nyt...comments my way
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The Pulse; A Cooling Trend On Cap and Trade
2010-08-13 07:52:32.103 GMT
By JIM KIRK
Aug. 13 (New York Times) -- Like much of the Northern
Hemisphere, Chicago is suffering through one of the hottest
summers in recent memory, raising more discussion about global
warming.
One might think that business would then be good at the
Chicago Climate Exchange, the nation's only bourse dedicated to
trading companies' emission-related carbon credits.
Instead, things have cooled significantly at the exchange,
where volume has fallen off. Reuters reported that as many as
half of the jobs have been eliminated in recent weeks as
so-called cap-and-trade legislation has stalled in Congress.
Although carbon trading is robust in Europe,
Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the Chicago Climate
Exchange, painted a gloomy outlook for a robust cap-and-trade
market in the United States.
"The current U.S. business in the climate exchange is a
loss-making business," the chairman and chief executive of
Intercontinental Exchange, Jeffrey Sprecher, told investors this
month.
"It remains to be seen now in an uncertain U.S. regulatory
environment whether companies are going to want to continue to
walk down their carbon footprint," he said.
-0- Aug/13/2010 07:52 GMT
