Sitting in the Vanderbilt Hall of the Naples Ritz Carlton this
afternoon somehow evoked the movie 'The Graduate.' And no, not for
the reasons you're thinking, but for the advice given to Benjamin
Braddock. It was plastics then. If he were getting out of college
today he may very well hear "Just one word: carbon."
That's because the carbon trading market, which has grown from a
$100 million market in 2003 to a $400 million market now, is bound
to hit $1 trillion in the next few years, according to panelists on
the "Emerging Asset Classes" presentation on day two of the Global
Financial Leadership Conference.
"When you look across the economy, anywhere energy is created or
consumed there is going to be opportunity," said Martin Whittaker,
Director of Environmental Finance Strategy a MissionPoint Capital
Partners. "Clean energy is going to create a lot of growth." And
not just in trading carbon credits as would occur under what is
expected to be a carbon cap and trade program, but also from
companies that will need a host of corporate finance services to
trade. monitor and risk-manage their carbon-related operations,
Whittaker explains.
The stakes were raised by the Supreme Court decision this year
that agreed the EPA has the right to regulate greenhouse gases.
that means companies will face a prospect of either getting up to
speed in trading carbon credits, or face an aggressive EPA that
will likely look to use its enforcement power on carbon spewers,
according to Tom Lewis, CEO of the Green Exchange Venture.
The shift to carbon caps is accelerating, and some type of
international program is expected to come out of December's
Copenhagen meeting to replace the old Kyoto Treaty. This time,
theUS is expected to playa key part in the accord (unlike Kyoto,
which Congress never ratified), since the country emits 24 percent
of the world's carbon.
"It is a macro shift from a consumer society to an efficiency
one," said Andrew Ertel, President and CEO of Evolution Markets, an
emissions-focused brokerage service. The Copenhagen treaty "is
probably the most important economic issue ever being negotiated,"
the one-time pit trader contended.
The GFLC green markets panel
