The Future

The international market in carbon-derived offsets is expanding ahead of international regulation.

Projects are emerging throughout the developing world that target deforestation and poverty and deliver verifiable carbon reductions.

Companies are purchasing these offsets to develop carbon neural products.

Countries and major corporations are embracing these mechanisms as a means to provide market driven solutions to the challenge of global warming.

The Proto-Carbon Fund has already conducted trades in excess of 100 million USD and has many more currently underway. Within the OECD and EITs between 40-60 MtCO2e have been transacted. In developing countries there is growing activity, it is mostly government funded, but private activity is growing.

There is a wide variation in the estimates of demand, supply and price (marginal abatement costs) data for GHG credits. The variation derives from uncertainties in the projected growth in GHG, the level of domestic action required, the rules for the CDM and Joint Implementation (annex 1 state to annex 1 state) transactions.

Most of the OECD-Annex B countries are unlikely to meet their commitments and studies estimate that the baseline scenario for these countries will exceed their commitments to emissions reductions by North America by 21% to 30%, Pacific OECD by 19% to 29% and Western Europe by 16% to 27%. This points to significant potential demand in the market.

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