Carbon trading is a good idea but at the moment, it's all just hot air. Until governments around the world reach unilateral agreement on carbon allocations, stop posturing and set themselves genuine carbon reduction targets, carbon credits won't be worth the paper they are written on.

i think the carbon trading policy in the EU is still in its infancy but hopeful that phase 2 might start to show a more significant impact.

i do however agree that regulation around carbon trading will be crucial in determining the success of the initiative.

I am afraid the any sort of regulatory policy drags down the free market development. In my opinion any goverment should give a strong advantage to energy saving or green products by reducing their VA-tax in order to cut down GHG emissions. However, a downside of this deed would be a reduced homeland revenue if it worked and thus potentially less money on social benefits for "under"privileged. In a current way, none feels any resposibility apart of few speculants.

The way it appears to my colleagues and I, Carbon Trading is a beneficial mechanism for removing responsibility of ‘saving the planet’ from the people who became afraid to use solvent sprays and putting it back with the companies who mass produce harmful emissions with nonchalant negligence.

Using tax breaks to promote "green" investment is not necessarily mutually exclusive with carbon trading. In my opinion both approaches can go hand in hand. Indeed this is one area in which the US is making a positive contribution through its tax policy towards manufacturers of wind turbines--Siemens, for example, has just announced a decision to build a large plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, to manufacture wind turbine blades, with the assistance of tax incentives from the state authorities.

It's all very well for europe to committ to this scheme but without china, america and japan it will all be futile. The system has many faults.

Control of CO2 emissions definitely flies in the face of a free market system and individual freedom. It is therefore going to be met with a great deal of resistence, particularly in the United States. However, many protections, which at least some countries now take for granted, were formerly met with the same resistence. Giving women the right to vote was felt to be an infringement on the "rights" of men to make political decisions. Slavery was felt to be a critical underpinning of the economic stability of the Southern United States.
Today, curbing the control of CO2 emissions is felt to be an infringement on how we have consumed energy for the last 200 years. However, these practices are resulting in the degradation of the majority of the flora and fauna on the planet as well as in danger of creating major human economic instability in the near future. Plans like the European economic trading program is analagous to some of the early activities of any previous civil protest. That is, not terribly effective, fraught with problems, and having a lack of buy in by most groups in a position of power. However, it does not mean carbon trading and energy saving tax credits are inconsequential.
Continued publication of the results of scientific studies and economic forecasts to the general public in language a nonspecialist can understand is key for how to change the perception that society needs to change how we consume energy.

Although I believe the private sector and free market is best equipped to supply energy to customers on all the continents, the market mechanism fails regulate the impact of CO2 on the environment. Regulation needs to set local standards for environmental impact of energy production/consumption. But climate change/greenhouse is a global phenomenon, and a carbon tax is the best/simplest way of regulating this, on condition that Governments do no abuse this tax to primarily support it coffers.

This debate is laughable in that it shouldn't be happening. Global warming is a myth at best and at worst a religion to those desperately worshiping Mother Earth. There is no evidence that scientifically confirms its existence, only hypotheses and computer models. Most amazing to me is that people believe weather models forecasting hundreds of years into the future, yet they know better than to believe the weather person's 5 day forecast is a precise representation of the future. Fortunately, here in the US, our leaders have seen the economic mess Kyoto is going to deliver and have wisely said, "No!" I appreciate that capitalists world over are taking advantage of the fear mongering, but I find it rather sad that it has to happen. The huge sums of money being traded indicate to me that people of the world, and large corporations, have swallowed a rancid bait hook, line and sinker, that we as a people have thrown healthy skepticism out the window. I'll propose this link as a quick intro to the "anti-global warming" view, [url]http://www.junkscience.com/news/robinson.htm [/url] and then for an enjoyable read with plenty of footnotes to scientific magazines, journals, papers and books, I'll recommend Michael Crichton's novel "State of Fear". Certainly, the issue of this debate is the economics of carbon trading, but I'll take solace in that I'm not the first to offer an opinion about global warming. I do so because I believe, if rational heads prevailed, Kyoto would disappear with the foul wind on which it rides.

As you concede, the issue of the debate is carbon trading--and it is based on the assumption that global warming is a reality and that unchecked growth in greenhouse gas emissions poses serious threats to the global environment. While acknowledging that there are still some dissenting views on this, I would be reluctant to see the debate turn into an exchange of polemics on this. The question of whether the Kyoto framework is a valid means to address the problem is pertinent, however, in my view.