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ARTICLE · 20 MAY 2011

Emerging Trends In Global Carbon Finance

Stikeman Elliott LLP
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Recent developments in international carbon finance have seen investors and carbon intermediaries moving away from the global carbon market and towards local initiatives, such asregional carbon trading regimes, as a means of participating in carbon reduction financing or achieving climate change objectives.

CanadaEnergy and Natural Resources
The Energy Practice Group
The Energy Practice Group
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Recent developments in international carbon finance have seen investors and carbon intermediaries moving away from the global carbon market and towards local initiatives, such asregional carbon trading regimes, as a means of participating in carbon reduction financing or achieving climate change objectives. This short piece identifies and begins to examine this trend away from global carbon market development and towards regional initiatives and some of the reasons for this movement.

At the 1997 climate change conference in Kyoto, Japan, 193 nations, including the European Union (EU), arrived at a global consensus on using financial measures to combat climate change. The Kyoto plan introduced restrictions on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by industrialized countries and the creation of credits to emit GHGs that would be tradeable in a global carbon market. Developing countries, including China and India, were not given GHG emissions limits and could sell credits based

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