...Canada is just getting in on the action. Alberta is launching the first Canadian market July 1, other provinces are moving in the same direction and a new company called GHG Emission Credit Participation Corp. plans an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It will buy and sell carbon credits and "assets that provide direct and indirect exposure" to credits.
...More problematic are what's known as voluntary credits, stemming from emission-cutting projects in countries that didn't ratify Kyoto (United States), aren't implementing it (Canada) or don't meet the Kyoto standards (hello China).
...In London, which handles about 60 per cent of the world's trade in emission credits, leading trader EcoSecurities Group PLC, an Irish company that has been listed for less than two years, is now valued at nearly $600-million.
..."If you don't actually know what you're investing in, you can get very seriously burned. And there's nothing that's going to be worse for the idea of cleaning up the environment than having a major financial catastrophe associated with it."
Don't you hate it when that happens?
From the Globe and Mail
