Sub-prime carbon - government failure?

Thursday, November 05, 2009
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This will be a teaching topic I return to in the spring, but Radio 4 today carried an excellent report by Roger Harrabin from the BBC on criticisms of the EU’s carbon trading scheme. The report focuses on new research from Friends of the Earth that is highly critical of the emissions trading scheme. “FoE says most trades are done not by polluting industries, but by speculative traders packaging carbon credits into complex financial products similar to those which triggered the sub-prime mortgage crash.” More here from Friends of the Earth which included a link to their report (in pdf format).

Here is the link to the Radio 4 discussion - CEO of the European Climate Exchange Patrick Birley and the author of the FOTE report, Sarah Jane Clifton, discuss the rise in the carbon trading market. 

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Comments

I am always intrigued at how eager people are to criticise traders: the same thing happened in the energy markets when gas and oil prices went up. Traders are only responding to market sentiment, which may or may not not be linked to fundamentals. But without traders there would be no liquidity and no market and hence even less chance of business responding to carbon reduction. It is like shooting the messenger. The FOE position feels like opportunism, using the fear of the credit crunch and banking crisis to create artificial concern. Better to focus on where they have a sound case - the abolute levels of carbon cap. Unfortunately FOE diminish their credibility by such an approach.

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