Rescan has grabbed the bull by the horns. Clem Pelletier sent me an announcement that they now offer a Carbon Inventory and Auditing service. Talk about fast response to a business opportunity arising from global warming.
Carbon credits, according to the Rescan announcement are “tradable permits exchanged between companies and nations as part of a program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On markets like the European Climate Exchange, groups that have emitted greenhouse gases in excess of guidelines set by international treaties can purchase carbon credits from groups whose emissions are below the guidelines.”
The following is repeated from a presentation to the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute in Vancouver in July 2007 by David G. Victor a professor of law at Stanford University:
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Economists like trading emissions because it offers the possibility of complete flexibility “when” and “where” emissions are controlled. Under the system, each EU member government allocates emission credits to the industrial plants on its territory. The plants then decide whether it is cheaper to control emissions, which would free up extra permits to sell, or buy permits from others on the open market.
If emission reductions prove costly then demand for permits will rise, and so will prices. Alternatively, prices fall if low-cost technologies for cutting carbon appear, or if weak economic growth saps the fortunes of emitting industries. By controlling the total number of permits—which is managed by a central administration in Brussels—EU regulators can influence prices, much as central bankers influence the value of currencies by altering the cost and supply of money.
Several serious teething problems have emerged in the short history of the EU market. During the trial period, which has run since 2005 and will end at the close of 2007, these uncertainties have caused prices to gyrate from almost $40 per ton of CO2 to about one dollar today now that it has become clear that the market is massively oversupplied.
Actually its a lot easier than calling in Rescan. You too can do it by contacting Carbonfund.org. They have a special section devoted entierly to how individuals can calculate their carbon credits and sell these in the open market. At a dollar a ton, I leaving work now to get home to start measuring and calculating. After all if Larry Nocella can do it so can I.
From the ridiculous to the sublime, try Morgan Stanley which is about to invest $3 billion in environmental markets including trade in permits to emit greenhouse gases, aka carbon credits.
Actually I am off to Minnesota to buy a farm and sit on it and then get rich on the carbon credits. Here is the story that incites my greed and investment wisdom:
This year’s deadline to enroll in the Minnesota Farmers Union Carbon Credit Program has been extended to September 15th for no-till crop acres and seeded grasses. Doug Peterson, Minnesota Farmers Union, president, is glad the enrollment deadline has been extended. “This gives farmers more time to get involved in this worthy program,” he says. Farmers Union’s Carbon Credit Program allows agriculture producers and landowners to earn income by storing carbon in their soil through no-till crop production and long-term grass seeding practices. MFU, in partnership with the National Farmers Union, has earned approval from the Chicago Climate Exchange to aggregate carbon credits. Farmers Union will enroll producer acreages of carbon into blocks of credits that will be traded on the Exchange.
Now that farmers have cottoned on, can it be too long before miners too are enamoured of carbon credits? The good thing about all this is that with a bit of luck we will see all that horrible writing and all those sanctimonious statements about sustainable mining (an oxymoron if ever there was one) disappear–soon to be replaced by horrible writing and sanctimonious statements about carbon credit mining. Ah well, a change of fashion does not necessarily mean better looks or greater beauty. But it can sure justify more spending.
