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BUYER’S MARKET
Lubos Motl charts carbon values:
In April 2006, the price of carbon indulgences in the European Union Emission Trading Scheme, the largest emission market in the world, was 30 euro per ton of CO2 emissions ... However, in May 2006, the price decreased a little bit, more precisely by a factor of pi - below 10 euro per ton of CO2.
In November 2006, when the price was still around 9 euro per ton, we predicted its fall to 2 euro per ton. This seemingly bold prediction was realized at the beginning of February 2007. However, the price continued to approach the actual market value, namely zero.
It’s getting closer to zero by the day. Hit the link for more.
In fairness, the massive decline in price (not the first time it happens, we had that in the Germany-only exchange in 2005 too) shows that the market works, but not much else. After all, it’s still a market that’s at the whim of bureaucrats. If they decide the lesson to be learned from this (in Andy’s article):
The problems with the European Trading Scheme are well documented with the collapse in the price of a tonne of carbon dating back to May last year when it emerged that most countries in the scheme had set their carbon caps far too high, resulting in fewer firms than expected having to buy credits ...
...is that the whole thing can only be “saved” by mandating drastic cuts in the amount of permits issued, the participating countries are pretty much screwed. And I suspect that outcome is a lot more likely than either a) national governments deciding to just not go along with what the EU or the UN are decreeing, or b) the bureaucrats admitting that emissions trading doesn’t work and scrapping the whole idea.
And then there’s this. Not quite working out as planned, eh? Excuse me while I go laugh up my sleeve a bit.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 02 23 at 01:38 PM • permalink“Indulgences”. Perfect.
How long did it take some leftoid to decree that this experience with a state-controlled artificial market in symbolic soap bubbles “proves” that markets don’t work?
Posted by Don't Bogart that Midget, Comrade! on 2007 02 23 at 01:50 PM • permalinkWell they are worthless so the price should be Zero.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 02 23 at 07:21 PM • permalinkGee, who could have foreseen this happening? Those who spend their days diddling with the “proper” methods of controlling their fellow men will now sit down and puzzle out what needs to be done to make their worthless certificates work. They never go back and say that the whole plan was worthless to begin with. Like all things socialist, it is only a matter of working out the right formula—reality be damned, the moral wrong of attempting to controlling the lives of one’s fellow men be damned. If they can’t work it out so that men will voluntarily (kof) spend the hours of their lives and their money the way they’re told, the petty tyrants of the world will simply apply more brute force, the ultimate end (and actual goal) of all such schemes. They are saving all of mankind, and the earth itself, after all. Omelets, broken eggs, and all that.
The EU is quite incapable of producing anything worthwhile. It’s philosophy is that advancement is relative. It can be achieved through real progress or achieved by dragging others down. Kyoto was a perfect example of the EU belief that Europe’s importance could best be enhanced if other first-world nations were crippled. Some walked blindly into the trap, such as Canada and New Zealand, while others stayed away, such as the US and Australia.
PW (#2) is spot on - which makes me wonder why they issued too many carbon indulgences. Either the EU bureaucrats are:
a) incompetent; or
b) they knew that issuing fewer indulgences would damage their economies.Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 23 at 10:20 PM • permalinkI have a question. Is carbon monoxide a greenhouse gas? Because if it isn’t I have a solution to this whole CO2 problem.
Just have every furnace manufacturer, automobile company and every other fossil-fuel burning appliance maker start making defective products (or what we used to call defective) that produce carbon monoxide as a byproduct instead of carbon dioxide. Then we’ll all be saved. I even have a potential advertising slogan. “Carbon monoxide - it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
(We have to do whatever is necessary to rid us of that toxic pollutant, carbon dioxide. You know, the molecule that plants would die without. The one they use to make the oxygen that we breathe every day.)
I’ve gotten the feeling, kcom, that some MSM outlets are trying to confuse the more-gullible out there between those two “carbons” to increase the fear factor.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 23 at 11:30 PM • permalinka) incompetent; or
b) they knew that issuing fewer indulgences would damage their economies.I’m on board for A for most of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if smarter people who realize the truth of B nudged things toward that outcome.
I do know that the German trading scheme went haywire in 2005 (or was it 2004? I don’t recall exactly) because in several highly industralized states the ministers for the economy managed to beat the environment ministers into submission when it came to setting the emissions limits. I have no idea how the individual limits were set for the European scheme, but I suspect something similar happened here. Just goes to show that when push comes to shove, even the EUrocracy class (at least the elected ones among them) don’t buy into the urgency of AGW.
They’ve already decided not to screw over their economies for nothing. Why would that change?
Because this time around it happened either due to sheer inertia, or because the realistic people steamrolled the utopians on the issue. This being the EU, I wouldn’t bet on that outcome holding up for long.
OT, but still on light-globeal warming:
Motl also points out:“Two years ago, Fidel Castro switched his communist island from classical incandescent light bulbs to more efficient fluorescent light bulbs. ... Needless to say, Hugo Chavez… is planning something similar in Venezuela.”
Great company John Howard keeps.
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2007 02 24 at 01:16 AM • permalinkIn regards to compact fluorescents, I saw a clip of Al Gore the other day and he outright called using them a symbolic gesture. He made no claim it would make any difference with global warming. I think he was preparing the ground for imposing non-symbolic gestures on everyone, i.e. the real goal of these people - to put control of every aspect of your life in their hands, not yours.
I think he was preparing the ground for imposing non-symbolic gestures on everyone, i.e. the real goal of these people - to put control of every aspect of your life in their hands, not yours.
That’s why we (in the US anyway, for now) have the 2nd amendment.
Saw a cartoon a while back, may have been a link from this very site, showing two guys walking with the capital building behind them one saying “you support gun control?” and the other replying “Sure, who wants armed taxpayers”
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