Carbon Trading In The Chemical Industry: A Look At Coming CO2 Emission Limits

This report is about so-called carbon trading, the trading of allowances or permits for carbon-dioxide emissions or greenhouse-gas emissions. It is aimed at planners, researchers and commercial managers at companies that are greenhouse-gas emitters. Whether or not a company chooses to buy or sell emissions, this report is relevant, because trading requires some government regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions – and this will affect all significant emitters.

The report is meant to answer the following questions:

• How real is CO2 emissions trading likely to be, and by when?
• How will the trading system work?
• Who will trade, and why?

These are timely questions, because nascent markets already exist, and governments are planning to expand these considerably in 2005-2010.