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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.

I wrote a few weeks ago that The only lower price than today’s closing price on a ton of carbon is ZERO. That’s true now more than ever. See the chart below from yesterday’s close of the Chicago Climate Exchange: [snip] And it’s still crashing. Last week the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced that they were scrapping the existing carbon trading program, and focusing on a new one that deals with directly sold carbon offsets rather than open trading.

Public carbon trading dead in the USA Posted on November 8, 2010 by Anthony Watts Gore’s grand experiment has flatlined. As we reported almost two weeks ago, the Gore and Pachauri advised Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX) has closed. Closing price? A nickel per ton of CO2.Here’s the final day closing page for posterity:A 16 lb bag of charcoal briquettes is worth more than a ton of CO2. About 220x more. Here’s more on the story:Carbon Trade Ends on Quiet Death of Chicago Climate ExchangeBy John O’SullivanRepublican mid-term election joy deals financial uncertainty among green investors as the Chicago Climate Exchange announces...

Global warming-inspired cap and trade has been one of the most stridently debated public policy controversies of the past 15 years. But it is dying a quiet death. In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on Oct. 21 that it will be ending carbon trading – the only purpose for which it was founded – this year. Although the trading in carbon emissions credits was voluntary, the CCX was intended to be the hub of the mandatory carbon trading established by a cap-and-trade law, like the Waxman-Markey scheme passed by the House in June 2009.

The CCX was the topic of thousands of MSM articles over the years, but not a single article reported their recent demise. Hmmm. Global warming-inspired cap and trade has been one of the most stridently debated public policy controversies of the past 15 years. But it is dying a quiet death. In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on Oct. 21 that it will be ending carbon trading — the only purpose for which it was founded — this year.Although the trading in carbon emissions credits was voluntary, the CCX was intended to be the hub...

This is idiotic. The EU carbon trading cabal has decided to extort the rest of the air travel world starting in 2012. In a nutshell, they’ll ban flights from landing if the airlines don’t engage in carbon trading. It’s yet another variation of the “Plane Stupid” theme. Foreign airlines are threatened with a flight and landing ban from 2012 in the European Union if they do not participate in emissions trading. The ban is proposed in an internal document by the EU Commission seen by Handelsblatt. Summarised on nine pages, the guidelines describe how such a ban could be implement....

Guess who holds patent for carbon trading plan Disgraced Fannie Mae CEO set to cash in for millions Obama housing adviser Franklin Raines Former Clinton and Obama budget adviser Franklin Raines owns a key carbon-emissions patent he developed as CEO of the government-sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae, positioning him and his partners to make millions of dollars if it is used in any carbon-capping scheme implemented by the Obama administration. Raines and his associates led Fannie Mae and Congress to believe Fannie Mae owned the patent, despite public records to the contrary, a WND investigation has found. Raines and his...

“The carbon trading system being pushed here has spawned crime and fraud across the pond. Cap-and-trade is not about saving the planet. It’s about money and power, and absolute power corrupting absolutely.” We’ve written much about the organized crime syndicate that is the Obama regime. It’s bad enough that Obama is a radical Marxist, hell bent on the destruction of society as we know it, the fact that he is also a money and power hungry crook is just icing on cake. In what we call The Greatest Swindle In Human History ©, we lay out what we feel is...

The SEC civil charges against Goldman Sachs challenge a firm with ties to many Democrats, including Al Gore and the entire carbon trading establishment. Whether Wall Street colossus Goldman Sachs has committed a crime remains to be seen, but the investigation may well uncover the environmental lobby and its public figurehead. For nearly a decade, Goldman Sachs has been a quiet but major investor in cap and trade. And Goldman’s main investment partner has been Al Gore. About a decade ago, Goldman executives recognized that personal fortunes could be made with the invention of a carbon trading system through the...

New carbon trading legislation confuses businesses A compulsory carbon trading scheme for 5,000 UK businesses will launch today, amid widespread confusion about its complex rules and a bonanza of extra fees for environmental consultants. By Rowena Mason, City Reporter (Energy) Published: 12:08AM BST 01 Apr 2010 Under the Government's scheme, an array of businesses from supermarkets to office blocks that spend more than £500,000 per year on energy must conduct an audit of their carbon dioxide emissions. They must register by September and will next year be ranked in a league according to how much energy they have saved or...

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...

JPMorgan Chase & Co agreed to buy carbon offset aggregator EcoSecurities for 122.9 million pounds ($204 million) on Monday, trumping a bid from the firm's co-founder, to boost its carbon-credit trading business. J.P.Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., a subsidiary of the bank, said its 100 pence-a-share bid, made through Carbon Acquisition Company, had the backing of shareholders representing 19.9 percent of the company.It said EcoSecurities had successfully realized value from sourcing, developing and trading emission reductions, and it noted the firm had recorded its first period of profitability in the first half.The offer represents a 120 percent premium to the group's...

Climate Fraud: The godfather of climate hysteria is in hiding as another of his wild claims unravels — this one about global warming causing seas to swallow us up. We've not seen or heard much of the former vice president, Oscar winner and Nobel Prize recipient recently as the case for disastrous man-made climate change collapses. Perhaps he's off reading how scientists were forced to withdraw a study on a projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding two "technical" mistakes that undermined the findings. The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, allegedly confirmed the conclusions of...

February 24, 2010Al Gore Is Lying Low -- for Good ReasonBy Rex McBride Maybe Al Gore's been advised by legal counsel to lie low. He may be the leader of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) movement, but he's not defending it in public, not even when it's falling apart and his new fortune is based upon it. Mr. Gore and his financial backers earned millions of dollars in start-up "green" companies and carbon trading schemes. If the scam worked, he could've become the first "carbon billionaire." "What goes up can fall down" applies to ill-gotten gains in the stock market...

WASHINGTON – The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said on Wednesday that there was barely any support in that chamber for passing cap and trade legislation that aims to control global warming."I would say there is minimal enthusiasm, and that's putting it mildly, for cap and trade," McConnell said when asked by a reporter whether the initiative was dead for this year.Under cap and trade, which was passed by the House of Representatives last June, lower and lower limits would be put on industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases over the next 40 years.Companies would...

The credibility of the European Union’s flagship carbon trading scheme was dealt another blow on Monday after carbon prices fell to six-month lows as UN talks in Copenhagen failed to deliver a strong climate deal. Traders and analysts say low prices could continue well into 2010, slowing investment in low-carbon technologies which have already been dented by tight financing due to a slow economy. “(The low price) reinforces the idea that relying solely on the EU ETS to drive investment is probably not the answer at the moment,” said Andy Kelly, head of business development at Centrica. “This does give...

No excerpt allowed from Bloomberg.com, story here.

Wall Street sees carbon trading and related derivative products as the next big thing in financial innovation. Critics say it's the next big financial mess. Carbon trading provides a way for companies to stimulate green energy and carbon reduction projects by financing them through the purchase of carbon credits. Such trading has slowed over the past year or so amid uncertainty about regulations and global emissions targets. Eventually, though, many expect carbon trading to balloon into a multitrillion-dollar business. FOE and other environmental groups have been pressing the Senate to pass legislation that puts strict limits on banks' involvement in...

Forget the dire economic consequences of a Copenhagen climate change treaty for a second and think about the fraud involved. Carbon Trading Fraud Take the European Union, for instance, which implemented a carbon trading scheme analogous to a cap and trade system. And it has been fraught with fraud. French officials are investigating a $230 million carbon trading fraud scheme and this is only the tip of the iceberg in what is a startling revelation and huge blow to the climate talks in Copenhagen: Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement arm against organized crime, announced on Wednesday that carbon-trading fraud...

Ice cores reveal that CO2 levels rise and fall hundreds of years after temperatures changeIn 1985, ice cores extracted from Greenland revealed temperatures and CO2 levels going back 150,000 years. Temperature and CO2 seemed locked together. It was a turning point—the “greenhouse effect” captured attention. But in 1999 it became clear carbon rose and fell after temperatures did. By 2003 we had better data showing the lag was 800 ± 200 years. CO2 was in the back seat.AGW replies: There is roughly an 800-year lag. But even if CO2 doesn’t start the warming trend, it amplifies it.Skeptics say: If CO2...

Europe's cap-and-trade program which is designed to reduce CO2 emissions is rife with fraud thanks to organized crime's alleged involvement in the market as reported by the European Police Office (EUROPOL): The European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) has been the victim of fraudulent traders in the past 18 months. This resulted in losses of approximately 5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities. In France prosecutors have "opened a criminal investigation of four men allegedly involved in a...

The leakage of an alternative negotiations draft has put the credibility of the Conference of Parties in question. The leaked draft was prepared by so called ‘Circle of Commitment’ nations which includes at least the United States, the United Kingdom and Denmark. The draft took final shape just before the COP15 meeting and only a handful of countries had knowledge of its existence, presumably none were developing countries. One of the first issues the UNFCCC officials and many negotiators had to give clarifications about on the very first day for the Copenhagen Climate Conference was the ‘Climategate’ issue - leakage...

President Barack Obama on Friday abruptly altered the timing of his appearance at an international climate summit in Copenhagen, hoping to capitalize on steps by India and China and an emerging plan to help developing countries mitigate impacts with $10 billion a year. The move means Obama will be at the summit on Dec. 18, considered a crucial period when more leaders will be in attendance, as opposed to his original plan to be in Denmark next Wednesday on his way to Oslo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize. It also means that Obama will be squeezing in a separate,...

Behind the scenes, large financial houses are moving in stealthily. In 2008, carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion and is projected to grow to become a $2-$10 trillion dollar market, or “The largest commodity traded world wide”. The largest. That’s bigger than oil, coal, gas, or iron.Banks want us to trade carbonJP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, BNP Paribas, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Credit Suisse are just a few financial houses calling for emissions trading schemes. (None of them seem to be calling for a tax?) Those who broker the trades are guaranteed to make money.Journalists who repeat IPCC press releases...

The Australian situation tonight: Today the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) decision was successfully delayed by questions until Monday. That’s good news, but there’s no Champers popping yet. The longer we wait, the longer the real story of the fraud has to filter through to our representatives, but this is a race to overcome two decades of propaganda in one weekend.This week will be written up in history books. Late yesterday a parliamentary mutiny occurred as opposition cabinet members abandoned their leader. Three on Monday: Mitch Fifield, Brett Mason and Mathias Cormann. Then Thursday: six more, and on Friday Concetta Fierravanti-Wells...

Manoel Silva de Cunha, leader of a group of 200,000 Brazilian forest-dwellers, was blunt about why he traveled this week from the Amazon to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Global Climate Summit. The rubber tappers, nut gatherers and fishermen who live off tropical forests want money from American corporations to help them preserve the trees that cool the planet. "These companies have polluted a lot," he said. "They have to make up for it." Many of the 1,200 delegates who crowded into Century City's Hyatt Regency this week came with similar hopes: to cash in on California's expertise, its technology and the...

congressional leaders from carbon-intensive states such as Wyoming remain adamantly opposed to the Waxman-Markey bill, insisting the real costs of curbing greenhouse gas emissions would further bankrupt the nation. “There’s nothing good about it,” said U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. “I’m going to do everything to make sure it doesn’t pass.” U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said the bill is “the biggest hidden tax in America.” “It’s a Ponzi scheme because we’re just going to print certificates for CO2 and not take care of any CO2,” Enzi said. “It’s just another way to make money.” The U.S. House in June...

Four Democratic senators want to put off the proposed cap & trade legislation. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad both of North Dakota are urging the Senate to delay legislation that puts caps on greenhouse gas emissions and instead, pass a narrow bill that sets requirements on the use of renewable energy. Senators Lincoln and Dorgan are up for re-election in 2010 and are from states that would be hurt economically from a cap and trade bill similar to the one passed by the House in June. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid...

...Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, keen to engineer an encore, saw his opportunity when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were inaugurated as president and vice-president in 1993. To capitalize on Al Gore’s interest in global warming, Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress. Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried...

The spin is that it's a program to help save the environment. The reality is that the UN-sponsored issuance and trading of carbon credits will reward the worst polluters, and will actually help many companies literally poison their neighbors and make the areas surrounding their facilities uninhabitable. Check out what's going on in Gujarat, India.

You "Gotta" love the free market place. One of Europe's solution to the perceived global warming threat is trying to regulate carbon emissions through Carbon Credits The way it works is the government sets a or cap on the total amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Companies or other groups are issued emission permits and are required to hold an equivalent number of credits. Companies that need to increase their emission allowance must buy credits from those who pollute less. In effect, the buyer is paying a charge for polluting, while the seller is being rewarded for having...

fool’s par·a·dise: “a state of happiness that is temporary and insubstantial because it is based on illusions or unrealistic hopes” - Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & (P)2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. I am struck by the diversity of risk analyses being carried out by investors in today’s climate change market place.  Whether it’s ‘carbon’* market conferences and publications, ‘ethical investments’, insurance company projects or the activities of financial, legal and engineering institutions, it seems at first glance that they have it all covered.  Many financial, political, procedural, legal...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's utilities, refineries and large factories must transform their operations to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a new climate plan before state regulators. On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board was expected to adopt what would be the nation's most sweeping global warming plan, outlining for the first time how individuals and businesses would meet a landmark 2006 law that made the state a leader on global climate change. It would hold California's worst polluters accountable for the heat-trapping emissions they produce _ transforming how people travel, utilities generate power and businesses use electricity. At...

Abstract: President-elect Barack Obama said attacking global climate change is a "matter of urgency" that will create jobs as he got advice from Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the issue. Obama made clear he would adopt an aggressive approach to global warming when he takes over the White House on January 20. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met for nearly two hours with Gore at Obama's presidential transition office in Chicago. Obama hopes addressing climate change can create the kind of jobs that will help pull the U.S. economy out of a...

The double standards of our eco accountants Imagine an unpopular, impotent, and fragile UK Government, trying to make political capital out of a looming crisis. To avoid being embarrassed by criticism of its shallow policies, it appoints an independent panel of experts, to which it defers controversial decisions. Now imagine that the panel proposes measures from which its members and their associates will directly benefit. It couldn't happen here, you may think. Scandal and resignations would surely follow. Who could possibly allow vested interests to profit from the legislation they are instrumental in creating? This week, an independent panel of...

Obama's World View on Energy and Climate - - In a video shown at a costly, two-day "global warming" jamboree at the Beverly Hills Hotel, hosted by Governor Schwarzenegger of California in November 2008, Barack Obama said: "Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken...

OK, get your green eyeshades. I noted yesterday the “urgent” authorization of a few million to study the impact of the tax code on CO2 emissions. (Well, actually they say “carbon,” not carbon dioxide, which if taken as written means we should get a report on diamonds and pencils. Seriously.) That is, how are the taxpayers subsidizing Al Gore, who writes off his jet-setting, for example, or Laurie David’s preferential tax treatment for a bicoastal lifestyle. The very brief provision above it is also rather unique. My CPA wife is away at a tax refresher course, as luck would have...