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 Exchange
Republican mid-term election joy deals financial uncertainty among green investors as the Chicago Climate Exchange announces the end of U.S. carbon trading.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on October 21, 2010 that it will cease carbon trading this year. However, Steve Milloy reporting on Pajamasmedia.com (November 6, 2010) finds this huge story strangely unreported by the mainstream media.
To some key analysts the collapse of the CCX appears to show that international carbon trading is “dying a quiet death.” Yet Milloy finds that such a major business failure has drawn no interest at all from the mainstream media. Milloy noted that a “Nexis search conducted a week after CCX’s announcement revealed no news articles published about its demise.”
Not until November 02, 2010 had the story even been picked up briefly and that was by Chicagobusiness.com (Crain’s). Reporter, Paul Merrion appeared to find some comfort that while CCX will cease all trading of new emission allowances at the end of the year, “it will continue trading carbon offsets generated by projects that consume greenhouse gases, such as planting trees.”
Collapse is Personal Setback for U.S. President
Barack Obama was a board member of the Joyce Foundation that funded the fledgling CCX. Professor Richard Sandor, of Northwestern University had started the business with $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation enthusiastically endorsed by Obama. When founded in November 2000, CCX’s carbon trading market was predicted to grow anywhere between $500 billion and $10 trillion. Fortunately before its collapse Sandor was able to net $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake when CCX was sold.
Failure of European Climate Market May Follow
Milloy writes, “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. Trading carbon was, “the only purpose for which it was founded.” But with their resurgence after the mid-terms the Republicans have now put a new cohort of global warming skeptics into the corridors of power.
Unlike the American voluntary scheme, the European cousin of the CCX, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), continues to trade due to the mandatory carbon caps of the Kyoto Protocol. But the future of the ECX will be in doubt unless a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol is introduced. That treaty expires in 2012. But the ineffectual Copenhagen Climate Conference (2009) exposed an inability among international politicians to agree on climate change. If this stalement persists then the European ECX may likely suffer the same fate as Chicago’s CCX.
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Anthony you need to update that graphic of ‘it’s dead Jim’ with one where the good doctor is giving that famous look up to the camera he gives when he says that… something like…
(*time spent doing a google image search*)
..Well, actually, I can’t find anything good either. That’s a shame. I’ve got a lot of the old stuff at home in HD, I’ll screencap and make a new one to serve this internet need. In the meantime, here’s a modern Trek equivalent:
http://jeremy.stoic-epicurean.com/pictures/newbones.jpg
It was bought for $597 million based on the figures stated in the post. Those that invested may want to know more about AGW after that hit. Who did the due dilligence?
It’s worse than that Jim. He’s dead.
Gone with the wind – and, frankly, I don’t give a damn!
Is the end of this insane AGW scam with its trillions of dollar taxes now in sight, or is this just the end of the beginning, I wonder?
This is how the market works. And interestingly, the perps acknowledge that this scheme simply would not work without government imposed regulation requiring cap and trade. Social engineering that ignores the natural motivations of the market can’t work unless part of that engineering plan removes all competing alternatives. ObamaCare somes to mind as an equivalent scheme to forced cap and trade. This is the first signature to look for in any regulation that has as its first principle changing how we live; What choices remain after the bill becomes law?
RIP. I won’t be sending flowers.
The long con has been busted.
Don’t expect them to go gentle into that good night, but they may well slink away for a while….
With the Republican House upsurge it looks more likely that the stalemate will persisit as China and India might remain rather frosty in the absence of a US endorsement. If the EU goes it alone then expect a steady trickle of heavy industry to India and China.
So, what next? Water? It is becoming more scarce, as overall we seem to be extracting more from the ground than is being replaced.
Oops! Shhh!
Here’s hoping that it cost the backers a pile of money!
Far be it from me to tell others what they should or ought to do. If people are stupid enough to gamble with their money on illogical schemes like trading carbon credits that is their business. Just don’t do it with my money and don’t complain when it all goes bust. That said I was wondering is Carbon Credit Trading was like Papal Indulgences, Since both are based on some religious belief?
This is indeed a sad day. NZ still has an ETS scheme which, as a forestry investor, is going to hurt my pocket badly. I was hoping to buy low in Chicago (5c/tonne) and sell high in NZ (shipping costs should have been well covered by the profits) and now this!
Devestated, truly devastated.
Hurrah! Now all we need is for the imbeciles in Brussels to terminate the ETS.
Looks like Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) bought it “Morgan Stanley advised ICE on the transaction and Shearman & Sterling LLP served as ICE’s legal advisor.” Oops!
Killing off the exchanges – and there are more, I believe, such as in Australia – is only the first step.
To protect the US from State and Regional mandates for Climate nonsense, Congress should pass law forbidding mandates from Federal, State, and Local governments from implementing any form of Carbon limiting law. Then set about de-constructing all the
laws currently in place – which will surely be done in the courts.
@John Kehr
‘Mark up one more bad idea that died a miserable death. Looking back, I think every idea Al Gore ever had ended the same way. Hmmm.. Lets start a market for bad ideas from Al Gore. We can raffle the death date of his ideas.’
That’s a fabulous idea, and almost identical to the one Goldman Sachs had when they made a killing on selling dodgy investments to their clients whilst simultanously taking on out huge insurance policies (Credit Default Swaps) on their guaranteed failure.
And the thing is, I’m not kidding.
Just when you thought it was all over!
What’s wrong with the local weather service? :o(
Note the peak at $7+ per share in late 2008, followed by a free fall to oblivion, with a small ‘hiccup’ on the way down. Are these signatures of some kind of “pump and dump” scheme?
“Aaaaw, did someone loose ten trillion dollars today? Is someone sad?”
~Glenn Beck
Dennis Nikols, P. Geol. says: “Just don’t do it with my money…”
I think it’s too late Dennis:
Poor guy only made 89.5 times his original investment. Fortunately he did not have to use his own money, he was able to use money from my pocket and yours and a few dozen of the other denizens of this blog, etc., etc.
Fortunately!!! You gotta love that word choice.
How much will we (taxpayers) have to bail out ICE? Are they “too big to fail”? Perhaps some “stimulus” needed, or a TARP?
Reagan said the closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government program. Perhaps CCX will become GCX? (worked for GM)
If Sandor got a grant to start this, doesn’t his profit belong to the grantor?
Seems like your basic get rich quick scam.
@ur momisugly John Day….that hiccup on the way down is what’s known as a “dead cat bounce”. Thankfully, the cat does truely appear to be dead. Let’s hope it dies as well for the rest of you folks across the ponds.
Little bit of topic; Al Gore is going to receive an environment award from the University of Tilburg (Netherlands). If you have never heard of this university, you are in good company because most of Dutch people either. It’s a so colled Alpha – university ; a formerly theological insitute – no physics, mathematics or things like that learned there.
It’s not just the CCX that has gone belly up. It seems Ma Nature has got a beef with biofuels and has tossed a wrench into the biofuel industry in the form a virus that impacts the feedstocks – switchgrass in particular. It ain’t nice to fool Mother Nature.
http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/common/link.do;jsessionid=27F946D6ADB5CDBAF48D0AE806507477.agfreejvm2?symbolicName=/ag/blogs/template1&blogHandle=ethanol&blogEntryId=8a82c0bc2a8c8730012c2c8a748713d2&showCommentsOverride=false
Incredible. Working in finance, I have a Bloomberg terminal up and running at all times. This has quotes for everything you could possibly wish to trade, and quite a comprehensive news system. The page for Chicago Climate Exchange is still up and running, as are the quotes for all their ‘financial instruments’ (all of which have a zero value.)
Is there anything on their news system that says anything about the exchange closing down? No!