Carbon credit climate scam: the fraud prosecutions begin
…Cheers! ‘Carbon markets in US, Europe & Asia are collapsing, with prices so low they’ve become virtually valueless’
LONDON, July 8 — Carbon markets, the free-enterprise solution to saving the world from global warming, are now in danger themselves.
The idea was simple enough: Set a cap on carbon emissions, issue enough permits to allow power plants, refineries and the like to stay within those limits and then shrink the cap over time to achieve reductions. The companies whose emissions fall fastest can sell their permits for a profit to slower responders — call it a reward for good behaviour.
The reality, though, is more complex. Undercut by a lack of political will on the size of caps and overtaken by costly new environmental mandates, carbon markets in the US, Europe and Asia are collapsing, with prices so low they’ve become virtually valueless. The credits auctioned in the US Northeast in June, for instance, sold for just US$4.53 (RM18.27) a short tonne, a 40 per cent drop from December.
“Climate policy has been muddled and messy,” said Michael Grubb, a professor at University College London’s Institute for Sustainable Resources who has advised the UK energy regulator. “Governments have set inadequate targets due to lobbying pressures and because they didn’t think carefully enough about overlapping efforts. That has destroyed investor confidence that carbon prices will rise.”
The idea of a carbon market originated 20 years ago with Richard Sandor, an economist who also pioneered interest-rate futures and derivatives at the Chicago Board of Trade. Today, there are 38 countries, cities, states and provinces using pricing systems in an attempt to put a lid on greenhouse gases, according to the World Bank.
The problem is that the permits are selling at a slower and slower rate. The surplus of allowances is becoming so large in systems run by Europe, California and Quebec — which together account for more than 90 per cent of global trading — that by 2022 it could cover the emissions spewing from every car on Earth for a full year, according to estimates by the London environmental group Sandbag Climate Campaign CIC and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
In California’s market, all 23 million allowances sold in an auction in 2014. In May, 7.3 million permits found buyers, only 11 per cent of what was put up for sale.
– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/money/article/tough-task-to-prevent-global-warming-when-carbon-is-this-cheap#sthash.EwchrFQQ.dpuf…
Gas stations to post signs: ‘Californians are paying collectively $2 billion per year in higher gas prices’ because of global warming regs
Sonora, CA — We reported previously that Republican lawmakers at the state capitol were pushing a bill that would have required service stations to post how much money the state’s Cap and Trade program increases gas prices.
The information would be in addition to the excise sales tax figures that stations are already required to post. The bill passed an early committee test, but supporters say it was later quietly killed without a vote of the legislature. Yesterday, the California Independent Oil Marketers Association announced that it will voluntarily start disclosing the information at the pumps. The group represents a quarter of the 10,000 service stations in California.
Association Spokesperson Jay McKeeman says, “Californians are paying collectively $2 billion per year in higher gas prices because of the Cap and Trade program, according to well-founded and publically-available estimates. We want to be transparent with our customers about the components of the price they are paying. That’s why we are fulfilling this responsibility for our members and the general public.”
State officials have estimated that Cap and Trade increases the gas tax by about 10-cents.
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A group of 16 Assembly Democrats, led by Henry Perea of Fresno County, sent a letter to the California Air Resources Board to reconsider the state’s cap-and-trade program because of its impact on the middle-class and the poor.
Perea has proposed Assembly Bill 69, which would establish a three-year suspension on the cap-and-trade program’s requirement to buy permits for transportation fuels. This rule will be enforced for the first time on January 1, 2015.
It turns out that the state’s emission trading program has already taken a toll on the state’s economy after only one year of the program’s existence. Currently, California has the second highest underemployment rate in the nation at 16.7%, slightly behind Nevada’s 17.4%. California also has the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States with an average $3.90 per gallon (as of August 9, 2014).…
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Report: California’s Cap-and-Trade Scam to Spike Gas Prices as Much as $.70 a Gallon
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2014/08/pardon-my-chortling-californias-cap-and.html?m=1…
California’s Cap-and-Trade Revolt: ‘Democrats fear that applying cap and trade to fuels ‘will cause an immediate jump in prices at the pump’
California’s Cap-and-Trade Revolt
http://www.thegwpf.org/californias-cap-and-trade-revolt/
Some US Democrats worry that carbon limits will hurt the poor
President Obama has mocked Republicans who oppose his climate agenda as flat-earthers. Perhaps he’ll be more charitable to Democrats who are protesting California’s cap-and-trade program as an undue burden on the poor.
Last week 16 Democratic Assembly Members—about 30% of their caucus—signed a letter urging California Air Resources Board chairwoman Mary Nichols to delay or redesign the state’s cap-and-trade program. “We are concerned about the impact of the AB 32 cap-and-trade program on our constituents,” they write, adding that “many of the areas we represent are still struggling with double digit unemployment.”
Large manufacturers and power plants must now either purchase permits or cut their emissions to comply with a state-mandated cap, which over time will be ratcheted down. Starting next year, transportation fuel suppliers will also have to pony up for permits.
Assembly Democrats fear that applying cap and trade to fuels “will cause an immediate jump in prices at the pump.” While estimates vary, “an increase of about fifteen cents per gallon is likely and a much larger jump is possible.” Senate President Darrell Steinberg has warned that gas prices could shoot up by 40 cents per gallon..
California’s gas prices, which typically run 40 to 50 cents above the national average, are already the highest in the continental U.S. due to the state’s fuel blending requirements and taxes—which also top the other 49 states. The Boston Consulting Group predicted in 2012 that cap and trade and the state’s carbon fuel standard would drive up gas prices between $0.49 and $1.83 per gallon by 2020. These green regulations are intended to raise the cost of gas to encourage people to drive less or buy electric cars.
But as the Assembly Democrats point out, cap and trade is “hurting the most vulnerable members of our communities.” Most of the letter’s 16 signatories represent heavily minority and low-income regions in Los Angeles, the Central Valley and Inland Empire. Nine are black or Latino.
As they explain, cap and trade’s carbon permitting “was not intended to be a funding mechanism for massive, new State efforts at GHG [greenhouse gas] reductions.” They don’t identify any programs by name, but this year’s budget appropriates $250 million of the proceeds from carbon permit auctions, and 25% of all future revenues, for high-speed rail. The state budget analyst predicts the …