Carbon trading hit by downturn

The global economic slowdown will increase available carbon trading licenses in the European emissions trading scheme (ETS) by almost half, lowering the price of carbon-based exchange traded funds (ETFs) and commodities (ETCs), analyst IDEAcarbon has said. With European industrial output predicted to fall to 1% over 2008 and decline by 0.7% in 2009, total carbon emissions are also expected to decrease, lowering the shortfall of trading licences by 44% from 206m tonnes to 115m tonnes between 2008 and 2012. As the reduced shortfall effectively represents greater supply within the market...