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Posts tagged carbon trading
Barclays Closes US Carbon Desk In Latest Cap And Trade Setback
by Simon Lomax / AOL Energy / January 20, 2012 /
A major European bank closed its US carbon trading business this week in a sign that 2012 is a “make-or-break” year for cap-and-trade programs designed to fight climate change.
London-based Barclays determined the US carbon market, currently comprised of a handful of states, is too small to justify the expense of a dedicated trading desk in New York, according to sources familiar with the decision. Barclays was a major player in US greenhouse-gas trading programs on the East and West coasts and remains active in Europe’s carbon market, the largest in the world. Seth Martin, a Barclays spokesman, declined to comment.
“That is not good news for carbon-dioxide trading, especially not in the US,” says Gary Hart, a market analyst for ICAP Energy and a veteran pollution-rights trader. “There’s such uncertainty around the use of carbon cap-and-trade programs.”
h/t ClimateDepot.com
Lord Stern Threatens Trade Wars Over Carbon Emissions
Climate Wars: Nick Stern Threatens U.S. With Trade Boycott
Ben Webster
The United States will be banned from selling goods to many countries if it continues to shirk its promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to the world’s leading climate change economist.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said that nations that were taking strong action on emissions could start imposing restrictions on “dirty” US exports by 2020.
Lord Stern, who advises several G20 leaders and is one of the key players in the international negotiations seeking a deal on emissions, made his comments ten days before the annual United Nations climate change conference opens in Cancun, Mexico. They reflect the feeling in many countries that a lack of action on emissions in the US is delaying progress in the talks.
“The US will increasingly see the risks of being left behind, and ten years from now they would have to start worrying about being shut out of markets because their production is dirty,” Lord Stern said. “If they persist in being slow about reducing emissions, US exports will start to look more carbon intensive.”
Chicago Climate Exchange to Stop Carbon Trading
via Green Hell Blog
October 26, 2010
In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is ending carbon trading this year — the very purpose for which it was founded. CCX will remain open for business, however, as it transitions into the murky world of dealing in carbon offsets.
Outside of a report in Crain’s Chicago Business and a soft-pedalled article in the certain-that-cap-and-trade-will-happen trade publication Carbon Control News, the media has ignored the demise of the only voluntary U.S. effort at carbon trading.
CCX was sold earlier this year for $600 million to the New York Stock Exchange-listed IntercontinentalExchange (Symbol: ICE), an electronic futures and derivatives platform based in Atlanta and London. ICE also acquired the European Climate Exchange as part of the transaction. The ECX remains open to accomodate the Kyoto Protocol-required carbon trading among EU nations. The sale of CCX to ICE allowed climateers like Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and Goldman Sachs to cash out of investments in CCX.
FT.com / Commodities – Carbon prices drop post Copenhagen
By Fiona Harvey and Chris Flood
Financial Times
December 21 2009 11:40
Carbon prices dropped sharply on Monday amid disappointment at the outcome of from the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen, while crude oil prices rose ahead of this week’s Opec meeting in Angola.
European Union allowances (EUA) for December 2010 delivery, the benchmark contract for pricing European carbon emissions, dropped 9.6 per cent to €12.28 a tonne in early trading before recovering slightly to end 8.3 per cent lower at €12.41 a tonne.
One dealer described the market as like “a falling knife” but said that a rise in European gas prices had helped to support the carbon market.
UN-backed certified emissions reductions for December 2010 delivery fell 7.9 per cent to a low of €10.89 a tonne, a six month low.
“Copenhagen illustrated the failure of the UN process in dealing with climate change but the drop in carbon prices is due purely to sentiment and fundamentals will reassert themselves,” said Emmanuel Fages of Société Générale.
via FT.com / Commodities – Carbon prices drop post Copenhagen.
European taxpayers lose €5bn in carbon trading fraud
• Europol says EU’s Emission Trading System in peril
• Fraudsters could target gas and electricity markets next
via The Guardian
December 14, 2009
The European Union has probably lost at least €5bn (£4.5bn) to VAT fraud related to carbon trading and there is a risk that the criminals will now shift their attention to Europe’s electricity and gas markets, according to Europol.
The news will cause further embarrassment for European governments negotiating at the Copenhagen climate summit and trying to persuade other parts of the world to sign up to carbon trading as a way of reducing emissions.
The Guardian recently revealed that the Danish government had been forced, on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, to rush through an emergency law making it impossible for criminal gangs to reclaim huge amounts of VAT on fraudulent trades they were making on Europe’s various carbon exchanges.
At the time, the Danes refused to estimate how much money the fraud cost them but now Europol, the EU’s law enforcement operation, has estimated an approximate cost of the fraud on carbon trading. This was mainly carried out over the summer before Britain, France and the Netherlands – home to big exchanges – changed their VAT rules to stop criminal activity.
Europol has now set up a specific project to collect and analyse information to identify and disrupt the organised criminal structures behind these fraud schemes.
Rob Wainwright, Director of Europol, says “These criminal activities endanger the credibility of the European Union Emission Trading System and lead to the loss of significant tax revenue for governments. Europol is using its expertise and information capabilities to help target the organised crime groups involved”.