From the Telegraph: European carbon market suspended over fraud fears
The European carbon market has been thrown into turmoil after the scandal-hit scheme was suspended for a week over suspicions of fraud.
More than €2bn (£1.7bn) of trade is likely to be disrupted after the European Commission said it would prevent transactions until January 26.
The suspension follows allegations that 475,000 carbon credits worth €7m were stolen in a hacking attack on the Czech carbon register. It appears that the intangible allowances were bounced between eastern European countries before disappearing without a trace.
…
“Although such incidents are negligible in terms of actual market impact, they will over time undermine the credibility of carbon trading as a policy measure to reduce emissions in Europe. Immediate actions to improve the security of EU registries are thus needed.”
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Full story at the Telegraph here
“It appears that the intangible allowances were bounced between eastern European countries before disappearing without a trace.”
How can something intangible disappear when it doesn’t exist in the first place?
I think they are worried about the wrong credibility issue.
It appears that the intangible allowances were bounced between eastern European countries before disappearing without a trace.
The key word here is “intangible.” Think “imaginary.”
Governments invent an imaginary thing, dole imaginary amounts of it out to their friends, then require everyone to own some of it. Then they claim that your having to buy this imaginary thing from their friends is “a free market.”
Imagine my surprise to learn that something imaginary has disappeared without a trace.
BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12241846
Typical, the trading floor rumor on Monday related to a phishing scheme — someone knew something was up days before they decided to close trading.
Sorry – my previous comment (containing “the CAGW scam has finally been exposed”) was wrong. The World Meteorological Organisation has today declared that 2010 was the (joint) “hottest year ever”.
You couldn’t make it up……………. How many people acually believe this rubbish ??
Any industry created and populated by zealots and fools is ripe for the taking.
What happened is that the computer age has caused a last gasp frantic burst of energy of fascist activism, of the urge to centrally plan resource allocation via philosopher king planning. Old school communism and fascism failed for lack of these marvelous electronic brains that could replace the invisible hand of capitalism. Oh, and we can now control and command the weather too, with century long grand plans that smart grids, smart thermostats, toilets and garbage cans will enforce the details of.
It’s like a creepy dude who comes out of his defeatist shell when he discovers online dating but then degenerates into a maniacal stalker as he keeps trying to tweak his strategy to arrive in romantic paradise.
At least with computers there is always new hope that another have at it effort will finally spit out a magical formula for happiness.
The analogy with obsessive gambling is too close to even be humorous, since that’s what carbon futures is already an exact example of.
“Roger Longstaff says:
January 20, 2011 at 8:01 am”
Well, since 1850…apparently, that’s NOT 18:50 BTW.
Carbon Credits = The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Tom in Florida says:
January 20, 2011 at 6:21 am
Sorry Tom.
My money was tied up with the last failed Carbon Credit Market. Lost a fortune!
Thank God for my pixy dust company on the Moon!
Want to trade?
Freetrade…godda love it!
The cartoon accurately depicts the carbon trading paradigm. The husband is ‘developing nations’. The idiots buying his carbon credits (for not building coal-fired power plants, for example) are the ‘developed nations’.
My late grand-grandma (1892 – 1988) used to say:
Ha Ha, it’s just like The Sting ‘cept they set up Carbon exchanges instead of a phoney bookie’s office.
US-based scientist Lee Schipper said “My fear is not just that people in my field get mud on their faces, but that the line between legitimate activity and crime on the internet is getting thinner and thinner,” he said.
“The only way to tackle it will be if all the ISPs come together.”
They just can’t help themselves, CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL
I believe I just heard a report on the radio of a Daily Telegraph story concerning the Australian flooding being exacerbated because Aussie politicians went all in on the notion that global warming would bring drought. It is alleged that these brilliant politicos cut flood prevention funding and channeled billions to desalinization plants on the assumption fresh water would be in short supply.
Perhaps this drought problem could be more efficiently addressed the way the Chinese are doing with the Three Gorges dam, where seasonal flooding on the lower Yangtze has been stopped and impounded rain waters in south China are being pumped many thousands of kms to dry northern China areas. Does Australia know how to build dams and reservoirs? Have they even studied their own history enough to know that the recent flooding was not actually unprecedented?
And finally, is Australia a player on the world carbon exchange? As a seller, I would assume?
Richard Heg says:
January 20, 2011 at 1:28 am
“On the subject of fraud, from the BBC today:
Fraudsters are targeting climate scientists with fake conferences in a bid to make cash and obtain details.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12219472
”
Beautiful, fake climate conferences. Remember that li’l Portuguese gathering of Mann et.al. a few months ago? Maybe it was just such a setup.
Maybe we already have entire fake institutes… applying for real grants, but delivering only fake results… oh, wait…
I’m confused, how can you steal something that doesn’t exist? Surely this virtual property only exists because it can be uniquely identified (perhaps by some sort of code) and so those credits ought to be able to be invalidated simply by withdrawing the validity of those codes.
Yay to those who designed the system. They’re right on their game.
Transparency International will be producing a report on corruption risks associated with tackling climate change.
Global Corruption Report 2010: Climate Change
http://www.transparency.org/publications/gcr
“The forthcoming Global Corruption Report will be the first comprehensive publication of its kind to explore the corruption risks related to tackling climate change. From international policy-making to national level mitigation and adaptation strategies and with a special focus on the forestry sector, the GCR will draw on the expertise of more than 50 experts and practitioners from the anti-corruption movement and the climate change field.”
Transparency International are best known for their annual Corruption Perceptions Index, a ranking of the countries of the world from the least to the most corrupt.
Regarding the price of carbon credit stock, I know a guy who can crunch those numbers again and make the stock rise in dramatic and unprecedented fashion.
The shut down of the markets came about through one incident acording to the MSM.
Further reporting is suggesting differently. Other markets are reporting discrepencies and the amounts involved are increasing rapidly.
http://www.estonianfreepress.com/2011/01/ets-carbon-cyberattack/
Unfortunately for the European Union’s system, the cyberattacks did not affect only the Czech registry but altered at least also some other four national registries as the ones of Estonia, Austria, Poland and Greece – causing both their closure and a widespread panic on the real safety of European Union IT infrastructures.
Talking to the National Broadcasting, a special from the Estonian Ministry of Environment – Mr. Jürgen Talkop declared that “Estonia closed is register yesterday, after learning that allowances went missing from an account in the Czech register, in order to avoid future incidents” questioned about a breech that seems to have caused damages for almost 40 million Euros overall.
Comparing carbon trading to commodity futures trading is not correct. Buyers of a commodity(long position) and sellers of a commodity(short position) enter a market to establish equilibrium(price) between supply and demand. The economic principles of futures trading have been with us since the 1730’s with the Dojima Rice Exchange in Japan and before that in less complicated forms. The only supply demand equilibrium established by carbon trades is by government fiat. It simply cannot work as intended.