EUAs vs crude oil update

I’ve updated the chart of EUAs vs crude oil (see below). I’ve included some comments based on an incomplete understanding of the dynamic between the two, so any comments would be gratefully received.

For the past year, EUAs have been rangebound between 12 and 16 euros. Oil, conversely, has trended strongly upward from $63 (EUR45) a year ago to a high of $80 (EUR63) a week ago. This is in contrast to the first period shown on the graph, between Jan 2007 and Spring 2009, where EUAs and crude were strongly correlated.

The relationship between EUAs and crude oil is partly that both are driven by overall demand for energy, but this changes over the long-term. The relationship observable in this graph is more likely driven by the ‘dark-spark’ mix of energy production in Europe. This refers to the mix of coal (dark) and gas (spark) in energy generation. Oil prices tend to drive the price of natural gas, which is clean relative to coal. When oil increases in price, energy generators switch to coal and therefore demand for carbon credits increases.

The increase in oil price over the past year would usually indicate a greater proportion of coal going into Europe’s energy supply. However, higher demand for carbon credits has not resulted. The sluggishness of EUAs in responding to oil prices is probably a reflection of poor industrial recovery following the credit crunch.

(click to expand)

Project-based carbon offsetting is like a lottery with no prizes

At Carbon Retirement, we have just published a short piece of research into the efficiency of carbon offsetting through the Clean Development Mechanism, covered today by the BBC. It shows that for every £1 spent on CERs by voluntary buyers, 28p goes to the project’s capital expenditure and maintenance costs.

The chart below, from the report, summarises the costs per CER, with the grey chunks representing project expenditure. Project costs total £3.78 per CER, or 28% of the price paid by the final buyer.

Costs in the CDM market, per CER

This isn’t a study of profitability for any of these actors and the costs at each stage might be reasonable. The big chunk taken by the pCER buyer in our model, for example, may be a fair reflection of the risk it holds that the project will not deliver CERs.

However, the research shows that the efficiency of the overall system is very poor. While some transactional costs are inevitable and you could never expect 100% of your money to go to project funding, 28% seems far too low. Imagine if a development charity told you that 72% of your donation went to middlemen and admin fees!

Co-incidentally, 28% is also the proportion of UK national lottery revenue that goes to charity. So, buying carbon offsets to mitigate climate change is like buying lottery tickets to give money to charity. With carbon offsetting, you don’t even win a prize!

Friends of the Earth report on carbon trading – risks burying its good points with garbled points

I just read the new report on carbon trading (pdf) from Friends of the Earth. Given the charity’s stance on anything related to carbon trading, the critical approach is unsurprising. The report makes some good points, but also makes some points that don’t seem well thought out. This is a shame because the charity could achieve much more by taking a reasoned position in the debate and focusing on the things that need changing.

One of my gripes is that the report contains some rash statements, like:

The EU ETS scheme has clearly failed to provide adequate incentives for European firms to reduce their emissions in Phase I;  Phase II is performing poorly and is likely to fail.

Is it? Last time I checked it was doing OK! Or:

The complexity of the carbon markets, and the involvement of financial speculators and complex financial products, carries a risk that carbon trading will develop into a speculative commodity bubble that could provoke a global financial failure similar in scale and nature to that brought about by the recent subprime mortgage crisis.

That’s not a good comparison. There is a lot of derivative trading in the EU ETS but we know exactly what the underlying asset is. The derivatives are simply tools to make trading smoother. The idea that carbon markets are a ponzi scheme run by speculators runs through the report, and some errors are made, including that most carbon credits are held by speculators (they aren’t; most credits are held by statutory market participants).

And the environmental economics get a bit shaky with the argument that cap and trade actually ‘locks in’ high emissions:

Polluters have an incentive to make extra emission reductions under emissions trading so that they can sell credits, therefore, emissions trading stimulates innovation. This model accurately explains the situation of sellers of credits. […But it ignores the buyers…] Carbon trading makes lower-cost credits available to these firms as an alternative to the higher-cost investments that they would otherwise have to make. Hence trading removes any incentive that they have for technological innovation.

This would be better explained as “cap and trade makes equally valuable emission reductions for less money”.

I do, however, agree with FoE’s stance on offsetting. The report says:

developed countries are using the prospect of increased carbon market finance to hide from their commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to provide new and additional sources of finance to developing countries. Carbon market finance comes from offsetting developed-country emissions cuts which should be additional. Counting it towards the financial commitments of developed countries is double counting.

This is right. And the report makes a generally fair rehearsal of all the usual issues with offsetting and the CDM.

If the parties to the UNFCCC can turn the screw on carbon markets, by (a) using the cap to demonstrate greater commitment to more ambitious reductions and (b) cutting out offsetting, then carbon markets like the EU ETS can be an effective central tool in mitigation. There is no reason why cap and trade should exclude direct support for low carbon technologies where governments feel help is needed.

It’s not practical to ask the UNFCCC to throw out carbon markets, and I would like to see FoE take only its reasonable points to the negotiations.

Does the government need to provide guidance on the term ‘carbon neutral’?

The Department for Energy and Climate Change has been running a consultation on the meaning of the term ‘carbon neutral’. Today they published their report. ‘Carbon neutral’ has been given the definition:

Carbon neutral means that – through a transparent process of calculating emissions, reducing those emissions and offsetting residual emissions – net carbon emissions equal zero.

The government is repeating the general mantra that carbon offsetting must be the last step in carbon management, following measurement and internal reduction.

I have always found this view a bit simplistic and also feel the government is sticking its oar in too far by giving a hard line in an area of voluntary corporate responsibility. There is no similar guidance for corporate foundations regarding which charities they should support, for example.

For most organisations, it is not clear what ‘residual’ emissions are. At some point the cost of internal abatement reaches an unbearable level and offsetting makes more sense. But this point is not obvious for any organisation. Very few have a full breakdown of the environmental projects available to them and the cost per tonne of each project. And even if they did, they would be unlikely to be able to decide on the threshold for which projects are affordable – particularly if they cannot compare internal projects with carbon offsets on the same terms (because internal projects should be prioritised).

The carbon offsetting industry supports a strict ‘measure-reduce-offset’ hierarchy because it is regularly accused of creating the moral hazard that it’s OK to keep on polluting. A self confident offsetting industry – an industry that believes its credits have environmental value – would position offsets as a legitimate tool that can be weighed against internal reductions.

Having made those criticisms, I would strongly advise any company wishing to claim it is ‘carbon neutral’ to follow DECC’s guidance. There is no point saying you are carbon neutral if you are going to be shot down by campaigners or switched on customers who believe you are making unsubstantiated claims. Following the guidance at least means you can point to a common methodology. Even better, avoid the term carbon neutral altogether.

Carbon trading game – understanding the difference between the three basic types of environmental policy

I’ve developed a game that explains the differences between three key policy options for reducing emissions: command and control, tax and cap-and-trade. There are other games like it, but I think this one works really well and we like to use it with clients to explain the rationale behind the current preference that many governments have for cap-and-trade policies.

‘Command and control’ is when the government simply tells industry to reduce emissions by a set amount. ‘Tax’ involves levying a charge on each tonne of pollution. ‘Cap-and-trade’ is a policy type that allows companies to buy and sell emission credits, and therefore choose who makes the necessary reductions. Here’s how the game works:

Up to six participants (or six teams of two or three) are cast as the CEOs of large, carbon-intensive companies. They have asked their business analysts to prepare reports on how they can reduce their carbon emissions. These reports are shown at the top of each worksheet (you can download the worksheets here). Each company can implement two projects. You don’t have to implement an entire project – you can do half of it for the half the cost.

The facilitator (who is cast as the government), then asks each company to work out how much it will cost them to meet emission reductions under a command and control regime (i.e. you must meet the reduction target, and you can only implement your own projects). The facilitator asks each company to report how much money they spent and the emission reductions they achieved, and writes totals up on a flipchart.

Next, a tax regime is used. Each company will be charged £40 for every tonne of carbon that they miss their target by. Again, they report the results.

Finally a cap-and-trade scheme is used. Each company decides how many credits they would buy or sell at four price points (using auction ‘order books’, which you can download here). The data is fed into a spreadsheet that works out the optimal clearing price and shows who buys and who sells (the spreadsheet is available here). It’s called a French auction and it’s just like real carbon markets.

The exercise shows that:

• Command and control achieves the desired emission reductions, but at a high price;
• Tax is cost efficient, but unpredictable in terms of emission reductions; and
• Cap-and-trade is cost efficient and achieves the desired reductions.

The game involves huge simplifications, of course, but does outline some basic economics behind these policy choices.

Is carbon still following oil?

In January I looked at European oil and carbon prices to show how they were reacting to the economic recession. Today I had another look at these two markets to see what’s happened over the past six months.

The graph below (click to expand) shows the December 2009 EUA contract (from ECX) and the Europe Brent spot price (from the Energy Information Adminstration, converted in Euros using currency data from OAndA). The prices have been indexed to January 2007. Historically, carbon has largely followed oil.

In 2009 the trend seems unclear. While daily trading news is full of headlines like “carbon nudges higher on strong energy complex”, carbon seems have recovered less than oil. In January 2009, the nominal prices of oil and carbon were both around 70% of January 2007. At the end of last week, oil was at 110%, while carbon was at 80%.

Performance of EUAs vs crude oil

I don’t have any clear commentary to offer just now. Glancing at the graph, it looks like carbon has fallen behind oil by about three weeks, but that doesn’t feel like a very plausible theory. I’d be interested to hear any thoughts.

Why does carbon offsetting struggle with its reputation?

Carbon offsetting has a reputation problem. Some parts of the ‘carbon’ industry act dishonestly or are not environmentally motivated, and people outside the industry tend to lump the diverse organisations involved in carbon trading together. When an exposé story appears in the media, we all suffer.

This week there was a story about suspected VAT fraud in carbon markets. Dodgy brokers were buying carbon credits abroad (which does not attract VAT), and then selling them in the UK and applying VAT. They are thought to have made £38m. It’s called carousel fraud or ‘missing trader’ fraud (because the broker disappears with the tax). One funny thing about this story is that none of the coverage says which market the fraud was in. Were these CDM credits (the carbon offsets that the UN allows governments to use)?

Twitter was full of people saying that this story confirmed carbon trading to be a con. Several newspapers referred to “so-called carbon credits”. Why “so-called”?

Another example is the campaigns by NGOs like Friends of the Earth and WWF against the use of offsets in statutory carbon trading schemes. Under the Kyoto Protocol, governments of rich countries can offset some of their emissions by funding projects in the developing world. The NGOs feel this allows them to wriggle out of their responsibilities.

Friends of the Earth said:

Dangerous climate change will be unavoidable if the UK, EU and USA succeed in increasing the use of carbon offsetting, Friends of the Earth is warning in a new report released today [Tuesday 2 June 2009] that exposes carbon offsetting as ineffective and damaging.

WWF:

The problem with carbon offsetting is that at best it robs Peter to pay Paul – with no net benefit for the planet. All too often, offsetting is simply used to justify business-as-usual behaviour in the UK and other countries.

These charities are referring to the CDM or whatever succeeds it when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. While both have misgivings about voluntary carbon offsetting, neither would object to its use by a company or individual who is doing all they can to reduce their own footprint. Unfortunately most people are not aware of the difference between voluntary and statutory carbon markets and articles like the above cast the whole sector in a poor light.

The challenge for organisations involved in carbon trading is to help their market understand what happens to their money. No customer can be expected to spend their money if they believe it will be appropriated by fraudsters.

EU ETS: “No longer as short”

Point Carbon has just published its annual survey of people working in carbon markets. It’s full of useful insights and I can email you a copy if you want one.

In particular, I was interested in a chart on the expected trading positions of participants representing companies in the EU ETS (below). The proportion of companies with surplus EUAs has jumped about 10 ppts between 2008 and 2009, from 15% to 25%. The proportion that need more EUAs or CERs is something like half (the top four categories).

This tells a clear story: as recession bites, demand for carbon credits will be lower. But by this metric (which admittedly is a bit crude – it’s just the proportion of people who report being short/long and doesn’t account for the volume of emissions they represent), the movement is not so predicted to be big enough to sink the market.

Camp for Climate Action has a common sense failure

I strongly support the Camp for Climate Action. I attended the camp at Heathrow in 2007 and saw that the participants were engaged with policy in a relevant and radical way, and that they were exploring new and more sustainable ways of living and organising.

So I was dissapointed to see that the camp is organising a demo at the European Climate Exhange on the 1st of April.

ECX is the biggest exchange for EUAs (the permits traded in the EU Emmission Trading Scheme), and during February an average of 15m tonnes were traded there per day (1 EUA = 1 tonne of CO2. To put that into perspective, the annual carbon footprint of the UK is about 500m tonnes).

The Climate Camp’s website says:

By creating a brain-bending system of carbon pollution licenses, fossil fuel companies and trading firms have found a way to keep on churning out global warming gases and to reap huge windfall profits at the same time … [The UK government is] handing control of our climate over to the same people and systems that caused the financial collapse … Don’t let the financial and fossil fools make the rules!

This is wrong, of course – the Directives behind the EU ETS were written by the European Commission, not the traders and polluters, making the EC the most successful environmental regulator in history. The EU ETS will effectively limit carbon dioxide emissions within its perimeter to a known amount. Billions of Euros have already been invested in energy efficiency as a result of the carbon price this creates. This investment is the net economic effect of the scheme – not the windfall made a minority of companies.

Cap-and-trade is not viewed by anyone as the single solution to climate change, and it is not incompatible with the technology and lifestyle changes that the Climate Camp endorses. There’s not much to be gained from dismantling the EU ETS.

Finally, ECX is just one of several private exchanges that facilitates trade in EUAs – it has nothing to do with European or member-state level environmental policy.

The Climate Camp’s targetting of ECX is poorly informed and unconstructive. It panders to activists’ natural distrust of the market and establishment. As climate change moves into the mainstream and becomes more of a concern for governments, effective activists will need to engage with mainstream initiatives like the EU ETS rather than instinctively rejecting them.

Cap and trade in the context of shrinking production

Questions are being asked of the two working installation-level cap and trade schemes in light of economic recession. The EU ETS – the world’s largest carbon market – is trading at about 16 Euros per tonne and is volatile because no-one is quite sure of the impact of shrinking production. Analysts believe that all reductions could now be met through purchase of CERs. Essentially this means that industry within the EU ETS has lowered its output and can comply with the cap by offsetting rather than making additional internal reductions.

The other scheme, RGGI, a scheme covering power plants in north-east US, held its second pre-compliance auction on 18 December and sold 31.5m allowances at a price of $3.38 per short ton (up 31c from the first auction, which is surprising given the commentary that follows). An article on BusinessGreen says:

… the auction came amid fears that the economic downturn meant the US scheme could repeat the mistakes evident in the first phase of the EU’s emissions trading scheme by setting the cap too high – a scenario that led to a glut of available emission permits and a collapse in the price of carbon.

Non-profit policy thinktank Environment Northeast released RGGI Emissions Trends & the Second Allowance Auction, a report which said emissions were currently 16 per cent below the cap. It pointed to skyrocketing fossil fuel prices earlier in the year as the primary reason for a lower than expected emissions rate.

“RGGI was negotiated back in early 2003 through 2005, and at that time everybody thought the trend would be up,” said Derek K Murrow, director of policy analysis at Environment Northeast. “Since it was negotiated we’ve seen a signfiicant decline, which is really a good thing. Now the question is whether that trend will continue as the programme starts up in 2009, in which case the cap might need to be bought down more quickly after the first compliance period. Or will emissions return to their historic levels, in which case the cap would be constraining?”

Comments like this suggest that cap-and-trade must deliver a carbon price that is neither zero nor unbearably high, and also force emission reductions beyond anything that happens ‘naturally’ (as a result of lower consumption or developments in eco-efficiency, for example). These characteristics sound more like tax than cap and trade. Cap and trade provides an absolute limit for emissions and a price crash indicates that the limit can be met with no unusual investment. Equally, if emissions rise unexpectedly, a cap and trade market will force decisions about where additional reductions will be made.

That’s the strength of cap-and-trade: unforeseeable events that effect emission levels are reflected in the permit price. If the price crashes due to unforeseen cuts in emissions, the cap and trade scheme is not a failed policy.

EU should insure long term carbon prices to push the climate and energy package through

Some industries are claiming that carbon costs could lead them to move outside the EU, which would harm the internal economy and prevent emission reductions. Eurogypsum – the trade body of gypsum manufacturers – is claiming this, but it’s not clear whether the issue is the absolute cost of carbon or the uncertainty over price.

In an interview with Euractive the president of Eurogypsum said:

I cannot challenge the fact that we have to decrease the energy content in our product. But I can also say that in the thirty years that I have been in the industry, we divided the cost of energy in our products by two. And there is still room for progress. So, it is our job in managing the business. Having an incentive to push us to accelerate is okay.

What I am afraid of is the free market for the CO2 tickets because it is out of control. We do not know. When we make a simulation at a certain level, we have no vision of the carbon price. So that is one of the main issues is that the system that they are going to adopt is a system that will give us no vision of what could happen. Maybe it will cost nothing. Maybe it will cost a big amount. So we may take decisions on something that will never happen? They should be conscious about that…

When you have to choose in between certainty or uncertainty, you avoid the uncertainty.

EUAs trade out to 2012 on derivative markets, but not ten years out like Eurogypsum is thinking, and there are no readily available financial products that can transfer that sort of risk.

Over the next few months, as traders speculate on the extent of the recession and talks in Poznan and Brussels hopefully provide some clarity on Phase III, the EUA price is going to be volatile and those pushing back against the climate and energy package are likely to use this as a lever.

France (as EU Council president) is putting together a big package of concessions for industries in central and eastern Europe in an attempt to push the package through. One that I would throw into the mix is a publicly backed long-term carbon hedge. This would hopefully knock on the head the argument “we’re all environmentalists and we don’t mind paying for carbon, it’s the uncertainty that messes with our business models”.

Do slips in the cost of pollutants threaten environmental targets?

It’s generally felt (and I would be surprised if it was not true) that recycling paper is more efficient than sending it to landfill, burning it or leaving it all over the tube.

A story in today’s Guardian caught my eye. It said that a reduction in international prices for waste paper is threatening the government’s recycling targets. The story is based on an unusually interesting press release (pdf) from the Confederation of Paper Industries. The press release says:

The UK relies on global export markets to take well over 50% of the recovered paper it collects with Far East markets taking over 75% of the export total … without these markets UK merchants are left with little option other than to store the material they have paid significant amounts for or sell at loss making prices … With no obvious signs of Far East buyers returning to the market soon there is a serious possibility that storage of [paper] may end up being a very high risk strategy with huge costs to those requiring storage, including the tax payers through Local Authorities.

Well, there are always winners and losers when commodity prices move. But is this actually an environmental issue?

Paper waste prices are collapsing because people worldwide are using less recycled paper. This is due to lower demand in an economic downturn – not a reduction in eco-consumerism (recycled paper is cheaper). Globally, if there is less demand for paper then we don’t need to recycle as much to meet energy and waste targets. And if the UK situation continues, the market should support new domestic processing plant (if recycling is indeed an efficient process).

Similarly, the European carbon price has slipped significantly over recent months and many forecast it will continue to go down. This will kill the business case for some emission reduction investments, but because the consumption baseline is shrinking overall emissions will not increase. The lower carbon price just delays capex to a time when the economy and emissions start to grow again.

No-one seems to like aviation in the EU ETS. :-( I do.

So, airlines will be in the EU ETS from 2012. No-one seems to like it.

Airlines of course argue that this is bad timing given the looming economic recession and rising fuel costs.

Crisis is not the time for rubber stamps. But that is exactly what the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers used today – without a word of debate – to seal into law the EUR 3.5 billion cost of bringing airlines into the European ETS. It’s Brussels acting in a bubble – even in the middle of a global economic crisis,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Instead of a cap, IATA argues that member states should focus on liberalising European airways to improve flight efficiency:

While Brussels has been fast to introduce its regional ETS scheme, it has been slow to improve efficiency. We need the same urgency to deliver an effective Single European Sky that would save billions of Euros in cost and 16 million tonnes of CO2 annually. That we have been waiting decades for this is Europe’s biggest environmental embarrassment.

Campaigning NGOs are no happier with the decision, arguing that emissions from aviation will continue to grow rapidly under the EU ETS.

IATA: the cap will be tough if no-one does anything to meet it. The argument for better air traffic control is not an argument against a cap. Further, as demand weakens compliance with the cap will become cheaper. Witness the carbon price slipping more than 20% over the past month. If recession cuts demand by more than 3% before 2013, no additional cuts will be necessary.

Greenpeace et al: emissions from aviation may continue to grow after inclusion in the EU ETS but only if consumers decide that they want to cut emissions elsewhere instead. The allocation to airlines will decrease from a 2004/6 baseline.

Animation – Carbon Retirement

We’ve just produced a short animation about how Carbon Retirement works. Carbon Retirement is a new company I’m involved in. We remove EU Emission Allowances from the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme, reducing the volume of CO2 that can be emitted.

Check out our animation (on the Carbon Retirement homepage, Youtube or below) – we’re really happy with it.

Unlike carbon, tropical forests are not commodities

I’ve been meaning to write something about tropical forests for a while. There is not much doubt that they are worth more standing than cut down, and there is some debate about how to make sure they stay where they are.

Deforestation across the world is thought to be responsible for a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions. Tropical forests also contain half the world’s known species and play important roles in all kinds of ecosystems.

The debate on protecting tropical forests seems to have moved from purchase and retirement of land by wealthy individuals and charitable foundations to how tropical forests can be preserved with carbon money.

Organisations preserving forests would be allocated offset credits that regulated companies in developed countries could buy instead of reducing their own emissions. This is not a good idea for two reasons:

• It’s theoretically zero-sum and probably worse. Preserving forests as carbon sinks is not an accurate way to mitigate carbon emissions. Where offsets are sold into cap and trade schemes, the accuracy of the reduction behind the offset is essential to the integrity of the cap.
• It’s an expensive way to preserve forests. While almost certainly better value than the industrial gas destruction projects that have historically delivered a lion’s share of the CER pipeline, preserving forests does not need to cost 20 euros per tonne of CO2.

So how can the ‘ecosystem services’ that forests provide be valued and paid for, if not through carbon markets?

This is the wrong question. The human ROI of protecting tropical forests is a no-brainer. There is no need to let the market determine the value of forests as CO2 sinks – we just need to find the cheapest way to preserve them.

This is why I favour a fund that would be allocated to organisations preserving forests through reverse-auction type processes.

The current plans for the role of the Global Forest Carbon Mechanism in the post-Kyoto UNFCCC framework are half right – the fund will channel money to forest preservation, but will also allow Annex I countries to buy credits from the forest managers.

CCX offsets: the money is gravy to us

Hidden at the end of an article in Monday’s Washington Post is a clear statement of non-additionality from the owner of a project selling offsets on the CCX:

In the western Virginia town of Christiansburg, the operators of a landfill sell carbon offsets tied to a project that captures methane, a powerful greenhouse pollutant, and burn it in a tall orange flare. They’ve made $43,000 on the Chicago Climate Exchange in just a couple of months.

But that project was put in long before the offsets were sold and for a different reason: to keep dangerous gases from accumulating in a capped landfill. So if the offset market dried up completely?

Nothing would change.

The money “is gravy to us right now,” said Alan Cummins, executive director of the regional authority that runs the landfill. Even without it, he said, “we would always continue to flare.”

EUAs are a natural hedge against equities

The particular situation that the European carbon market is in makes EUAs a natural hedge against equities.

While credit restrictions could reduce consumption and therefore emissions, a greater factor in EUA demand is the reduced availability of finance for emission reduction projects, both within and outside of Europe.

Most analysts seem to be saying that the CDM pipeline is facing restrictions as projects find it difficult to find funding – and even that Phase 2 compliance buyers will not be able to fill their quota of CERs (collectively, EU ETS participants can use UN-regulated offsets, called CERs, to cover up to 13.4% of their emissions). This will make higher internal reductions necessary, exerting upward pressure on EUAs.

Within Europe, a higher cost of capital makes clean technology more expensive, so a higher carbon price will be necessary to make the business case for the same capital investment.

While tighter credit tends to send stock downwards, it will tend to send EUAs up.

Solid start for Reggie

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – a statutory cap-and-trade programme covering power stations in 10 north-eastern US states – published the results of its first auction today (a few forward trades have been happening over the summer).

The clearing price was $3.07 – well above the $1.86 floor – suggesting that participants feel the scheme will cut emissions in 2009 (the year the credits will be used in). Environmentalists are quick to point out that RGGI actually allows a 5% increase in emissions from 2008 and credits have come out at $3 because the allowed increase is likely to be smaller than the desired (or baseline) increase.

RGGI is great. It’s the first statutory cap on GHGs in the US. At this stage it is miniscule (Thursday’s auction revenue was about $39m – compare the current value of phase 2 EUAs allocated in 2008: EUR 52bn) and it has to ramp up quickly to be a meaningful part of climate policy. Getting the infrastructure in place is important – but with a non-trade exposed industry like power generation there is every reason for stringent 2010 cap.

(At $3 at least we don’t have to worry too much about the offsets that will be allowed into RGGI…)

Forests should be protected with carbon money – but not through cap-and-trade schemes

There have recently been a few reports in the media about using carbon finance to protect the world’s forests.

Forests provide the world with ‘ecosystem services’ (like biodiversity or absorbing carbon dioxide), which should be valued and paid for. If communities in forested countries can only survive by clearing the forest for timber and farming, it will be impossible to stop deforestation without paying them.

MEPs involved in the EU ETS are arguing that forestry could be protected by giving land owners EUAs if they leave the forest alone. A recent Panorama programme argued something similar – corporations should offset their carbon footprint by paying people to preserve forests.

The CDM has resisted forestry based CERs because it is too difficult to prove the reductions and their additionality. But there is an even better reason why a CDM type approach is wrong: the main market for the forestry credits would be cap-and-trade schemes (i.e. the EU ETS at this stage), so preserving forests would allow increased internal emissions and no net emission reduction.

The right approach would be provisions under the UNFCCC for a forestry fund. Forest owners would receive freely tradable credits when their management of the forest is verified. Anyone would be allowed to sell credits to the fund, either at a fixed price or through regular reverse auctions. Under this system, the market would provide upfront cash to forest owners (assuming we have emerged from financial meltdown, of course).

The fund would be comprised of national donations from rich countries. Those with working cap-and-trade schemes could use their auction revenues – which would effectively mean carbon consumers in rich countries pay for forests to be preserved in poor countries.

That’s what it comes down to: someone just has to pay up.

UK should ringfence EUA auction proceeds

HM Treasury just announced that Defra is going to hold the UK’s first EUA auction on 19 November. I’m not sure how many will be auctioned on that day, but over phase 2 the government will auction 85 million (7% of the UK’s total allocation). Assuming an average price of EUR 25, that’s over EUR 2 billion of revenue.

The UK government is consistently opposed to any type of hypothecation (ringfencing of revenue for particular purposes) and will not promise to use this money for any climate-related purpose. The EUR 2 billion is ultimately passed down to consumers. Given that the government has no obvious ownership of the climate, EUAs do not seem like an appropriate source of general public funds.

In an economist’s perfect world, the money would be recycled to consumers who pay the EUR 2 billion through embedded carbon costs. This is difficult to do, of course, and the next best thing is to use the money for environmental projects.

Two good options for the money would be

• a fund for retrofitting domestic property with insulation and energy efficient heating systems. This would be a reasonable way to compensate for the incremental increase in energy bills resulting from emission trading. It would not create net emission reductions (energy generation is within the EU ETS, so lower domestic energy use means that other sectors can use the EUAs no longer required), however.
• investments in public transport. This would be my favourite option. While it has less symmetry with the costs imposed by the trading scheme, it does encourage reductions outside the EU ETS.