Over the past 2 years there has been tremendous well documented growth in the compliance regulatory carbon markets growing from $11bn in 2005 to $24bn+ in 2006, primarily within the EU ETS and the CDM mechanism. There is, however, another large untracked market in CO2 equivalent trading in voluntary markets for carbon offsets that has also grown tremendously ($100m+).
For sellers the markets provide an avenue for carbon projects which are uneconomical via CDM/JI. For buyers the patchwork of different markets can provide risks difficult to determine. Reliable data to the true extent of all voluntary carbon offsets is difficult to find but this event will provide attendees with answers to the following questions:
What, where and how big are the voluntary carbon markets? How do they operate? What are the risks of investing in these markets? What efforts are there to standardise the markets? How will the new standards help improve the liquidity and credibility of the markets? What barriers exist to project developers in generating offsets? What are the major challenges to future growth?
