Curtains Fall on only US Carbon Trading Chicago Climate Exchange on Republican Ascendancy

Chicago Climate Exchange the only USA Exchange to allow trading of Carbon Emission Credits has been shut down by its owner ICE.While I am no fan of Carbon Emissions Cap and Trade Policy as it gives rise to Frauds and  Misplaced Incentives,the mechanism is one of the popular subsidy tools in combating Global Climate Change.Note Carbon Cap and Trading was on the Policy Agenda of the Obama Administration,however a deadlock in the Senate prevented any move in 2010.The US has been a huge laggard in the global warming fight and  with the Republican Ascendancy following the MidTerm Polls,things are  set to stay the same.Despite the BP Oil Spill and Record Global Temperatures,US remains blind to its climate obligations.With US reluctance,the Climate Change has been in Cold Storage with little progress  expected in Cancun Meet.

Most of the Trading done on the Chicago Exchange was in Voluntary Emission Reductions by companies such as IBM.But with little hope of any cap and trade scheme in the future,the participants have all but given up.The employees will be laid off as ICE concentrates its energies on Europe which has been much more active in the Climate Change area with 20% Renewable Energy Target by 2020.Asian countries and cities like Tokyo have started implementing small cap and trade schemes on their own.South Korea is also set to introduce carbon capping soon .The US remains behind Asia and Europe on almost all fronts of Green Industry.

Cap-and-Trade Exchange Calls It Quits – NY Times

The Chicago Climate Exchange is a voluntary but legally binding greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system modeled after a federal cap-and-trade program from the 1980s that successfully curbed emissions tied to acid rain.

With climate legislation in the United States dead in the water for the foreseeable future, participants in the exchange have lost interest, said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, chief executive of Intercontinental Exchange, an operator of futures exchanges for agricultural, credit, currency and energy contracts that purchased the Chicago Climate Exchange in July 2010 for $600 million.

Meanwhile, trading volume in the European branch of Climate Exchange, which Intercontinental also acquired in its purchase, continues to grow under the mandatory carbon caps of the Kyoto Protocol.