carbon price

South Korean carbon emissions

With roughly 18 months until launch, South Korea appears ready to create the world’s most ambitious cap and trade market, with the highest global price on carbon.[read more]

RGGI's new cap rules

RGGI’s new cap not only falls short of creating real price pressures due to its closeness to baseline emissions, its excessive compensatory measures, and its failure to deal with leakage, but also runs the risk of locking in emissions.[read more]

Last week the Australian Government and the European Commission announced that their respective emission trading systems would link up progressively over Phase III of the EU system, but for Australian entities from the start of full carbon allowance trading in 2015. This is a bold move by both parties and quite possibly one that will make others with nascent trading systems sit up and think about where they want to go.[read more]

The central energy challenge we face as a nation and a planet is the transition away from fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change, to clean sources of energy. The most important debates in this area concern just how quickly this must be accomplished and how to do it in the cheapest way possible. Last week Mitt Romney’s campaign...[read more]

A year ago as the EU ETS price showed clear signs of a second step change downwards, the EU Commission was resolute in its view that the mechanism was working. But a year is a very long time in business and politics and this week, with the backing and support of many business groups, the EU Commission began the political process necessary to attempt to address the problems.[read more]

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Last week, representatives of an array of think tanks and advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum gathered at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to discuss the feasibility of enacting a national carbon tax. It was the fifth such closed door-meeting. It might surprise people to learn that there is common ground...[read more]

Former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), the man leading an initiative to revive Republican talks on climate solutions, predicted “there are a lot of Republicans in foxholes on this hill, ducking as the fire gets intense.” It looks like he is right.Last week, reports of an informal, bipartisan meeting hosted by American Enterprise Institute...[read more]

Many commentators and policymakers continue to believe that energy efficiency alone can address much of the CO2 problem – and that it can do so at very low cost (or even negative cost), at least compared to a ‘do nothing case’. But any successful policy toward mitigation of CO2 emissions must centre on CO2 pricing.[read more]

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The debate in Australia has now shifted to whether or not the selected price of $23 per tonne of CO2 in the first year, but later on shifting to a full cap-and-trade (probably around 2015), is the right one. Many argue that as the “prevailing global price” of carbon is much lower, then Australia is out of step and therefore undermining its own competitiveness.[read more]

Very recently I participated in the launch of a new report on the state of the EU Emissions Trading System. The report highlights in stark terms the problems facing the ETS today and calls for even more drastic measures than those currently under consideration by the European Commission.[read more]

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Over the last five years the EU has put great effort into promoting CCS. The Commission has led this, creating a legislative framework for the technology to exist in the field. With such an effort and so much political capital spent, one would expect to see a burgeoning CCS industry, or at least the beginnings of it, appearing across the EU. Unfortunately this is not the case.[read more]

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There has been considerable discussion over recent months as to what action needs to be taken both in the short and long term to ensure that the EU ETS continues to provide the necessary investment signal for major investments such as carbon capture and storage. The current price of €6.50 isn’t going to drive any change at all.[read more]

While much of the focus in the recent UNFCCC meeting in Bonn was on the protracted discussion around agenda and chair for the ADP (Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action), some progress was made in other meeting rooms. On the middle Saturday a workshop was held for initial discussions around the call for a “New market Mechanism” (NMM). So far, the discussion has tended to focus on the crediting of mitigation activities in developing countries, such as the role performed by the CDM. But a new mechanism must fill a much broader role.[read more]

There’s no way around it: we need a price on carbon in order to rapidly reduce emissions. But absent that necessary policy, putting the investment structure in place to promote renewables can also have a substantial impact on lowering emissions.[read more]

The ongoing debate in Europe about the current state of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the low carbon price outlook is gaining momentum and importantly gaining advocates for action, including senior figures from both business and academia on both sides of the Atlantic.[read more]