Greenhouse gas prices rise on Chicago exchange
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chicago Climate Exchange credits for greenhouse gas emissions reductions have risen about 80 percent since mid-January, according to the bourse's data.
Credits on the exchange rose 65 cents to close at $3.90 a ton on Wednesday, in comparatively heavy volumes. On January 15 prices had closed at about $2.15 a ton.
Representatives of CCX, which is owned by Britain's Climate Exchange, were not available to comment on the price rise.
Despite the price spike, the outlook this week for CCX carbon trade was not entirely rosy. Bank of America on Wednesday pulled out of an agreed joint venture with CCX and said it was no longer obliged to buy 500,000 tons of carbon on the exchange over three years.
Unlike every other developed country, the United States, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter by many counts, does not regulate heat-trapping gases. Pressure to do so, however, is growing as the U.S. Congress mulls several greenhouse bills and leading presidential candidates say they would support the creation of a mandatory U.S. greenhouse gas market.
On the European Union's carbon exchange, launched in 2005, on which billions of dollars worth of credits have changed hands, carbon prices are trading at about $30 a ton.
CCX members, including companies and cities, enter voluntary legally binding agreements to cut emissions by a certain amount and time. If they beat expectations, they generate extra credits that they can sell or bank. If they fail, they must purchase credits through the exchange.
Prices on the CCX hit their highest levels of nearly $5 a ton in April 2006.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner)
