From the Guardian:
Belgian prosecutors highlighted the massive losses faced by EU governments from VAT fraud today after they charged three Britons and a Dutchman with money-laundering following an investigation into a multimillion-pound scam involving carbon emissions permits.
The three Britons, who were arrested last month in Belgium, were accused of failing to pay VAT worth €3m (£2.7m) on a series of carbon credit transactions.
European authorities believe the EU has lost at least €5bn to carbon-trading VAT fraud in the last 18 months. Europol, the EU’s law-enforcement operation, fears the fraud will be used in other areas, especially gas and electricity trading markets, after criminals found VAT fraud was one of the most lucrative financial frauds.
“Last month, the European police agency Europol reported that the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) had fallen victim to fraudulent trading activities over the past 18 months, worth €5 billion for several national tax revenues.
It estimates that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.”
Four charged with carbon trading fraud in Belgium
http://www.risk.net/energy-risk/news/1585509/four-charged-carbon-trading-fraud-belgium
Meanwhile here in the USA, carbon is trading for 10 cents a ton on the Chicago Carbon Exchange:
h/t to WUWT reader “Michael”
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Is it the only fraud up there?, what about Brussels and all its EU institutions, really redundant and intended for a global governance. Don´t believe it?, just think, the good all days of the ASTM is ended now ISO reings and it is mandatory…,etc.etc.etc.
No surprise there.
The people who control the system will be the people who make the money.
Follow the money…it will take you to the core of elites that will scam this system (if it ever gets off the ground here in America) just like Enron did to the California electricity market.
Who loses out?
The average Joe.
I am shocked…that the figure is as low as 90%.
Shayle Kann with some group called Greentech Media seems to think it’s a buyer’s market:
“Copenhagen didn’t result in a binding agreement to curb emissions, the U.S. hasn’t passed a comprehensive climate bill, and the lingering recession has caused the price of carbon credits to plummet.
It could be a good time to buy.”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/181985-carbon-credits-its-a-buyers-market
Yeah, right!
I notice he didn’t mention the VAT scam.
Paul
I can’t figure out from that article if they are complaining that con artists don’t pay taxes on their ill-gotten gains (that sounds so European, but then that’s how the US finally nailed Al Capone). . . or if the underlying carbon credit sales were actually valid and will be honored.
Everyone knows, apart from our political lords and masters, that commerce where no physical objects are exchanged leads without fail to fraud. If millions of tons of carbon “traded” are not to be FOB New York the whole system will be as honest as those plastic olive trees cultivated in Greece.
Gary Turner (02:10:39) :
Fixed!
DaveE.
Hopefully we have reached the tipping point and the Cap and Trade Bill is dead on the launch pad……Just another wasteful tax ending up in the schisters hands!……Very ill conceived………John……
The fact that AGW itself is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated, it can hardly come as a surprise that the only way carbon credits are being traded is by criminals who have been egged on by lucrative VAT carousels and other such loopholes to fraudulent easy money.
Jacob Livingston (01:34:50) :
It’s still a good idea but you guys just look for all of the negatives in every story 🙁
Some people might call it using the Precautionary Principle, instead of meticulously avoiding it even when it hits you in the face.
Otherwise, thanks to everyone for trying to explain carbon credits trade. I’ve been having a hard time understanding it, but probably only because it’s flat out crazy.
AdderW (09:03:31) :
Science must end climate confusion
VIEWPOINT
Richard Betts
Climate scientists need to take more responsibility about how their work is presented to the public, suggests the Met Office’s Richard Betts. In this week’s Green Room, he says it is vital to prevent climate science being misunderstood or misused.
—-
Reply: Well, if that isn’t the kettle calling the fire black.
Consider that statement against what we all know from the Hadley CRU and it really should be something that’s criminal. Climategate shows the best thing these “climate scientists” can do is go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
UK Daily Telegraph 30th December 2009
“Europol, the cross-border police force, said that carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90pc of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals mainly from Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland pocketing an estimated €5bn (£4.5bn).”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6912667/Carousel-frauds-plague-European-carbon-trading-markets.html
Ralph (04:04:19) :
The Global Warming swindle is a governmental bubble too. If you really want to ‘follow the money’, it does not lead back to greedy oil companies, who are more than happy to invest in wind-power if there is money to be made there instead. No, the money trail leads back to the governments of this world.
——————–
Well yes, and follow the money trail further and where does it lead:? To the international bankers. They are the people the politicians are really beholden to. Think Peter Mandelson (UK business secretary) going on holiday to the Corfu Rothschild retreat last summer, Charles Osborne and the Russian billionaire (yachtgate).
Sorry, I didn’t read the whole post – yet. I find this an interesting thread
because the carbon trading thing – I feel – focuses in one where the the whole problem is coming from: the people at the very top of the tree.
So I’m not going to get upset about some opportunists getting 15% of what was 100% fraudulent to start with.
I was thinking this is close to be a victimless crime. But then, the victims are the people who bought the carbon credits. Thing is, they will only pass the cost on to the energy-consumer/taxpayer, which is me and you.
However, 90% of the market being occupied by hucksters means that the price was massively inflated, so it wouldn’t have had its value without all the fraudulent activity. Oh dear, sounds just like the ‘global financial crisis’ all over again.
Why do we fall for this sh*t, time after time?
I didn’t realise Edinburgh uni were doing a course on carbon trading and I didn’t know EU was Kyotoland for power stations. It’s worse than I thought!
“We have dreamed down pirates,
We have dreamed down kings,
We have dreamed down wars,
and the end of evil things.” (Unk.)
Guess we need to open our eyes and wake up!
Do they realize that by crying about “losing” tax revenues on the VAT….they’ve admitted that the whole carbon market was more about tax than the environment?
There would have been no tax until the carbon credit VAT was invented. Just like the IRS here, they don’t make money unless money moves….whatever direction.
Gangsters would see carbon trading as being much easier than drugs, gambling and prostitution.
Interesting times….end in not so funny wars.
DirkH (04:14:06) :
[Quote] USA has a CO2 exchange where people MAY buy carbon permits to feel better. For instance Al Gore buys carbon permits voluntarily to compensate nature for his squandering of energy. As nobody is FORCED to buy them in the USA, these carbon permits have only a symbolic value.[Unquote]
Then can I understand that the Chicago price reflects a NATURAL variability and the EU price an ANTHROPOGENIC variability?
Thanks to all of you who have explained the carbon markets.
So who’s out there getting rich by shorting those markets?
Dr A Burns (12:42:29) :
Gangsters would see carbon trading as being much easier than drugs, gambling and prostitution.
They could use something else. They had been switching over to sub-prime mortgage lending which was quite lucrative, but well, you know how that turned out.
True story. I read about it in the autopsies after the crash.
Nitpick: CO2 is not odorless, tasteless, or undetectable – it is only so at any realistic concentration that could be achieved in the Earth’s atmosphere. But try inhaling from a pure CO2 dispenser (I did it once as a result of my enquiring mind) and you’ll soon learn it smells and tastes (intolerable!). (More detail: the suffocation reflex kicks in big time and you exhale violently; after your autonomic systems allow you to stop gulping air, you notice that your mouth tastes acid – carbonated drinks on steroids!)
I worked with pure CO2 as a welder (MIG) it does have a distinct smell, but I found it not unpleasant but just odd. I grant you that a welder is subject to so many olfactory assaults that CO2 may only seem innocuous.
There might be global warming or cooling but the important issue is whether we, as a human race, can do anything about it.
There are a host of porkies and not very much truth barraging us everyday so its difficult to know what to believe.
I think I have simplified the issue in an entertaining way on my blog.
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Please feel welcome to visit and leave a comment.
Cheers
Roger
PS In my country a porky is not a fat person but refers to a statement or assertion of gross falsehood or extreme exaggeration.
PaulH (08:55:47) : Shayle Kann with some group called Greentech Media seems to think it’s a buyer’s market:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/181985-carbon-credits-its-a-buyers-market
Yeah, right!
It is worth noting that “seekingalpha” is a decent stock trade oriented blog.
It is also worth noting that the folks who post there are often just randoms who get a following, so you have to “consider the source”.
Finally, I do have to stress that ANY trade may be for a matter of days or even just hours. If you don’t keep your “time frame” set, you can easily foul yourself up. (“Never let a trade become an investment”).
So this guy might well be right, if his time scale for the trade is “days”, as the Copenhagen collapse might have lead to a short term (days) drop and those are typically followed by a similar rebound. (News driven event trades).
That is dramatically different from expecting that anything other than “10 cents rebounding to 12 cents, be out by Friday” is going on. In other words, a TRADE site typically is not saying “buy some for your kids to retire on…”
Heck, the stock of companies that have stated the intent to file bancruptcy still trades (often at the 10 cent to 5 cent range, sometimes less). On some days you can get 10% gain in a few hours (on others, 20% loss 😉 and I have traded them! (Bond holders often want to buy up the shares to assure enough stock votes for the BK and to make sure the bondholders get paid in BK without a stockholder fight… So you can buy at 8 cents when folks are dumping then resell at 10 cents to a bondholder when they show up at work 😉
Not an easy trade, and you don’t hold past the end of the day most days…