When former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their focus on global warming, the Nobel committee said climate change “must be treated with the utmost seriousness.”
But it’s not just politicians and academics becoming involved with the issue. The global capital markets are having their say. Peony Capital Ltd., a €400 million ($590 million) Beijing-based carbon trading fund backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said in August that it would buy 10 million tons of emission reductions by 2012 from projects in China.
Peony is just one of many. In their report on the “State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2007,” Karan Capoor and Philippe Ambrosi of the World Bank said an estimated $11.8 billion had been invested in 58 carbon funds as of March 2007, compared with $4.6 billion in 40 funds as of May 2006....MORE
