Tag Archives: carbon-markets
New EU Climate Policy Unlikely Before 2015: Poland
May 23, 2013 Poland’s Minister of the Environment Marcin Korolec is pictured in Rio de Janeiro, on June 22, 2012. The European Union is unlikely to hammer out its new policy on global warming ahead of a global climate deal that could be clinched in 2015, … more The European Union is unlikely to hammer out its new policy on global warming ahead of a global climate deal that could be clinched in 2015, Poland’s environment minister said Wednesday. “A long discussion on climate change is getting underway. There’s no chance that new measures will be adopted during the current terms of the European Parliament and the European Commission,” minister Marcin Korolec told Poland’s PAP news agency. In its efforts to reduce global warming, the international community is to draw up new, universal climate pact by 2015, which should come into effect by 2020. Korolec’s comments come after UN climate chief Christiana Figueres warned last week that the world had entered a “new danger zone”, with record levels of Earth-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Korolec believes Brussels could soon propose cutting EU fossil fuel imports by 30 percent by 2030, and back production of electric cars. The 27-member EU—struggling to overcome recession sparked by the eurozone’s lumbering debt crisis—should also ban costly and inefficient energy subsidies as a means of forcing the development of new, economically viable, power solutions, he said. Korolec also slammed a European Commission proposal to freeze a portion of carbon emission quotas under the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) in order to drive up the price of those on the market. “It raises doubts when the European Commission itself proposes to intervene in a market system which it set up in the first place,” he said. “Poland has opposed this from the start and I’m confident that the European Parliament will reject it again,” he added. The parliament refused to raise the price on greenhouse gas emission quotas in April to avoid further burdening heavy industries in Europe already feeling the effects of the eurozone crisis. The European Commission revealed last week that the EU’s emissions were down 2.0 percent in 2012, reflecting the economic slowdown . The ETS covers more than 12,000 power plants and manufacturing installations across the EU plus Norway and Liechtenstein, according to the Commission. It is a key part of EU efforts to reduce its CO2 emissions by some 20 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. Read more at: http://phys.org/news…poland.html#jCp Continue reading
World Bank Reduces UN Offset Supply Forecast as Price Slumps
By Alessandro Vitelli May 29, 2013 The World Bank revised down its projection for the supply of United Nations carbon offsets in the eight years through 2020 by 30 percent, after a collapse in prices deterred projects that generate the credits. Supply of UN Certified Emission Reductions and Emission Reduction Units will be about 1.9 billion metric tons in the period, the lender said in a report released today, revising down an estimate of 2.7 billion made a year earlier. Demand will be about 1.6 billion tons, creating a surplus of 300 million, the World Bank said, without providing a comparable figure. Front-year CER futures plunged 99 percent from their peak in July 2008 to a record 20 euro cents ($0.26) a ton last month as regulators in the European Union struggled to tackle a glut of emissions permits in the bloc’s market. The December contract rose 2.6 percent to 40 euro cents at 2:32 p.m. on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange. “The price of primary CERs is lower than the cost of issuance for many projects,” Alex Kossoy, a senior finance specialist at the World Bank, said today at a press conference in Barcelona. “Without substantial change it’s doubtful many projects will continue to pursue issuance of credits.” Project Slump Carbon offsets allow buyers to acquire emissions-reduction credits more cheaply than it would cost to reduce pollution at home. The EU’s emissions market allowed power stations and factories to use offsets equivalent to about 14 percent of their total greenhouse-gas output in the five years through 2012. The UN credits are created by projects in developing countries, such as Vietnam, or economies in transition, including Russia. The number of offset projects seeking approval by the UN’s regulator, the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board, slumped to 17 in February 2013, compared with 256 at the same time last year, the report showed. In March, the number was 18 compared with 278 in 2012. “Some analysts forecast an 80 percent year-on-year reduction in the number of projects submitted for validation in 2013 compared with 2012,” the World Bank said. Most of the demand for UN offsets will come from companies participating in the European Union Emissions Trading System and EU member countries looking to meet caps on discharges under the Kyoto Protocol. Several countries that had previously bought offsets as part of their commitment to the first period of the Kyoto Protocol that ended last year, haven’t signed on to a second Kyoto period, curtailing their demand for credits. ‘Political Commitment’ “A high-level political commitment from a large number of developed countries will be needed to encourage new investment” in offset projects, Kossoy said. The report doesn’t calculate the value or size of the global market as it has done in previous years. Instead, it represents a “one-stop shop” for details and analysis of all current and new emissions-trading systems and carbon taxes around the world, according to Kossoy. “Current market conditions invalidate any attempt and interest to undertake the same qualitative and transaction-based analysis,” he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Alessandro Vitelli in London at avitelli1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lars Paulsson at lpaulsson@bloomberg.net Continue reading
EU Carbon Nears 2-Week High as Lawmakers Consider Surplus Fix
By Mathew Carr – May 29, 2013 European Union carbon permits rose to their highest level in almost two weeks as lawmakers reconsidered a plan to temporarily curb supply in the market that they failed to endorse last month. Allowances for December advanced as much as 3.6 percent to 3.78 euros ($4.87) a metric ton on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London and were at 3.74 euros a ton at 11:22 a.m. Certified Emission Reduction credits for December rose 1 cent to 40 euros cents a ton, taking weekly gain to 18 percent. A draft measure to delay EU emission-permit auctions, known as backloading, is the first step toward strengthening the world’s biggest cap-and-trade market after prices slumped to all-time lows in April. It is scheduled for a new vote in the environment panel of the European Parliament on June 19 and then in the full assembly on July 2. Carbon is also being supported by advancing German power, as well as a lack of supply today because there are no permits being sold at auction, said Mark Owen-Lloyd, a trading director at Clean Energy Group Ltd. in London. There’s a “bit of euphoria creeping into the market,” he said today by e-mail. The EU leaders summit on May 22 and comments by the European People’s Party show carbon markets will continue to be central to the region’s plans to tackle climate change, Daniel Rossetto, the London-based managing director of emissions markets adviser Climate Mundial Ltd., said today by e-mail. “This is bullish news for the market,” Rossetto said from the Carbon Expo conference in Barcelona. “There’s a very clear sense now emerging that comprehensive emissions-trading-system reform will have cross parliamentary support.” To contact the reporter on this story: Mathew Carr in London at m.carr@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lars Paulsson at lpaulsson@bloomberg.net Continue reading
