Feb. 10, 2021 — US Chamber of Commerce names Suzanne Clark as new CEO, replacing Thomas Donohue, who led the organisation for more than two decades, WSJ reported.
Days before Mr. Biden was sworn into office, the Chamber took its strongest position yet in favor of climate-change legislation: WSJ
Another fascinating two sentences:
In 2019, the Chamber said Mr. Donahue would step down in 2022—an announcement that came moments after The Wall Street Journal published a story reporting that Mr. Donohue regularly used the Chamber’s corporate jet service to travel on business and personal trips, including a weeklong trip to the Greek Islands in 2019 with his girlfriend.
At the time, the Chamber said it would conduct an extensive search for a successor.
Dec. 17-22 –LONDON: The volume of open positions on environmental markets in the U.S. and Europe together surged to a record near the end of the year, after President Donald Trump lost the U.S. vote.
The volume of open positions on ICE, the biggest exchange for environmental commodities, advanced by approximately 16% from the end of 2019 to about 2.8 million contracts, said ICE spokeswoman Rebecca Mitchell, by phone. The open positions are measured by the metric “open interest.”
Average daily volume in the environmental complex is up by approximately 20%, ICE said.
The complex includes EU carbon allowances, California futures, renewable energy certificates. Futures and options are grouped together.
“Market-based mechanisms like carbon cap and trade programs are pivotal in allowing policy makers to control the quantity of carbon to align with their net-zero commitments and consequently put a price on the externality of pollution to reach those goals in the most cost-effective manner,” said Gordon Bennett, Managing Director, Utility Markets at ICE, in an emailed statement.
Because EU allowance prices have risen to record highs, the value of Dec. 2020 futures at delivery was a record 8.6 billion euros, Mitchell said.
Now that delivery has taken place in relation to the December futures, open interest will have dropped since the end of Nov. That fall happens each December — see chart.
(Updates Thursday afternoon with chart and comment, Tuesday with updated chart)
Oct. 7, 2020 — London — European carbon allowances fluctuated after members of the European Parliament voted for the world’s biggest trade block to adopt a 60% emission-reduction target for 2030.
The target, versus 1990 levels, would be 5 points tighter than that proposed by the European Commission.
EU carbon allowances immediately surged more than 4%, then erased the increase by the close of the market at 5pm London time, partly because of concern about Brexit negotiations, according to newsletter Carbon Pulse.
Finland was among nations immediately on board with the higher level of ambition for 2030, and countries will continue to debate the proposed target for at least the next several weeks:
Finnish Environment Minister @MikkonenKrista confirms that she will propose government to update Finland's position on the EU2030 GHG reduction target to 60% following the European Parliament's final vote later today. https://t.co/ZkZoBid4Bf
The biggest group in Parliament said it was concerned that the tighter target may threaten jobs, according to Bloomberg News, which wrote:
The 60% target is higher than sought by the European People’s Party, the biggest political group in the EU Parliament. Still, the EPP will not vote against the climate law as amended in the final ballot scheduled for later on Wednesday, said Peter Liese, key German member of the assembly who oversees environment policies for the group.
“We will abstain, because we sincerely dislike the 60% and think it really endangers jobs,” he said on Twitter. “We are very confident that the Council of the EU will take care that we will come back to the Commission’s proposal of net 55%.”
This analyst wasn’t so sure the EPP was right, because the energy transition has already created many jobs and brought in green money to Europe’s governments:
1. 2004-2018 saw 660k-1.5 mil new jobs (excl. UK) due to the #energytransition; 2. The Impact Assessment says: if #euets revenues are used & labour taxes ⬇️, jobs ⬆️ by 0.45% at least.
Those countries have benefitted from billions of euros of revenue from selling the right to emit greenhouse gases since the EU carbon market began in 2005.
Having a tighter target for 2030 would mean even higher market prices for emission allowances — and even more revenue for cash-strapped government coffers.
Nations around the world are seen considering carbon pricing as they seek to rebuild their economies after the damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.
That’s because carbon taxes and markets, unlike company and payroll taxes, can spur employment as they encourage a shift away from coal, oil and natural gas and toward huge new cleantech investments.
In April, the International Energy Agency said investing in the climate transition would help economies recover and many countries are still finishing their post-Covid-19 recovery plans.
“We believe that by making clean energy an integral part of their plans, governments can deliver jobs and economic growth while also ensuring that their energy systems are modernised, more resilient and less polluting,” the IEA said.
******* See this for the immediate market reaction to the EU parliament’s vote, announced earlier today:
