Global Carbon Market Hits $176 Billion in 2011
By Jo Nova
Global Carbon Market trading climbed to $176 billion in 2011 according to the The World Bank, which has just released it’s annual State and Trends of The Carbon Market in 2012. That makes it about the same value as total global wheat production — which supplies about 20% of the calories consumed by the 7 billion people on planet Earth.
The global carbon market disguises itself as an angel against the greedy corporates. Yet it is, itself, a giant corporate playing field. The mainstream media remains largely silent on the “vested interests” represented by this major industry that did not even exist 10 years ago.
Was 2011 the peak of global carbon trading? Looks all downhill from here.
A record number of emissions products were traded in 2011, even though prices of EU carbon permits and international offsets fells well below $10 a tonne late in the year. The prices have fallen, but the volumes have increased. Look out, the average price in 2011 was $18.80US, but the prices in 2012 are less than half that. It will take a monster increase in volumes in 2012 to keep raising the total market value.
The Global Carbon Market was still growing in 2011, but not exponentially like it was from 2005 – 2009. The bad news (for carbon traders) is about to hit the fan in the next report in 2013. There is a hint of it in the page announcing the report: “the market for primary CDM has dropped to its lowest level since 2004.”
Oh well, on to the next craze. Tulips anyone?
Bill Parsons says (June 6, 2012 at 8:13 am)
It would be great to know how many pension funds are salted with these investments.
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The BBC pension fund is stuffed full of ‘green investments’. Just saying….
Bill Parsons says:
June 6, 2012 at 8:13 am
It would be great to know how many pension funds are salted with these investments. Do you suppose pensioners would like to know?
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Excellent point
Jim Kim, who takes charge of the World Bank at the end of this month, was a world health expert, specializing in AIDS, and former head of Dartmouth. God knows how many health-related issues besides AIDS are directly attributable to AGW. A letter writing campaign to this powerful new president would not be amiss. I personally am sending the following quote from an April 2012 Guardian article:
I couldn’t understand why Quebec was jumping on that wagon lately when every one else is getting away from it. Now it makes sense. There must be some powerful people in Quebec that want to get their investment back ASAP.
Market is also scam-ridden. From GWPF:
http://thegwpf.org/international-news/5889-beware-londons-green-fraudsters.html
@RAYQ MCMULLEN says: June 6, 2012 at 8:48 am
Mulcair (NDP) has an agenda to transfer wealth to Quebec from Saskatchewan and Alberta via Cap’n Trade. Cap’n trade would funnel billions into Quebec due to their Hydro power !!
From the executive summary: Yet even as prices declined, the value of the global carbon market climbed in 2011, driven predominantly by a robust increase in transaction volumes.
That makes it about the same value as total global wheat production —
Not to put too fine a point on this fraud, …..
they take $178 million dollars in paper carbon credits and trading it 1000 times a year between a few hundred computerized trading accounts and EQUATE that to the GROWING of $178 Billion dollars of wheat and it’s consumption by billions of people. Hardly the “same value“.
I am reminded of a phrase from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy concerning the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation….
first against the wall when the revolution comes.
The scales of the fraud is being recognised
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/9312063/Fraudsters-turn-to-carbon-credits-according-to-FSA.html
but they still include the idiot comments that CO2 is pollution..
“Carbon credits are transferable certificates that allow companies to pollute “
Curiousgeorge says:
June 6, 2012 at 4:25 am
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/02/24/lawrence-solomon-israels-oil-diplomacy/
quidsapaio-in tracking what is going on in education globally I kept (still do) intersecting various reports from all the agencies I listed explaining their Green Growth agenda and how their support for education policies is essentially designed to change what people value, feel, their attitudes, etc so they will be on board with the agenda voluntarily.
It’s not an explanation I went looking for but if someone says we are collaborating, this is who we are working with, and this is the common goal, we should darn well take their word for it. They view education and climate change propaganda as useful tools to get people to do voluntarily things that will enable a centrally planned, managed economy. I think the idea that what was wrong with China and Russia was just applying the techniques to an agricultural economy, instead of an industrial one, to be illiterate. But empowered people with OPM get to be ahistorical illiterates without a loss of power.
So it’s up to us to figure out what the economic consequences of what they declare they are doing will likely be. And to document what they have been in the past. And tell the story and hopefully get traction in time to take their decision making power away.
At least that’s the best plan I have been able to come up with.
Sun Spot says:
June 6, 2012 at 9:31 am
Maybe it is time for the rest of Canada to have a Referendum to throw out Quebec from the Confederation. That would be quite a twist from them wanting to separate all the time.
John Marshall says:
June 6, 2012 at 2:53 am
Don’t worry about carbon trading there is more reality to worry about—-the collapse of the Euro, with Spain today asking for direct help for its banks, Greece about to pull out in about 2 weeks, Portugal still in trouble after being helped, Italy about to tip into the void of failure and all this on the backs of the German people who, understandably, do not want to help.
Oh the joys of Europe and the Eurozone big idea.
Thank goodness we still have control over our own currency in the UK. We might have problems but we are our own people not totally controlled by some left wing Eurocrats in Brussels.
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You’ve still got sterling because it’s all controlled by the City – and that’s a private corporation not part of the UK.
See http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/The.History.of.the.Money.Changers.htm
for some history of Bank of England.
Which, I’ve just remembered, but fuzzy, something about it being nationalised at some time, was it Harold Wilson? Maybe just wanted to.
Anyway, that’s why they’re going a bit nervy now, claiming that some EU policy shouldn’t include the City.
One of the lead authors is from NYSE / Bluenext the global carbon exchange. Shame on the World Bank. This report can’t have any credibility. Don’t take my word for it just search on the authors.
Charles Gerard Nelson says onJune 6, 2012 at 2:27 am
Yes, but it was caused by global warming because the warming is in the pipeline and just think of the children.
Bruce Cobb says:
Oh well, on to the next craze. Tulips anyone?
Ahh yes – nice point – I’ll have to dig out my old copy of Mackay’s book.
Ref here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
When the carbon markets crach everywhere else, California’s will just be starting up. And that will drive the rest of our businesses out of the state.
Yikes! I’d better pack up and load ma, pa and my kids on the old model T(oyota) and head for Oklahoma! Or maybe Texas. I might just have enough money for gas to get there, and maybe I can do some programming for food.
Since the real underlying “price” of carbon emissions is negative (it should be subsidized, i.e.). The Invisible Hand has the Carbon Markets by the throat, and is going to choke them to death, like it did the CCX.
Richard Sharpe says
Yes, but it (=the cold snip in AU) was caused by global warming because the warming is in the pipeline and just think of the children.
Henry says:
You are joking, right? You are putting us on.
Just in case you are serious:
Scientists have shown that earth has not warmed since the beginning of this century.
In fact, my own (totally independent) investigations lead me to believe that earth has cooled since that time.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
There is no “carbon market”, simply because it is a non-issue.
No scientist has proven to me from actual measured results (in the right dimensions and with the right testing) that the net effect of more carbon dioxide is that of warming.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
[SNIP: We do appreciate your concern, but posting under two separate screen names and referencing each other is sock-puppetry and not tolerated here. Choose one name and stick to it or your comments will be trashed. -REP]
I gather Barry was going to answer something to “Richard Sharpe” (himself)
Yes, Barry, please do hurry back to Sceptical Science,
and go play with your puppets.
It is getting colder here too. Bad cold front is coming up. Just looking at the weather station in Kimberley (South Africa) I noticed that average temperatures have dropped there by 1.5 degrees since the beginning of this century (2000). It shows when you fly over Kimberley during daytime.
Barry still “believes” that cooling is good.
Barry, you are wrong. Cooling is bad. Very bad. That is why I report the things I have measured and say the things that I have said….
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
My children must know that I did my best.
Fair enough REP, but this is serious and I really need some help getting this out there. The World Bank does not maintain an appropriate distance from major carbon market players like NYSE/Bluenext. I can prove it. Just google the main report authors and you will see that one of them is a loaner from NYSE/Bluenext. If you care please provide feedback directly to the bank on http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/carbon-markets-valley-creation.
RockyRoad says:
June 6, 2012 at 6:47 am
Well, sure–carbon is only valuable as CO2 in the atmosphere to make plants grow.
Even dummies recognize that eventually. (Or do we have some traders that refuse
to eat?)
I thought the carbon in my hamburger & fries (or my coffee this morning) was very valuble. ;-}
If it continues to “warm” in Oregon we can kiss the 2012 wine crop goodby. All that warming is forming ice crystals as we speak on delicate vineyard parts that came on a bit too early from a warm onset of an early Spring. My gosh Mother Nature has a sense of humor. How come I don’t hear laughter? Think of the children of these grape growers who were talked into planting row upon row of grape vines in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington more than a decade ago. Their livelihoods are being taken away from them by all this global warming. Gosh I am getting good at this global warming language.
Well it is looking as if the carbon “investment” is almost as much of a crapshoot as Facebook. Just imagine; a kid still wet behind the ears becomes a trillionaire conning people into publishing for the whole identity theft industry, all the information needed to clean them out, of house and home.
Wonderful is American capitalism.