SAN FRANCISCO, August 26, 2009 — Signaling the start of a new era of mandated reductions of green-house gas emissions and bringing "cap-and-trade" policy to life, today the Pacific Carbon Exchange (PCarbX) announced the planned launch of an internet-based carbon trading floor to initially service companies under the Western Climate Initiative, including the U.S. states of Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. The market launches in advance of national regulation and mandatory cap-and-trade in California on January 1, 2012. "The Pacific Carbon Exchange enables the goals of the California's landmark AB32 Global Warming Act of 2006 to be fully realized, signaling the beginning of the low carbon economy," said Aaron Singer, President and CEO of the Pacific Carbon Exchange. "Human activity releases over 20 billion tons of green-house gas emissions into earth's fragile and delicately balanced atmosphere every year. This is a staggering number and represents the single greatest challenge of the 21st Century. The Pacific Carbon Exchange will help companies turn back the clock on green-house gas emissions and global climate change." The Pacific Carbon Exchange will create California and the western region's first environmental commodities exchange to serve California and the Western Climate Initiative mandatory market for carbon trading. The Pacific Carbon Exchange trading platform will allow businesses and other entities to trade several regulated commodities on the exchange, including: carbon offsets, carbon allowances, carbon futures, options, and other potential derivatives. Additional environmental markets such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, low carbon fuels certificates, biodiversity credits, and water conservation and quality instruments will also be launched on the exchange in the near future. Trading will begin as early as next year. The Pacific Carbon Exchange will act as a central public-private interface between the regulatory framework in the State of California, the Western Climate Initiative and the private sector which will make up the Exchange's member base. The Pacific Carbon Exchange will work closer with various state agencies such as the California Air Resources Board, Cal EPA, the Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission, the Western Climate Initiative, and other state agencies throughout the West to make PCarbX a transparent, secure, environmental commodities market. The Pacific Carbon Exchange will be an easy-to-use, secure Internet-based trading platform, matching buyers and sellers similar to financial stock exchange. The Exchange will feature a state-of-the-art trading matching engine, with intuitive front-end interfaces and trading data dashboards, enabling members and traders to easily navigate, research and trade the environmental commodities that will offered through the exchange. The environmental commodities market is growing rapidly worldwide. The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme experienced more than $126 billion in emissions trading transactions in 2008. The market in the United States for environmental commodities is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to be well over $300 billion. Global emissions trading is projected to by between $1-3 trillion dollars by 2020, creating a worldwide market potentially larger than that of oil and gas. California is responsible for close to 10% of US emissions alone, creating an almost $30 billion dollar emissions trading market encompassing 85% of the California economy. When the member States and Provinces the Western Climate Initiative are added, this creates a potential trading market for the Pacific Carbon Exchange of more than $100 billion. |
