Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
“Internal carbon pricing policies have taken hold”
Global commodities markets may have buckled under the pressure of plunging prices in recent years, but one looks set to rise from the wreckage. Carbon pricing is having a moment following recent findings from the World Bank that the number of global carbon pricing schemes has doubled from 2012.
It doesn’t take much to double something of limited scale – but in the run-up to the COP21 talks in Paris at the end of the year, the case for carbon trading could finally gain meaningful traction.
The European market offers both inspiration and a cautionary tale for all who choose to follow. But even the beleaguered Emissions Trading System is on the up. Carbon prices have gained about 10 per cent this year after Brussels’ long-awaited move to curb the market’s debilitating oversupply. And experts believe further gains of 11 per cent are possible by the end of 2015.
It’s an encouraging sign for the carbon trading schemes developing across the globe, and for the companies that are beginning to take note. Counter to claims that the world’s largest corporations are sleepwalking towards a catastrophic “carbon bubble”, the World Bank report found that internal carbon pricing policies have taken hold on an international scale, too.
The need to reduce emissions seems to have made the leap from leftie rhetoric to pragmatic business strategy. And it’s a trend energy companies in particular should welcome: a truly market-based answer to the very political question of how to tackle climate change.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.