Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 03/21/2010 3:46:46 AM PDT by Clive
Forget CDOs and other inventions of the great credit bubble. That’s all old hat. Investment bankers are moving on to an area of securities trading that is potentially even more lucrative, and what’s more, even has a social value – saving the planet. Or supposedly so, anyway. I’ve long had my suspicions about the great carbon trading bubble, and I’ve had them pretty much confirmed by a brilliant article which has been drawn to my attention by one Mark Schapiro in Harper’s magazine.
According to Mr Schapiro, carbon trading is now the fastest growing commodities market on earth. Since Kyoto signatories bought in to the cap and trade concept in 2005, there have been more than $300bn carbon transactions, prompting several investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and Barclays, to set up their own carbon trading desks. But that’s just the start. If President Obama and his supporters can institute a cap-and-trade system in the United States – and that’s a big if for this increasingly marooned presidency – demand could explode into a $2 to $3 trillion market.
And here’s the great thing about it. Unlike traditional commodities markets, which will eventually involve delivery to someone in physical form, the carbon market is based on lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no-one. Since the market revolves around creating carbon credits, or finding carbon reduction projects whose benefits can then be sold to those with a surplus of emissions, it is entirely intangible.
“Carbon developers”, many of them employed by large multinationals, travel the world in search of carbon reduction projects to sell, while firms of carbon accountants have been established to verify on the United Nations’ behalf that those reductions are real. The whole thing, though well intentioned, looks wide open to abuse and scams. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
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And yet I can’t find any buyers for my slightly used farts.
I’ve watched this thing develop for a while, like many.
They don’t give a hoot if the world gets warmer. It’s not about the world getting warmer.
And while carbon credits and various derivatives can be worth billions, it’s not really about that either.
The ultimate goal is a tax. A carbon tax. A tax that could be levied on every person on the planet who even breathes.
Cap and Trade and Carbon Credits these both were Ken Lay’s ideas.
The path to easy wealth may not be paved with carbon abatement certificates.
The price of carbon took a dive in the fifth auction conducted by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon abatement plan for in the Northeast. At the quarterly auction earlier this week, 28.4 million allowances with a 2009 vintage sold for an average price of $2.19 per ton.
Meanwhile, 2.2 million allowances with a 2012 vintage were sold for an average price of $1.87 per ton. From here.
Power to the Government.....
.....Just like "Health Care" isn't about real health care, it's about taxes and give aways to nonproductive people, creating newly dependent people, and buying RAT votes.
These people are about tax, spend, and power. They really don't want to solve any problems, they want to create new problems to be solved by tax and spend. It is endless...
I thought selling expensive, bottled water was the biggest scam ever. Carbon trading will make the bottled water market look like small potatoes.
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