| Sourced From Carbonpositive.net |
Question marks hang in some people’s minds over the future of carbon markets as doubts grow about the likelihood of a comprehensive UN climate agreement emerging at December’s Copenhagen climate conference. It’s fair bet, however, that given the momentum carbon trading now has, emissions markets are here to stay regardless of the outcome. It is the rate of growth in carbon trade and the pace of development of a unified global carbon market over the next decade that is affected by whether or not a new global treaty to cover the period 2013-20 does emerge from Copenhagen or soon after.
This view is supported by Henry Derwent, chief executive of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). “I see no reason to believe that carbon markets will not increase in size in the very rapid way that they’ve been increasing over the past few years, and that’s almost irrespective of what happens at Copenhagen,” Derwent told Reuters this week. But the strength of emission reduction targets adopted will influence how quickly carbon markets grow, Derwent said.
A new report by market analysts Frost & Sullivan reaches similar conclusions. The report, Asset Management – European Emissions Trading Market, says carbon markets will continue to emerge but their degree of success depends on global regulatory support for carbon reduction initiatives, as well as the expected increase in energy prices.
Based on a new international agreement being struck and the establishment of a US cap and trade market, the global carbon market will advance to a new level, the report says. It estimates that a US carbon market could be up to three times larger than the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) – which was worth $94bn in revenue in 2008.
The report forecasts that, with EU reduction targets of at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 already locked in, the EU ETS will grow to $345 billion in annual revenue by 2015. World Bank figures put the global carbon trade as a whole at $126bn last year. Frost & Sullivan predict increasing demand for spot EUAs over EUA futures, and wariness over buying CDM and JI carbon credits (CERs and ERUs) given bureaucratic delays and uncertainty over the Kyoto markets’ future.
