May 15, 2006
Quotes and Headlines on the Chicago Climate Exchange
“We believe that in the long run we will have some sort of mandatory emissions reductions in the US , and that companies that are proactive in their endeavours to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have an advantage…. The exchange establishes an experience base for carbon trading and a policy precedent for the way in which mandatory systems will ultimately be established.”
-- Bruce Braine, vice-president for strategic policy analysis at American Electric Power. AEP is one of the US’s major electricity generators, with a base of three million customers, and one of Chicago Climate Exchange’s founding members
“Trading is going to make the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions cheaper and easier. That’s what markets do best and forward-looking companies are realising this,”
-- Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute in Washington DC and a former member of the Chicago Climate Exchange’s board
“The global carbon market could be worth $25-30 billion in 2006, based on volumes in the first four months of the year, according to the World Bank. Some $7.5 billion worth of carbon contracts changed hands up to the end of April, compared with almost $11 billion in the whole of 2005…”
-- World Bank, “State and trends of the carbon market 2006”
"The innovation of carbon trading offers us a way to reinforce economic and environmental objectives simultaneously… [we must discuss] not only how we ensure greater security of energy supply but support alternative sources of energy and greater efficiency of energy use, so reducing carbon emissions is an energy and thus an economic imperative as much as it is an environmental imperative."
-- Britain’s finance minister, Gordon Brown, on his pitch to the Group of Seven club of nations in April 2006