| GCX set to support Australian companies linking to international carbon markets | | Print | |
GCX Australia is offering clients in Australia carbon trading services, with an emphasis on CERs from projects under the Clean Development Mechanism. To help build the required capacity, GCX is also offering workshops on international carbon markets. Hence Global Carbon Exchange is well placed in the awakening Australian carbon market, in what increasingly appears to become the year of birth for the Australian carbon market. Not only is the Garnaut report due to be published, and the green paper on the National emissions trading Scheme (NETS) due in July 2008. But climate change minister Penny Wong has indicated already that the NETS will link to the Kyoto mechanisms, namely CDM and JI. She also emphasised the importance of a single global carbon market: “In developing a post-2012 global agreement on climate change, it is essential that we engage with China and other major economies like the United States and India. This visit provides the opportunity to strengthen Australia’s working relationship with China on climate change.” Companies increasingly becoming proactive about carbon trading, and first movers are preparing for the upcoming trading regime. Woodside, an ASX listed exploration company, has announced it will spend $100 million to help offset its carbon emissions from the Pluto gas field in West Australia. However, more importantly, the link to international carbon markets has been underlined by the Prime Minister’s announcement to join the International Carbon Action Partnership (Icap), ICAP is a multinational drive to pave the way for a global emissions trading market, and was formed in October 2007 by several national and regional governments around the world. The European commission is hosting its first public conference in Brussels in May. In April this year, Kevin Rudd signed a climate change partnership with the UK, and Australia’s membership in Icap was part of that bilateral agreement. “Building a global low carbon economy will provide new jobs, new industries and new growth for the future. This will require an ambitious long-term global target, supported by carbon markets that help drive investment in clean technologies,” Rudd said in a press release. Icap’s ambition is to bridge the differences between various existing and emerging greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes, and make it possible to establish links between these. Australia is introducing a domestic ETS in 2010, and the Labor government is currently hammering out the specific design of the scheme. |