What is your company’s most important asset? Most of you will say “people.” Many CEOs say this as well. However, where are people on the financial statements?

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Over several months, many governments and airlines around the world have opposed the European Emissions Trading scheme forcing airlines to buy carbon allowances, but China’s reaction this week is the strongest yet, in imposing a national law placing an outright ban on participation.

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Europe’s highest court released an opinion on October 6th, finding that the proposed mandatory inclusion of non-European based airlines in the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), is compatible with international law. The opinion by the Advocate General constitutes the latest development in the ongoing dispute. Under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, beginning on January 1st [...]

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The controversial European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) – a European wide cap and trade program – has sparked an ongoing dispute between the US and Europe regarding mandatory inclusion of non-European based airlines into the program. In August, the potential for a trade war seemed possible due to mounting opposition both in the USA as [...]

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Business Green reports that US Airlines, American Airlines, Continental and United, along with their trade association, the Air Transport Association (ATA), will file a legal challenge to a European law requiring all airlines flying into and out of the EU to pay a charge per tonne of CO2 emitted. The US government opposes the law. [...]

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The American Security Project ASP, a non-profit, bipartisan public policy and research organization, has recently issued a series of 50 reports entitled Pay Now or Pay Later: A State by State Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change. The series turns the classic argument that it costs too much to do anything to prevent or [...]

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Depending on how it’s spun, recent shipping industry meetings on controlling greenhouse gas emissions through market-based trading schemes either made “steady progress” or no progress at all. The International Maritime Organization characterized the meetings of the third inter-sessional meeting of the Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Emissions that ended early this month in London as [...]

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The following is part of a series by our friends at CSRHub (a 3p sponsor) – offering free sustainability and corporate social responsibility ratings on over 5,000 of the world’s largest publicly traded companies. 3p readers get 40% off CSRHub’s professional subscriptions with promo code “TP40“. By Carol Pierson Holding Too bad for California. State [...]

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This piece is inspired by the Navigating the American Carbon World 2011 Conference, in Los Angeles, CA. Cap and trade is both dead and alive.  How can this be?  It’s dead on the national and international level, but alive and flourishing at the regional and state level.  Let me explain. Amid the national and international [...]

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Recently Ceres concluded that while large companies that register with the SEC have overall improved their climate change risk disclosures in recent years, more work needs to be done. Most public companies are still very vague about risks associate with climate change, despite the SEC’s directive issued last year.

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By Boyd Cohen, Ph.D. CO2 IMPACT As an American living in Canada I have been watching U.S. policy on clean energy from across the border for the past decade.  As an entrepreneur in the carbon market space, I also have a vested interest in seeing U.S. Federal policy advance with respect to promoting a low [...]

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The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the U.S.’s only emissions credit exchange, will close shop by year’s end, citing a lack of legislative interest. While voluntary, the exchange was legally binding, and counted among its members Dupont, Motorola and IBM. The exchange suffered a blow when it became clear no meaningful climate legislation would make it [...]

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By Jill Abelson & Joe Madden Last October, on the eve of the Copenhagen talks, Richard Levangie pointed out that climate change isn’t only about carbon dioxide. Doing more to reduce non-CO2 climate change contributors, Levangie reported, “might head global warming off at the pass,” citing Nobel Laureate Dr. Mario Molina and co-authors of a [...]

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Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times op-ed columnist, offers this riposte to those that say addressing climate change is too costly, too traumatic and too radical: We can afford to tackle climate change. And we must do it. Writing about Green Economics in the April 11 New York Times Magazine, [...]

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There is no doubt that “cap-and-trade” has joined “liberal” on the list of terms conservatives have effectively tar-and-feathered. It’s also clear that a market-based system is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The term needs political rehabilitation, for the planet’s sake. But how? A recent study by NYU Law School’s Institute for Policy [...]

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The population of people who cared about the carbon markets in their infancy were mostly passionate about finding a solution to climate change, and using the power of markets to drive business innovation. That crowd has slowly shifted to include those with finance backgrounds- individuals who recognize the financial gains to be made from getting into this market in its early stages.

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Like global warming, cap-and-trade isn’t going away. The trading system in place in Europe has managed to survive a series of scandals in the last year or so, and the price of a permit to emit one metric ton of carbon has been rising steadily for the last month — despite an oversupply due to [...]

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By Henry Derwent, President and CEO, IETA As Congress shifts its attention from health care to energy and climate change, the discussion will undoubtedly return to the role of international offsets in a cap-and-trade system. It will again focus on the ability of international offsets to ensure cost containment and provide a more liquid domestic [...]

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India’s Contribution to Climate Change Mitigation: Carbon Trading and Beyond By Swapan Mehra 2010 could well end up being a landmark year for Green Development in India. On February 26th, Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian Finance Minister, announced the creation of a National Clean Energy Fund to support development of Renewable Energy to be financed by [...]

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A series of criminal investigations and auditor suspensions in carbon trading markets threaten to give the process of trading pollution credits the same bad reputation as “collateral debt obligations” and other arcane financial instruments that helped trigger the Great Recession. The problems also highlight a lack of personnel qualified to do the complex work of [...]

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Peter Fusaro knows environmental finance markets. As the Chairman of Global Change Associates, Fusaro is an energetic and tenacious green markets cheerleader with over 34 years of government policy and industry experience. When he took the stage at his 9th annual Wall Street Green Trading Summit last week in New York City, audience members perked [...]

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By Neil Braun, CEO, The CarbonNeutral Company As US companies transition to a low carbon economy, carbon management represents a new and fundamental challenge for business. How companies respond to this challenge has become a strategic issue that can build or destroy brands and reputations. If companies take on this challenge, carbon management presents an [...]

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By Justin Felt, Product Manager for Offsets, Point Carbon Carbon offset markets have exploded in the last ten years, from a theoretical concept to a $25 billion-a-year industry. Increasing attention and criticism have also followed this steep rise. While many articles have focused on various aspects of carbon offset credits, few fully explain what an [...]

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By Michael J. Walsh, Executive Vice President for Research, Chicago Climate Exchange/Chicago Climate Futures Exchange Policymakers in Washington and in capitals around the world continue to debate how to achieve cleaner energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While challenging issues surrounding costs, international competitiveness, job creation and other tough topics remain, there is also reason [...]

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All month long, we’re putting carbon trading under the microscope, looking at who’s doing what, and examining the promises and pitfalls for what lies ahead. Will carbon trading be the answer to our growing climate pains? Or will it be another example of the world shifting the focus from where it really needs to be? [...]

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By Peter Fusaro, Founder, Wall Street Green Trading Summit Cap and Trade has been hijacked, the wind taken out of its sails by climate change skeptics. More specifically, the issue of market-based solutions for addressing environmental problems has been utterly distorted. The truth of the matter is that markets have worked to drive efficient, environmental [...]

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Earlier this week, Lisa Zelljadt from Point Carbon wrote of her company’s new “Carbon 2010” report, which is a worthy attempt at covering the complex set of variables involved in creating and sustaining markets for carbon allowances. The report quantifies the responses from their proprietary data and marketing survey of approximately 1,500 carbon professionals who [...]

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By Elizabeth (Lisa) Zelljadt, Senior Analyst, Point Carbon Every morning Mike walks into his London office and logs on to the Intercontinental Exchange, where he and most of his colleagues do all their work. He surveys the news for major political developments related to greenhouse gas emissions, then checks current and forward prices of fuels, [...]

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By Dan Kalafatas, President, 3Degrees It is tempting for environmental market advocates (like myself) to gnash their teeth as climate change misinformation and standard Washington gridlock continue to delay passage of climate change legislation that would create a national carbon market. However, in doing so, we are ignoring a bright light amidst the darkness – [...]

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According to SBI’s Energy’s Carbon Emissions Trading Markets Worldwide report the value of carbon market trading has grown from $727 million in 2004 to $118 billion in 2008 with estimates of growth to $669 billion by 2013. Much of this anticipated volume is based upon expectations that national and international governments will continue down the [...]

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