(134c) Monetizing Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions: Opportunities in Carbon Trading

The Kyoto Protocol and developing international programs that will follow, as well as exiting state and probable future US climate change legislation, now limit and will limit in the future greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from industrial sources. Industries with significant GHG emissions will be able to use the ?cap-and-trade? system existing at the international level and proposed under state and federal legislation to purchase emission offsets to meet at least in part their mandated emission reductions.

These ?carbon credits? have become a $30 billion industry under Kyoto, and will balloon to much higher levels in the future. As a result, industries and other businesses and entrepreneurs may find investment in GHG reduction projects can generate valuable carbon credits to help offset their own GHG emission limitations or to sell in the international mandatory markets or the already existing voluntary markets in the US for significant profit.