpeace.

In a new campaign, Greenpeace dubs the CoolIT Challenge, the activist group makes fun of the top 12 companies, including IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems and Dell. It rates the companies on a 100 scale, and the highest score is a 29 posted by IBM, followed by Sun and Dell. Sony, Sharp and Toshiba score the lowest in Greenpeace’s rating system.

Greenpeace gives good marks to IBM because it has long tried to reduce its GHG emissions at its facilities.

To score better on the Greenpeace CoolIT game, companies need to:

• support climate action initiatives in public speeches
• embrace political advocacy to support GHG legislation
• adopt and promote climate action solutions
• set and meet in-house GHG emission reduction targets, and
• increase use of renewable energy.

The Greenpeace CoolIT game is here.

While productivity and efficiency improvements do pay for themselves, General Electric (GE) isn’t limiting its horizon. It’s salivating over a $25-billion market that includes new, green products. And, this market is not futuristic.

GE execs expect it to materialize in 2010, despite the slack economy. GE’s green-related sales topped $17 billion in 2008.

Energy efficiencies are still a huge boost to the company’s bottom line. GE expects to reduce operating costs by $100 million through efficiencies. It also claims a 30% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions.

But GE execs also told Wall Street this week that they expect to generate $25 billion in sales in 2010 from green product innovations started in 2005 under its green business plan, known as Ecomagination. Nearly 80 products fall under this umbrella, including:

• compact-fluorescent lights
• smart-grid electric technology to encourage homeowners to reduce demand during peak hours
• clean-energy products, including wind turbines and solar panels, and
• high capacity batteries for electric-hybrid railroad locomotives.

Fancy new electric battery technology has GE excited. It’s investing in lithium batteries for use in consumer products and electric vehicles. That’s why it recently acquired a stake in battery maker A123 Systems.

You can purchase a transcript of the GE presentation to Goldman Sachs financial execs here.

It’s the little things you do to control everyday energy expenses, not fancy complicated new technology, that are racking up some big-time, green benefits. 

And, critically, the lessons learned in the past couple of years by McDonald’s can be adopted and customized for most any type of operation. That’s the encouraging news outlined in McDonald’s 2009 Global Best of Green report.

Some of the projects adopted by individual restaurants around the world include:

• cutting electricity use by 11% by developing software to help managers decide when to fire up operations
• improving energy efficiency by 22% by switching to green lighting and equipment
• cutting water use by 40% by installing high efficiency plumbing fixtures
• eliminating CFC refrigerants, which reduced energy use by 12% and greenhouse gas emissions by 25 tons
• reducing solid waste disposal costs by improving recycling programs, and
• motivating employees to search for energy savings opportunities.

Most companies don’t have the ability to hire extra staff and consultants to develop green projects that make economic sense now.

But McDonald’s has made the investment, and the company is sharing its results on more than 80 green projects that all ended up saving the company money. Why not learn from example instead of reinventing the wheel?

To read the Global Best of Green report, click here. The green report is part of McDonald’s Corporate Social Responsibility program.

The agency has just announced a new Energy Star spec for computer servers that are 30% more energy efficient than standard fare.

The environmental benefits of switching to more efficient servers include helping to reduce greenhouse gases and other air pollution emissions. The business case for investing in servers that earn the Energy Star certification includes:

• generating less waste heat, which reduces air conditioning demand in facilities
• improving power quality, which provides building-wide efficiency benefits
• measuring real-time power use, processor utilization and air temperature, and
• using performance data sheets to help purchasers compare energy usage between competing servers.

To track which servers qualify for the Energy Star rating, check here for frequent updates to equipment added to the EPA-approved list.

This is the first cut on an Energy Star server spec, and it’s a modest first step because it only rates units based on their power consumption while idling, not while they’re actually processing. EPA officials say they hope to upgrade the spec next year.

Meanwhile, the agency expects that about 25% of servers will qualify for the Energy Star program this year.

EPA’s press release is here.

The new Energy Star energy efficient server specs and other data center initiatives are here.

The reason for optimism? IT marketers and consultants are licking their chops because the Green IT market is expected to grow 60% a year through 2013 to create a $4.8 billion market. That’s the rosy scenario predicted in the latest market survey by the consulting group, Forrester Research, Inc.

The research notes that all the heavyweights in the office equipment and computer world are scrambling to upgrade their product offerings to play to the growing demand for green products that lower energy costs and cut greenhouse gas and other air pollutants.

To purchase Forrester’s latest Green IT study, click here, but it’s a pricey one at $1,999.

For example, Xerox has developed a new, more energy-efficient formulation of a toner it uses in its printers. Its green toner cuts power demand during manufacturing and use of the product. This innovation cuts:

• Xerox’s power demand by 15% to 30% to make the Ultra Low Melt toner, and
• cuts electricity needed to operate a customer’s printer by 50% to 80% because the new toner formulation melts the toner at lower temperatures.

How’s all this possible? Xerox is using the science of tiny particles, nanotechnology, to make smaller and more detailed particles of the resins used to make the toner. It uses the new toner in its ColorQube 9200 printer that’s touted as 90% more efficient than other color printers.