"Cap and Trade" Carbon Markets Have Done Almost Nothing to Reduce Emissions

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Friends of the Earth Attacks Carbon Trading

An FoE report says 'cap and trade' carbon markets have done little to reduce emissions but have been plagued by corruption and inefficiency

by Ashley Seager

The world's carbon trading markets growing complexity threatens another "sub-prime" style financial crisis that could again destabilise the global economy, campaigners warn today.

In a new report, Friends of the Earth says that to date "cap and trade" carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions but have been plagued by inefficiency and corruption that render them unfit for purpose.

As the world heads towards the Copenhagen climate summit, Britain and other developed countries want to see carbon trading expanded worldwide. The carbon market, mainly based in Europe, was worth $126bn in 2008 and is predicted to mushroom to $3.1tn by 2020 if a global carbon market takes off.

However, FoE fears that the area has been hijacked by speculators on the financial markets. Sarah-Jayne Clifton, the report's author, said: "The majority of the trade is carried out not between polluting industries and factories covered by carbon trading schemes, but by banks and investors who profit from speculation on the carbon markets – packaging carbon credits into increasingly complex financial products similar to the 'shadow finance' around sub-prime mortgages which triggered the recent economic crash."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/05/friends-of-the-earth-attacks-carbon-trading

[Ian David]

1. I have a radical idea.

Peg all major currency to the value of carbon.

Every time a treasury prints a unit of currency, it will be worth a certain amount of carbon, instead of a certain amount of gold.