Emission traders visited last week "the Carbon Expo". This annual jamboree says a lot about the peculiar state of the business of fighting global warming.
Projects that would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, financing for and auditing of such projects, and advice about how this whole burgeoning new business works. All this kind of wares you could find there.
And this new business realy works! In 2007, emissions trading grew into a $60 billion business. Ofcourse the European Union has a lot the do with this. It capped the emissions of big factories and power plants, but allows firms that exceed their allocation to buy unused pollution rights from those that have some to spare.
Also the "Clean Development Mechanism" has a big part in that $60 billion.
The crowd who visited this jamboree was resolutely international. Which is again another aspect that shows that the emissions trading business is a subject where a lot of people give attention to.
Maybe interesting to say is that the most visitors were bankers and not development types. This new form to invest will certainly be a popular and good business to spend your money.
But it's not all positive news that comes from the jamboree.
At this moment there are allready enough projects underway to provide all the offsets needed by the rich countries under the Kyoto treaty, which expires in 2012. So the market for voluntary offsets is growing fast but still remains small.
Also there is no guarantee that the world will agree on a replacement to Kyoto, or that a new deal will preserve the CDM.
Conclusion, the future of emissions trading can be very rosy or none at all...
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