Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/03/2011 3:57:59 AM PDT by Clive
What if they created a global cap-and-trade market in carbon dioxide emissions and nobody came?
That’s almost what’s happening now.
It underscores the wisdom of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s refusal to be railroaded into carbon trading by the opposition parties and all the usual “green” suspects.
The international trade in carbon credits, having proven ineffective at lowering carbon dioxide emissions, while raising consumer prices and riddled with the same kind of fraud, profiteering and reckless trading practices that led to the 2008 global recession, is now suffering its final indignity.
Almost no one wants to buy carbon credits, which are the stock of carbon trading markets, with each credit permitting the bearer to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide through the burning of fossil fuels.
The signs of a looming collapse in carbon markets are everywhere.
Recently, the World Bank warned the international carbon market was on life support outside Europe, valued at a mere $1.5 billion annually, a fraction of its anticipated value.
Last month, HSBC Global Asset Management (Canada) Ltd. announced it was winding up its global climate change fund, due to “the small fund size and relatively small number of unitholders.”
In November 2010 the Chicago Climate Exchange shut down North American trading, although it continues to trade in Europe.
The reason Europe has been the lone exception is due to the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), created in 2005 and today the world’s largest cap-and-trade market, valued at about $140 billion last year.
But recently, even the ETS has taken major hits, with the price of a carbon credit falling by as much as 15% in one week, down to its lowest level in more than two years, at approximately 13.65 Euros or $19.11 Cdn.
Reasons for this include the financial crisis in Greece, an excess supply of carbon credits, primarily due to blunders in how they were awarded when the ETS was created, and lower demand due to the after-effects of the 2008 global recession.
There are also widespread concerns about multi-billion dollar tax frauds and corruption, and the credibility of the system for issuing and validating carbon credits, especially under the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism.
Most significant is the failure of the international community to draft a successor agreement to the Kyoto accord and squabbling within Europe about whether the EU should set lower emission targets for member states.
Now consider what Canada would be facing had we just elected an NDP minority government backed by the Liberals, or vice-versa.
Since both parties committed during the election to creating a Canadian cap-and-trade market, regardless of what the U.S. did (where the issue is deadlocked in Congress), our government would now be setting up a cap-and-trade scheme at the moment carbon prices are crashing globally.
To be sure, a Canadian market wouldn’t automatically face the problems experienced in Europe, if you believe the NDP or Liberals would have been a lot smarter in negotiating the terms with Canada’s major industrial emitters than the Europeans were with theirs. I don’t.
That said, even if, in creating such a market, an NDP or Liberal-led minority government had confined carbon trading to Canada and succeeded in avoiding the worst abuses in Europe, that would still have meant imposing higher prices on Canadian consumers and businesses, thus putting us at a competitive disadvantage with the U.S., our largest trading partner.
Finally, if your view is we should set up a Canadian cap-and-trade market regardless of what the U.S. does because we need to save the planet from global warming, keep in mind cap-and-trade in Europe has done nothing to lower emissions.
Why? Because however much politicians try to spin it, cap-and-trade is not an environmental program designed to reduce industrial carbon dioxide emissions.
It’s a stock market designed to make money, primarily for giant energy and utility companies and speculators, while raising consumer prices on almost everything.
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Cool. (no pun intended)
isn’t Australia about to implement this?
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I’d wager that few politicians, even Obama, want “energy prices to necessarily skyrocked” at this point. People are being eaten alive by high prices. They know their political futures depend on keeping energy prices reasonable.
Then there is Les Leyne in our local rag extolling the virtues of the carbon tax whilst whinging about the HST.
It would have been nice if the current crop of electees and opinionators had gotten the memo regarding ACC/AGW.
Now I know why Gore has been running around lately crying, “The sky is falling!”
His dream of becoming king of the world is melting, as is his dream of controlling millions of slaves in his Gaia cult. Then again, there’s millions of kids in elementary school still drinking the kool-aid. The teachers brainwashing these kids need to be identified, fired, ostracized and stripped of all their ill-gotten assets and wealth.
Do you mean to tell me that the emperor is NOT wearing any clothes?
The old tale perfectly captures the essence of this “carbon credit” gambit.
Emmissions trading has been a scam from the first days in California. Wheeler-dealers were out to milk the public and private money troughs. No benefit for air quality was really intended.
Why does it have any value at all? When people must pay for things, they expect to receive something of value in return. But they get nothing with the "carbon credits"; only scam artists can make money on such a scheme.
I really think you've hit on it. Even the most exotic of financial derivatives, somewhere way, way up the chain, have a tangible asset behind them. Carbon credits are based, literally, on thin air.
Sort of like our money, come to think of it.
The voice of reason sounds SO refreshing! Ahhh.
I take it Germany has dropped out of the cap & trade scam.
If they are planning to close all of their nuclear plants, they certainly aren’t taking it seriously.
Can you imagine, Al Gore not wearing clothes? The very thought and I am ill. Need more coffee.
If they are planning to close all of their nuclear plants, they certainly aren’t taking it seriously.
Planning to do something and actually doing it are two vastly different things. When the German nuclear plants start getting shut down, I'll believe it. Until then, it's just talk.
Nice to have some good news for a change.
Disagree entirely.
The entire premise of the left is to aggregate power in the name of “solving” crises.
Energy crisis, AIDS crisis, Social Security crisis, health care crisis, global warming crisis.
All they need first is to create a good crisis.
Right!
It’s BECAUSE of Cap & Trade that all other markets have crashed so badly. When they are blaming those other markets for causing Cap & Trade to crash.
These fools are the harbingers of their own demise and cannot see it.
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