- Introduction
- Carbon Transactions – A Primer
- Forestry and the Kyoto Protocol - The International Context
- The United States Context
- Global Carbon Markets
- Trading and Marketing U.S. Forest Carbon Offset Projects
- Forestry Project Accounting Issues for U.S. Registries
- Conclusion and Synthesis
Carbon Primer
Forest Carbon Trading and Marketing in the United States
5. Global Carbon Markets
The global market for CO2 emissions is emerging as one of the most rapidly developing commodity markets. In 2005, the global carbon market as a whole traded about US$12 billion in notional value. A significant portion of this trading volume was attributed to the EU ETS. Driven by Kyoto compliance commitments, emission allowances worth US$9.1 billion in notional value were traded in 2005 in the EU ETS, representing nearly four times that of previous years’ volumes.
As of July 2006, approximately US$19 billion in notional value has been traded, representing over 700 million MTCO2. The EU ETS is projected to reach over US$34 billion by the end of 2006. However, as currently designed, offsets earned from LULUCF projects are excluded from the EU ETS.
Other GHG trading schemes outside Kyoto worthy of mention include the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (NSW) and CCX. The NSW program in 2005 traded 6.11 million MTCO2 with a total notional value of US$57.2 million. The CCX program has also been witnessing significant growth in trading volume. In 2005, the CCX traded around 1.4 million MTCO2 compared to over 8.2 million MTCO2 as of September 2006. To date, over US$54 million in notional value have traded on the CCX exchange platform. Both the CCX and the NSW exchanges issue credits for sequestered forest carbon.
In October 200626, emission allowances were trading at US $4.05/MTCO2 on the CCX exchange, US $20.80/MTCO2 on the EU ETS exchange, and US $9.42/MTCO2 on the NSW exchange.
6. Trading and Marketing U.S. Forest Carbon Offset Projects
26http://ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/marketwatch.segment_landing.carbon.php? component_class_name_csv=carbon_market,carbon_aggregate_market
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