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UPDATE: it’s worse than we thought, see below. Carbon has closed below $4 a ton in a new record low while Deutsche Bank bailsFrom Reuters:Deutsche Bank quits carbon market: board member31 Jan 2013 12:42 Last updated: 31 Jan 2013 15:04LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Deutsche Bank has shut its global carbon trading operations, a member of the investment bank’s board of directors said on Thursday.  Source: http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2162216In addition to the price dropping to below the price of a bag of charcoal briquettes, it may have something to do with this investigation: Deutsche Bank co-chief named in carbon tax investigationTwo...

The residents of California are about to become victims of what Weather Channel founder John Coleman has accurately called "the greatest scam in history". They will be paying higher energy bills to help carbon traders get richer. In the 1990's the corrupt Enron company began paying scientists and purported environmental groups to support the outright lie that slight increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide could increase atmospheric temperatures. Enron also supported politicians who were willing to go along with this scheme. Enron's goal was to get governments to establish a system for trading what the company called "carbon credits". Companies producing...

UNICEF, UNESCO, and other UN agencies and NGOs have teamed up to flood classrooms with an ongoing tsunami of global-warming indoctrination. UN Summit: Transforming Your Kids into "Climate Change Agents" The New American 06 December 2012 Do your children (or grandchildren) have nightmares about the Earth melting or exploding due to human-caused global warming? Do they believe they have no future because our planet is dying, the icecaps and glaciers are melting, the sea levels are rising, islands and coastal areas are disappearing, polar bears and children are drowning, plant and animal species are rapidly going extinct, and extreme...

Urgent action is needed to boost carbon prices to €150 per tonne ($215.65/ton)—2,250% higher than current levels—if the EU is to meet its decarbonization goals by 2050, the former secretary-general of the UNFCCC has told EurActiv in an interview. “We very quickly need to see a carbon price in the order of €150 a tonne because that’s the kind of level that drives the price signals that we really need,” Yvo de Boer said on a phone line from Manila, in the Philippines. EU carbon allowances are currently trading at €6.60 per tonne ($9.49/ton), but a price of around €150...

Europe’s carbon market is in deep trouble and it’s not just environmentalists sounding the alarm. Back in April, the CEO of Shell said that the European Union’s system for trading allowances for the emission of greenhouse gases was “in danger.” But that’s about as direct as anyone will get in this world of bureaucratese. Most simply talk of “price weakness” (meaning that emission credits are absurdly cheap), a desire for “long-term policy certainty” (the system needs a fix!) and the need to “restore confidence” (and the fix has to come fast!) The simple fact is that the most important tool...

From the Washington Free Beacon by Zach Noble, how a half page of the Kyoto protocol turned into a free ride for corruption. Carbon Corruption Iran, North Korea, Sudan rack up millions by trading U.N. carbon credits The U.N. is funneling millions of dollars worth of tradable carbon credits to corrupt nations worldwide, including Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Uzbekistan in an attempt to encourage clean energy projects in the developing world.The U.N. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is defined in Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. Western European countries fund energy projects in the developing world in order to obtain...

As of Jan. 1, 2012, all airlines that take off and land in Europe must purchase permits for the right to release carbon dioxide emissions. In a final ruling on the matter handed down on Wednesday, the European Court of Justice decided that including foreign airlines in the European Union emissions trading scheme (ETS) was permissible and that the new legislation did not infringe upon the sovereignty of other states and was compatible with international accords. Though the decision from the EU's highest court was expected, some fear it may spark a trade war with international partners, such as the...

Europe pledged Wednesday to press on with new charges for airline carbon emissions across its airspace as of January 1, after scoring a key victory over US rivals in the EU's top court. The decision was welcomed as vindication by the European Union, which told US airlines to get ready to obey the law in the same way EU companies respect American regulations. But it was not without collateral damage, with industry sources fearing a possible trade war after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of reprisals ahead of the ruling. A high-ranking source in the aviation sector told...

California Air Resources Board due to vote on the adoption of first US mandatory cap-and-trade emissions scheme... the California Air Resources Board was due to vote on Thursday afternoon on the adoption of an emissions trading scheme. "This is the final yes: we are going to move forward with California," said Gary Gero, president of the Climate Action Reserve, a voluntary registry. The decision was seen to be significant because California accounts for about 13% of the world economy, and the state has a history of being the leader on environmental initiatives. "California can drive national action," Gero said. The...

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in danger of losing his 2012 Republican primary front-runner status, Wednesday tweaked his position on global climate change, saying he does not know if humans are the primary cause. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, also said he would not place restrictions on carbon emissions if elected and did not favor spending heavily on climate solutions. He was asked about global warming at a town hall meeting in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and said he believed the world is getting hotter and humans contribute in some way to the change. "Do I think the world's getting hotter? Yeah,...

A large group of 2008 Barack Obama supporters are now banking on Mitt Romney for the upcoming presidential election. That’s according to a report from Fox News that says a shift in Wall Street support could mean as much as a $150,000 boost for Romney’s campaign. “I think Romney could at least split Wall Street with Obama, which is something McCain really didn’t do,” said Charlie Gasparino, a reporter for Fox Business News. None of the expected bank presidents showed up to a recent fundraiser for President Obama, he added.

A year after President Barack Obama signed into law the most extensive financial regulations since the Great Depression, Wall Street so far is putting its political money elsewhere. Employees of Goldman Sachs Group gave Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney $238,250 in the last three months, more than workers at any other company, according to a computer-assisted analysis of Federal Election Commission data. Obama took in $10,113. Four years ago, employees of New York-based Goldman gave $994,795 to Obama and $234,275 to Romney, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group. For both candidates, it was more than...

Once seen as a potential bonanza by governments, investment bankers, and alternative energy proponents, carbon dioxide credits have become close to worthless in trading exchanges and are now being shunned by investors. A June 8 auction by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade consortium of 10 northeastern states, was a bust. Carbon dioxide permits auctioned by RGGI fetched $1.89 each, the minimum allowable bid. More than two-thirds of the 43.9 million carbon dioxide permits put up for auction went unsold. The June 8 auction was by far the most unsuccessful of the 12 sales held since RGGI began...

 Guest post by EcotretasCO2 tumbling downEU Carbon Credits via Bloomberg -BLUENEXT - BNS EUA 08-12 (phase 2) (PNXCSPT2:IND) - click graph for report Once upon a time, carbon trading was supposed to be the salvation for Earth’s climate problems. But as time went on, people started realizing that something was wrong. As usual, financial markets anticipated the move. Late last year, US carbon trading crashed. Two weeks later, it closed. In Europe, the price of CO2 emissions even flourished earlier this year. The European Union pushed for stronger policies towards renewables. And Fukushima pressed German’s chancellor Angela Merkel to abandon...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced Thursday that he would pull out of a regional climate pact by the end of the year, delivering a political setback to the fledging effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. In a news conference, Christie said the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a 2005 accord in which 10 states agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants 10 percent by 2018, would not be able to meet its goals. The program requires plants in the region that burn fossil fuels to buy pollution allowances for the carbon they...

Scam artists from around the world, capitalizing on lax regulations at the Danish emissions trading registry, have made off with an estimated $7-billion over the last two years, according to Europol. Denmark’s Office of the Auditor General is now investigating the fraud, which occurred after the Danish registry dropped requirements that carbon traders be documented. While allowing a free-for-all served the carbon market on the short term, by appearing to inflate the interest in carbon as a commodity, it ultimately backfired when much of the trading proved to be phony. Read more: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/12/05/lawrence-solomon-the-7-billion-carbon-scam/#ixzz17RgHIzXh

It’s all a grand charade — the matinee show put on by the Theater of Science was merely being used for the Grand Extravaganza called the Theater of Politics.Wikileaks, not surprisingly, turned up some not-so-diplomatic and not-so-scientific goings-on in the political race to steer power and dollars.From The Guardian The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic...

Defeat came for Republican Rep. Bob Inglis because he slid to "Satan's side." That's how South Carolina voters perceive Inglis' newfound belief in climate change, says the outgoing lawmaker, who lost his primary bid in June to tea party candidate, and now representative-elect, Trey Gowdy. Inglis reflected on several blasphemies he committed in the eyes of voters in a departing interview last week, held in his congressional office. They ranged from opposing President George W. Bush's troop surge in Iraq to supporting his Troubled Asset Relief Program. But none of those, Inglis said, had as strong an impact as his...

Just three years ago, George H. Stein, a managing director at New York-based recruiter Commodity Talent, was seeing a brisk volume in calls from Wall Streeters looking to make a career switch. While oil traders were getting pilloried on Capitol Hill, a new line of work promised to deliver wealth and social benefits: buying and selling carbon permits in the emerging market designed to control global warming pollution. "There was such a great deal of interest in carbon trading," recalls Stein.

The Chicago Climate Exchange is shutting down at the end of the year. Nobody’s buying carbon credits. Right now, days go by when not a single trade is done. When trades are done, carbon dioxide sells for just five cents a ton. It’s over.