(February 22, 2010) After political leaders failed at December’s climate summit in Copenhagen to agree to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the price of carbon has been slowly deflating. Many investors are now wary of pouring more money into a scheme that depends on political will, rather than economic fundamentals.
(February 15, 2010) Carbon markets have suffered a number of criticisms since they were first introduced — ranging from being a haven for white collar crime to a sponsor of environmental harm in Third World communities. With global leaders failing to reach an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol at the December meeting in Copenhagen, many people are asking if carbon markets will survive at all (also see here and here).
(February 6, 2010) The past chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has joined the growing list of IPCC critics. According to the Sunday Telegraph, Rajendra Pachauri, the disgraced current IPCC chair, now faces criticism from his immediate predecessor, Robert Watson.
(January 30, 2010) The IMF won’t allow its climate change plans to be sidetracked by a lack of scientific consensus or domestic political will.
(Jaunary 28, 2010) Banks and other investors are pulling out of the carbon market after government leaders at last month’s meeting in Copenhagen failed to come up with new emissions targets beyond the current Kyoto Treaty, which ends in 2012. According to a recent report in the UK Guardian, a number of carbon fianciers have already begun leaving banks in London due to a lack of activity and a pull-back in investment demand.
(January 13, 2010) Cap-and-trade schemes to curb global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions may turn out to be a "big scam" because they are impossible to properly police, a Canadian environmental advocacy group said on Wednesday.
(January 13, 2010) Attempts to create markets for tradeable CO2 are shaping up to be the next Oil-for-Food-sized fraud.
(December 23, 2009) A recent article in the Wall Street Journal details one of the many problems facing the implementation of carbon markets: the political tampering of an artificial market. According to the story, Russia is demanding that it be able to retain its massive surplus of emissions permits after they expire in 2012. Yet, critics argue that if Russia were to off-load these credits on international carbon markets, it would lead to a collapse in the price of carbon.
(December 15, 2009) The Canadian activist group Probe International based in Toronto is arguing that the global carbon credit market is not the environmental panacea it is held out to be and could actually be doing environmental harm.
(December 11, 2009) Recent reports say that a United Nations committee has stopped giving carbon credits to developers of wind energy projects in China, citing concerns that the projects qualified for the credits unfairly. The UN is concerned that the Chinese government lowered its subsidies to wind farms so they would qualify for carbon credits through the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
(December 9, 2009) The European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) has been the victim of fraudulent traders in the past 18 months. This resulted in losses of approximately 5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.
(December 8, 2009) As the Copenhagen climate conference opens, the existing mechanism for carbon trading is drawing close scrutiny. The Chinese authorities’ misuse of the carbon credit scheme, CDM, has come to the surface, challenging the effectiveness of the global carbon trade in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
(December 6, 2009) The global carbon credit market will grow in leaps and bounds if government leaders attending this week’s climate change conference in Copenhagen commit to stiffer reduction targets for CO2 emissions. The value of the carbon market—currently worth as much as $126-billion—may grow to as much as $1.9 trillion by 2020.
(December 4, 2009) Leaked e-mails from Britain’s Climatic Research Unit threaten to undermine Copenhagen summit on carbon emissions.
(December 4, 2009) Donald Coxe pitches the most outrageous, politically incorrect investment idea of all: How to profit from global cooling
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
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