Chicago Climate Exchange: In Depth Profile.

[FastTadpole]

I'll start with an excerpt from the extraordinary The Great American Bubble Machine thread / article.

Quote:The Great American Bubble Machine (Excerpt)

BUBBLE #6 Global Warming

Excerpt:

The new carbon credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

Here’s how it works: If the bill passes, there will be limits for coal plants, utilities, natural-gas distributors and numerous other industries on the amount of carbon emissions (a.k.a. greenhouse gases) they can produce per year. If the companies go over their allotment, they will be able to buy “allocations” or credits from other companies that have managed to produce fewer emissions. President Obama conservatively estimates that about $646 billion worth of carbon credits will be auctioned in the first seven years; one of his top economic aides speculates that the real number might be twice or even three times that amount.

The feature of this plan that has special appeal to speculators is that the “cap” on carbon will be continually lowered by the government, which means that carbon credits will become more and more scarce with each passing year. Which means that this is a brand new commodities market where the main commodity to be traded is guaranteed to rise in price over time. The volume of this new market will be upwards of a trillion dollars annually; for comparison’s sake, the annual combined revenues of all electricity suppliers in the U.S. total $320 billion.

Goldman wants this bill (Cap and Trade or something like it). The plan is (1) to get in on the ground floor of paradigmshifting legislation, (2) make sure that they’re the profitmaking slice of that paradigm and (3) make sure the slice is a big slice. Goldman started pushing hard for cap and trade long ago, but things really ramped up last year when the firm spent $3.5 million to lobby climate issues. (One of their lobbyists at the time was none other than Patterson, now Treasury chief of staff.) Back in 2005, when Hank Paulson was chief of Goldman, he personally helped author the bank’s environmental policy, a document that contains some surprising elements for a firm that in all other areas has been consistently opposed to any sort of government regulation. Paulson’s report argued that “voluntary action alone cannot solve the climate change problem.” A few years later, the bank’s carbon chief, Ken Newcombe, insisted that cap and trade alone won’t be enough to fix the climate problem and called for further public investments in research and development. Which is convenient, considering that Goldman made early investments in wind power (it bought a subsidiary called Horizon Wind Energy), renewable diesel (it is an investor in a firm called Changing World Technologies) and solar power (it partnered with BP Solar), exactly the kind of deals that will prosper if the government forces energy producers to use cleaner energy. As Paulson said at the time, “We’re not making those investments to lose money.”

The bank owns a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will be traded. Moreover, Goldman owns a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a Utahbased firm that sells carbon credits of the type that will be in great demand if the bill passes. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who is intimately involved with the planning of cap-and-trade, started up a company called Generation Investment Management ..

..

Instead of simply imposing a fixed government levy on carbon pollution and forcing unclean energy producers to pay for the mess they make, cap-and-trade will allow a small tribe of greedy-as-hell Wall Street swine to turn yet another commodities market into a private tax collection scheme. This is worse than the bailout: It allows the bank to seize taxpayer money before it’s even collected.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...&aid=14637

If referenced the Chicago Climate Exchange extensively in my research on ConCen but never really dug down deep into the connections on this entity. This research does just that full links available at the source article as well as a listing of the more than 400 member organizations that are publicly disclosed so far.

Quote:Chicago Climate Exchange
18 December 2009

* World’s first environmental derivatives exchange
* More than 400 member organizations
* 10% owned by Goldman Sachs
* 10% owned by Generation Investment Management LLP

The Chicago Climate Exchange is the world’s first environmental derivatives exchange.1

The exchange is owned by the London-based Climate Exchange PLC which also owns the European Climate Exchange, Montréal Climate Exchange, and the Tianjin Climate Exchange. Approximately 10% of CCX is owned by Goldman Sachs and another 10% is owned by Generation Investment Management LLP.2

Founding of the Exchange

The institution that is today the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) began with a grant in 2000 from the Joyce Foundation, a leading philanthropy based in Chicago known for its innovative approach to public policy issues, which supported the inception, creation, feasibility and design of CCX.3

An initial grant of $347,000 was made to the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University to provide technical support to Dr. Richard Sandor and colleagues to examine whether a cap-and-trade market was feasible in the U.S. to facilitate significant greenhouse gas reductions, using a voluntary regional Midwest model from which national and international lessons might be drawn.

A second grant of $760,000 was provided in 2001 to proceed with a design phase, which ran through 2002 and involved more than one hundred professionals in the corporate, public, non-governmental and academic sectors, who worked with Dr. Sandor, his colleague, Dr. Michael Walsh, and others to develop a core set of rules, protocols and design elements that would underpin and shape a pilot reduction and trading design.4

In 2003, CCX launched trading operations, with the following 13 Charter Members:

* American Electric Power
* Baxter International Inc.
* City of Chicago
* DuPont
* Ford Motor Co.
* International Paper
* Manitoba Hydro Corp.
* MeadWestvaco Corp.
* Motorola Inc.
* STMicroelectronics
* Stora Enso North America
* Temple-Inland Inc.
* Waste Management Inc.

Through their CCX membership, the above organizations were first in the world to make legally binding commitments to reduce all six greenhouse gases, in the world’s first multinational multi-sector market for reducing and trading greenhouse gases.

   

CCX is a U.S. corporation, and today remains the only emissions reduction and trading system for all six greenhouse gases and the only operational cap and trade system in North America. CCX membership includes over 450 leading entities. A 2009 briefing from Climate Exchange PLC declares this membership to represent 17% of Dow Industrials, 20% of US Utility sector, and 10% of Fortune 100 companies. The same briefing claims CCX has executed more than 11,000 trades as of 2009.
Board of Directors6

Warren Batts, Adjunct Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

* Former Chief Executive Officer of Tupperware Corporation
* Former Director, Allstate, Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sprint, British Columbia Forest Products, Temple Inland and International Minerals and Chemicals

Bruce H. Braine, Vice President – Strategic Policy Analysis for American Electric Power

* Director, International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)

Carole Brookins, Former United States Executive Director to The World Bank Group

* Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, World Perspectives, Inc.
* Former Member, North American Advisory Board, Rabobank International

Susan M. Cischke, Senior Vice President, Environment and Safety Engineering for Ford Motor Company

* Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Passenger Operations, DaimerChrysler

Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, Former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union

* Head of international practice, Covington & Burling
* Former Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade (1996-97)
* Former Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs (1997-99)

Les Rosenthal, Former Chairman, Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT)

Richard L. Sandor, Chairman and CEO, Chicago Climate Exchange

* Research professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University
* Member, International Advisory Council of Guanghua School of Management at Peking University
* Former, Vice President and chief economist of the Chicago Board of Trade

Maurice Strong, Former Secretary General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio Earth Summit)

* Former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations
* Chairman, Earth Council Alliance
* Former Senior Advisor to the President of the World Bank

Ambassador Clayton Yeutter, Former U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)

* Negotiated the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the precursor to the North American Free Trade Agreement
* Former President and Chief Executive Officer, Chicago Mercantile Exchange

External Advisory Board7

Richard M. Daley, Mayor, City of Chicago

Ed Begley Jr.

Ernst Brugger, Founding Partner and Chairman of Brugger Hanser & Partner Ltd.

* Professor at the University of Zurich

Lucien Bronicki, Chairman of Ormat International

* Executive Committee of the Weizmann Institute of Science
* Member of the board, Ben Gurion University

Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

* Former Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment Canada
* President & CEO of NWMO
* Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto

Jeffrey E. Garten, Former dean of the Yale School of Management

* Former managing director, Lehman Brothers
* Former managing director, Blackstone Group

Donald P. Jacobs, Former Dean of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University

* Former Chairman of the Board of Amtrak

Joseph P. Kennedy II, Chairman and President, Citizens Energy Group

* Former Congressman, 8th Congressional District of Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives

Israel Klabin, President, Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development

* Former mayor, Rio de Janeiro
* One of the main Brazilian organizers of the United Nations Conference on the Environment

Bill Kurtis

Thomas E. Lovejoy, Chief Biodiversity Advisor to the President of the World Bank

* Lead Specialist for the Environment in Latin America, World Bank . From 1989 to 1992
* Scientific adviser to the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme

Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, Director-General of The Energy Research Institute (TERI)

* Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCCC)
* Director, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (a Fortune 500 company)

David Moran, Vice president of ventures for the Electronic Publishing group of Dow Jones & Company

* President of Dow Jones Indexes
* Chairman, Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index GmbH

Michael Polsky, President and CEO of Invenergy

* Several positions, Bechtel Power Corporation

Rosemary L. Ripley, Founding Member of Circle Financial Group, LLC

Daniel Weiss, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Angeleno Group LLC (“AG”

* Attorney, O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles

Robert K. Wilmouth, President and CEO of National Futures Association (NFA)

* Former President and CEO, Chicago Board of Trade

Klaus Woltro, Vice President of the “Club of Vienna”

* Chief Executive Officer, Simmering Graz Pauker (SGP)
* Director, Sustainable Asset Management AG (SAM Global)

Michael Zammit Cutajar, Former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

* Several positions, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
* Part of the founding secretariat, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Affiliated Exchanges

* Chicago Climate Futures Exchange® (CCFE®)
* Envex
* European Climate Exchange® (ECX®)
* Montréal Climate Exchange™ (MCeX™)
* Tianjin Climate Exchange (TCX)

Members

Aerospace & Equipment
Rolls-Royce
United Technologies Corporation

Automotive
Ford Motor Company

Beverage Manufacturing
New Belgium Brewing Company

Chemicals
Dow Corning*
DuPont
FMC Corporation
Potash Corporation
Rhodia Energy Brasil Ltda
U.S. Salt, LLC

Coal Mining
Jim Walter Resources, Inc.
PinnOak Resources LLC

Commercial Interiors
Knoll, Inc.
Steelcase Inc.

Counties
King County, Washington
Miami-Dade County, Florida
Sacramento County, California

Diversified Manufacturing
Eastman Kodak Company
Robert Bosch LLC

Electric Power Generation
AGL Hydro Partnership
Allegheny Energy Inc.
Alliant Energy Corporate Services
Inc.*
American Electric Power
American Municipal Power-Ohio
Associated Electric
Cooperative, Inc.
Avista Corporation
Central Vermont Public Service
CLECO Corporation
DTE Energy Inc
Duquesne Light Company*
Dynegy Holdings Inc.
Green Mountain Power
Hoosier Energy Rural Electric
Cooperative, Inc.
Manitoba Hydro
Mirant Corporation
NRG Power Marketing Inc.
Puget Sound Energy, Inc.*
PSEG Energy Resources & Trade LLC
Reliant Energy Services Inc.
TECO Energy, Inc.

Electronics
Motorola, Inc.
Sony Electronics Inc.
Square D/Schneider Electric N.A.*

Environmental Services
Atlantic County Utilities Authority
Lancaster County Solid Waste
Management Authority
Veolia Environmental Services
North America Corp.
Wasatch Integrated Waste
Management Authority
Waste Management, Inc.

Ethanol Production
Corn Plus LLLP

Financial Institutions
Bank of America Corporation

Food and Agricultural Products & Services
Agrium U.S. Inc.*
Cargill, Incorporated
Monsanto Company

Food Processing
Premium Standard Farms*
Smithfield Foods, Inc.

Forest Products
Abitibi-Consolidated
Aracruz Celulose S.A.*
Arcelor Mittal Florestas Ltda
Boise Paper Holdings, LLC
Cenibra Nipo Brasiliera S.A.*
Domtar Corporation
International Paper
Klabin S.A.*
Masisa S.A.
MeadWestvaco Corp.
Neenah Paper Incorporated
NewPage Corporation
Plum Creek Timber Company, Inc.
Suzano Papel E Celulose SA
Tembec Industries Inc.
Temple-Inland Inc*

Healthcare
Baxter International Inc.
Hospira, Inc.

Manufacturing
Bayer Corporation
Duratex S.A.
Honeywell International Inc.
Interface, Inc.
Ozinga Bros., Inc.*
Smurfit-Stone

Municipalities
City of Aspen
City of Berkeley*
City of Boulder
City of Chicago
City of Fargo
City of Melbourne, Australia
City of Oakland*
City of Portland*

Petrochemicals
LANXESS Elastomeros do Brasil S.A.

Pharmaceuticals
Abbott

Real Estate Investment
JMB Realty Corporation

Recreation
Aspen Skiing Company

Retail
Safeway, Inc.

States
State of Illinois
State of New Mexico*

Steam Heat
Concord Steam Corporation

Steel
Roanoke Electric Steel Corp.*

Technology
Freescale Semiconductor
IBM
Intel Corporation
STMicroelectronics

Transportation
Amtrak
San Joaquin Regional Rail
Commission*

University
Michigan State University
University of California, San Diego
University of Idaho
University of Iowa
University of Minnesota
University of Oklahoma
Tufts University*

Participant Organizations

Offset Aggregators

33 Asset Management B.V.
3Degrees Group, Inc.
Ag Carbon Management, LLC (an
Environmental Credit Corp
subsidiary)
AgraGate Climate Credits
Corporation
Agrinergy Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.
Andhyodaya Green Energy
Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Bunge Emissions Fund Limited
CantorCO2e, L.P.
Carbon 360 Partners, LLC
Carbon Farmers LLC
Carbon Logic, LLC
Carbon Resource Management
Ltd.
Carbon-TF B.V.
CARBONyatra
Cargill – Green Hercules Trading
Cargill, Inc
C-Green Aggregator Ltd.
China Energy Conservation and
Environmental Protection
Technology Investment Ltd.
Climate Bridge, LTD
CMM Energy, LLC
Conservation Services Group
CP Holdings LLC
Dash Environmental LLC
Delta P2/E2 Center LLC
Ecology and Environment Inc.
ecolutions GmbH & Co. KGaA
Ecoreturn LLP
Ecosecurities Capital Ltd.
Element Markets LLC
Emergent Ventures India PVT, LTD
Environmental Carbon Credit
Pool LLC
Environmental Credit Corp.
F&W Forestry Services, Inc.
FC Stone, LLC
First Capitol Risk Management LLC
Flatlander Environmental
FORECON EcoMarket
Solutions LLC
Forest Carbon, Inc.
Foretell Business Solutions
Private Limited
Fundación Chile
Geosyntec Consultants Inc
GI Power Corporation Limited
Global Green Energy, LLC
Grasim Industries, Ltd.
Greenoxx Global
Environmental Program
Grey K Trading Limited
GT Environmental Finance
Guizhou Zhongshui Hengyuan
Project Management &
Consulting Co. Ltd.
Hudson Technologies Company
Indo Gulf Fertilizers
(a unit of Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd.)
Indus Technical & Financial
Consultants, Ltd.
J. Aron & Company
Kentucky Corn Growers
Association
Korea Energy Management
Corporation
LandGas Technology LLC
Liaoning Negfa Weiye Pipe
Network Construction Operation
Co. Ltd.
Longyuan (Beijing) Carbon Asset
Management Technology Co.,
Ltd.
Madhya Pradesh Rural
Livelihoods Project
MF Global Market Services LLC
MGM International
Mickelson & Company LLC
Microgy, Inc.
Mission Climate
Mountain Association for
Community Economic
Development
National Carbon Offset Coalition
Natsource MAC 77 Ltd.
Natural Capital
North Dakota Farmers Union
Phase 3 Developments &
Investments, LLC
Polar Technology, LLC
ProLogis Logistics Services, Inc.
Rajasthan Renewable Energy
Corporation
Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama
Reclamation Technologies Inc
Reliance Energy Ltd.
Reliance Industries Limited
Rice Dairy LLC
Rolling Plains Crop Insurance
Agency,Inc.
R.S.J. Ozone Private Limited
Senergy Global Limited
SunOne Climate Solutions LLC
Tata Motors Limited
Tata Steel Limited
Tatanka Resources LLC
Tennessee Timber Consultants Inc
TerraCarbon LLC
TerraPass Inc.
The Verus Carbon Neutral
Partnership
U.S. Energy Services, Inc.
Valley Wood Inc.
Vayam Technologies Ltd
Vision CO2, S.A.
Xi’an Zhongyang Electric
Corporation
Offset Providers

Arreon Carbon UK Ltd
Bajaj Finserv Limited
Beijing Shenwu Thermal Energy
Trading Co. Ltd.
Burnett Ranches, LLC
Cape May County Municipal
Utilities Authority
City of Gardner, Massachusetts
CNX Gas Corporation
CO2 Australia
CommonWealth Resource
Management Corp.
Coolgas, Inc.
CPI Carbon Asset Management Co., Ltd.
Cumberland County Improvement
Authority
Dhariwal Industries Ltd.
East Central Solid Waste
Commission
Gazprom Marketing & Trading Ltd
Granger Holdings LLC
Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority
Hubei Sanhuan Development
Corporation
Lugar Stock Farm
Montgomery Regional Solid Waste
Authority
Precious Woods Holding, Ltd
Public Utility District No 1 of
Chelan County, WA
PureChem Separation LP
RCM International LLC
Rivanna Solid Waste Authority
Sexton Energy LLC
Tata Power Company Limited
TerraCarbon LLC
The Andhyodaya
Trading Emissions PLC
Vessels Coal Gas Inc.
Weber County
Liquidity Providers

Aeolus Fund II Master Fund, Ltd.
Akeida Environmental Master Fund
Ltd.
Ameresco, Inc.
Amerex Energy
Apache CR Company
Atrium Carbon Fund LP
B of A Commodities Inc.
Brane Strom LLP
C-Quest Capital, LLC
Carbon Green
Cargill Power Markets LLC
Chapel Street Environmental Fund,
LP
Digilog Global Environmental
Master Fund Ltd
Direct Energy Marketing Limited
DRW Holdings LLC
Engler Properties 1 Ltd
Evolution Markets LLC
EXO Investments
First Bank and Trust
First New York Securities LLC
Five Rings Capital LLC
Fortis Energy Marketing & Trading
GP
Galtere International Master
Fund LP
GDF SUEZ Energy Marketing NA
GLG Global Utilities Fund
Grand Slam Trading Inc.
Green Dragon Fund
Green Fund Partners LLC
Grey K Environmental Fund LP
Grey K Environmental
Offshore Fund Ltd.
Grey K Trading Limited
Haley Capital Management
Harbinger Capital Partners
ICAP Energy LLC
Infinium Capital Management LLC
Integrys Energy Services Inc
Ironworks Partners LP
J. Aron & Company
Jane Street Global Trading LLC
JP Morgan Ventures Energy
Corporation
Kellybrooke LLC
Koch Supply & Trading
Kottke Associates, LLC
Lehman Brother Commodity
Services Inc.
Marquette Partners, LP
Marsus Capital LLC
Matlock Research and
Investments
Millennium Environmental Trading
LLC
Natsource LLC
Newedge USA, LLC
Octavian Special Master Fund LP
Option Insight Partners
ORBEO
Penson GHCo
Peregrine Financial Group, Inc.
Rand Financial Services, Inc.
RBC Capital Markets Corporation
SA Recovery, Inc.
Serrino Trading Company
Spectron Energy Services Limited
Stark Investments
Swiss Re Financial Products Corp.
Taconic Opportunity Fund LP
TEP Trading 2 Ltd.
The League Corporation
TradeLink LLC
Tradition Financial Services Ltd.
TransMarket Group LLC
Universal Carbon Fund LLC
U.S. Energy Savings Corp.
Vitol, Inc.

Associate Members

Architecture/Planning
Mithun, Inc.
Perkins + Will, Inc.

Consulting
Cemtrex, Inc.
DOMANI LLC
First Environment, Inc.
Global Change Associates*
Natural Capitalism Solutions
RenewSource Partners LLC*
Rocky Mountain Institute*

Consumer Products
Collective Wellbeing LLC

Documentary Production
Cloverland Inc.*

Educational Institutions
Presidio School of Management*
Sidwell Friends School

Embassy
Embassy of Denmark, Washington
D.C.
Embassy of Finland

Energy Broker
Amerex Energy*

Energy Services
Bell Independent Power Corp.
Orion Energy Systems Ltd.
Prenova, Inc.
Sieben Energy Associates
Thermal Energy International

Energy Supplier
BlueStar Energy Services Inc.
MXenergy Holdings Inc.

Engineering
Rumsey Engineers*
Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.

Environmental Services
Resource Recycling Systems

Financial Services
Access Industries, Inc.*
G.C. Anderson Partners LLC
MB Investments LLC*
Wood Creek Capital Management
LLC

Financing Agency
Ohio Air Quality Development
Authority*

Food Services
Big Bowl Asian, LLC

Foundation
Nathan Cummings Foundation

Green Power Marketer
Green Mountain Energy Company*

Information Technology
Open Finance LLC
Intercontinental Exchange*

Legal Services
Foley & Lardner LLP*
Levenfeld Pearlstein LLC
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Non-Governmental Organization
ACORE*
American Coal Ash Association*
Chicago 2016
Delta Institute
Houston Advanced Research
Center*
Midwest Energy Efficiency
Alliance
Rainforest Alliance
World Resources Institute*

Professional Associations
Confederation of British Industry*
The Professional Risk Managers’
International Association*

Real Estate
ProLogis Logistics Services, Inc.
Telesis Holdings, LLC

Religious Organizations
Jesuit Community of Santa Clara
University

Renewable Energy
Airtricity Inc.*
American Renewable Energy*
Econergy International*
Reknewco Ltd.*

Retiring/Offsets
4Offsets, LLC
Carbonfund.org
Offset Collective, Inc.
TerraPass Inc.*

Social Investment
Generation Investment
Management LLP
KLD Research & Analytics*
Pax World*

Technology
Millennium Cell*
Polar Technology, LLC

Transportation Services
Valera Global Inc.

References
1. Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. Affiliated Exchanges. http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=1621 [↩]
2. Human Events. The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22663 [↩]
3. Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. History. http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=1 [↩]
4. Ibid. [↩]
5. Ibid. [↩]
6. Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. CCX Directors. http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=67 [↩]
7. Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. External Advisory Board. http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=68 [↩]

Related: Generation Investment Management LLP

http://publicintelligence.net/chicago-climate-exchange/

[FastTadpole]

The CCX is one of many exchanges, really it has just been consolidated into ICE. Our old friends from the oil manipulation market which I had posted on here:

The $2.5 Trillion Global Oil Scam: Intercontinental Exchange Commodity Manipulation
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=31284

Quote:If Al Gore’s Chicago Climate Exchange Suffers Total Failure, Does the MSM Make a Sound?
November 6, 2010 - by Steve Milloy
The CCX was the topic of thousands of MSM articles over the years, but not a single article reported their recent demise. Hmmm.

Global warming-inspired cap and trade has been one of the most stridently debated public policy controversies of the past 15 years. But it is dying a quiet death. In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on Oct. 21 that it will be ending carbon trading — the only purpose for which it was founded — this year.

Although the trading in carbon emissions credits was voluntary, the CCX was intended to be the hub of the mandatory carbon trading established by a cap-and-trade law, like the Waxman-Markey scheme passed by the House in June 2009.

At its founding in November 2000, it was estimated that the size of CCX’s carbon trading market could reach $500 billion. That estimate ballooned over the years to $10 trillion.

Al Capone tried to use Prohibition to muscle in on a piece of all the action in Chicago. The CCX’s backers wanted to use a new prohibition on carbon emissions to muscle in on a piece of, quite literally, all the action in the world.

The CCX was the brainchild of Northwestern University business professor Richard Sandor, who used $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation to launch the CCX. For his efforts, Time named Sandor as one of its Heroes of the Planet in 2002 and one of its Heroes of the Environment in 2007.

The CCX seemed to have a lock on success. Not only was a young Barack Obama a board member of the Joyce Foundation that funded the fledgling CCX, but over the years it attracted such big name climate investors as Goldman Sachs and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the CCX’s highly anticipated looting of taxpayers and consumers — cap-and-trade imploded following its high water mark of the House passage of the Waxman-Markey bill. With ongoing economic recession, Climategate, and the tea party movement, what once seemed like a certainty became anything but.

CCX’s panicked original investors bailed out this spring, unloading the dog and its across-the-pond cousin, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), for $600 million to the New York Stock Exchange-traded Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) — an electronic futures and derivatives platform based in Atlanta and London. (Luckier than the CCX, the ECX continues to exist thanks to the mandatory carbon caps of the Kyoto Protocol.)

The ECX may soon follow the CCX into oblivion, however — the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. No new international treaty is anywhere in sight.

While we don’t know how well Al Gore and Goldman Sachs fared on their investments in the CCX, we do know that there’s no reason to cry for Sandor. He received $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake in CCX when it was sold. Not bad for a failure that somebody else financed.

Incredibly (but not surprisingly), although thousands of news articles have been published about CCX by the lamestream media over the years, a Nexis search conducted a week after CCX’s announcement revealed no news articles published about its demise.

Outside of a report in Crain’s Chicago Business and a soft-pedaled article in a small trade publication, the media has entirely ignored the demise of the only U.S. effort at carbon trading. Even Glenn Beck, who has dedicated quite a bit of Fox News airtime to exposing the CCX, has yet to mention the news.

Despite ending carbon trading, the CCX isn’t vanishing altogether. It intends to transition into the murky world of dealing in carbon offsets. Once again, however, with the tide leaving on carbon regulation and increased concerns about fraudulent carbon offsets, the future of that market is quite uncertain.

With the demise of CCX carbon trading, only the still-pending Waxman-Markey bill is keeping cap and trade alive — technically, at least — in the U.S. According to JunkScience.com’s Cap-and-Trade Death Clock, however, Waxman-Markey only has about 60 days of life left before it, too, turns into a pumpkin.

Despite this good news, opponents of carbon regulation will need to remain vigilant. While radical greens and the rent-seeking “clean energy” industry are down, they are not out.

Though they will never again dare utter the term “cap and trade,” they will reformulate and rebrand carbon regulation in the form of a national “renewable electricity standard” (RES), a “carbon tax,” or perhaps something even more innocent and cuddly — like “free cotton candy for everyone (FCCE).”

The global warming mob will be back, with their old agenda and new deceit, in 2011. Given that Republican politicians have a long history of squishiness on environmental issues, the rest of us will need to be prepared to continue the battle against Marxist/socialist and economy-killing energy rationing and taxes.

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is the author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.

http://digg.com/news/business/pajamas_me...ke_a_sound
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/if-al-gores...epage=true


ICE lists Daily Volume Reports for the following products:

ICE ECX EUA Futures
ICE ECX EUA Options
ICE ECX CER Futures
ICE ECX CER Options

Quote:ICE Futures Europe EMISSIONS TRADING ERU Contracts

ICE ECX ERU Futures and Options contracts, the market's first Emission Reduction Unit (ERU) contracts available November 8, 2010. Learn More (PDF)

Overview

Through its ECX product suite, ICE Futures Europe is the leading global marketplace for trading carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

ICE Futures Europe currently offers derivative contracts on three types of carbon credit: ICE ECX EU allowances (EUAs), ICE ECX Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and the world's first ICE ECX Emissions Reductions Units (ERUs).

These emissions products were first traded in April 2005, with the launch of futures on EUAs. EUA options were listed the following year. Similar contracts on CERs were introduced in 2008, with Daily Futures (spot) contracts on both underlying products added in 2009. The latest launch of ERUs will provide price discovery and transparency for the ERU market, enabling market participants to manage their carbon price risk more efficiently with EUAs, CERs and ERUs on a single platform.

CO2 emissions trading volumes have experienced strong growth. In 2009 volumes surpassed 5 billion tonnes of CO2 and equivalent, and 2010 volumes passed the 5 billion tonne mark early in the second half. Over 100 global businesses are members for trading ICE ECX emissions products, in addition to the several thousand traders around the world with access to this market via clearing members and brokers.

https://www.theice.com/productguide/Prod...groupId=19