Prices Up, Brits Humbled, Bush Spinning Climate Change

The feeling on prices is that after the opening of the Kyoto pact they have risen due to the European Union Commission's tough stance on the Brits attempt to recind their offer.

Cold weather? Maybe.

Bush saying he will discuss climate change, but not Kyoto? Perhaps.

The Brits, for their part are moving the dialogue past this "serious spat" to a new attempt to grab some limelight for Tony Blair saying he was responsible for the Russians joining Kyoto.

My favorite is the UK scientist boffin type, Sir David King's humbling comment regarding the spat: "we want the Commission to understand we made an honest mistake" in calculating emissions figures.

More Silly Games by UK (Defra & CBI) vs EU Commision

Once again the UK Defra people have come out against the allocation amounts deemed satisfactory by the EU Commission. These allocation amounts WERE ALSO deemed satsitfactory by the UK themselves. It's only that they gave the numbers too early and paid too much.

"Hey now, hang on a minute", they say. "We want to pay less even though we have already agreed a price".

Of course the losers are the power companies, according (We are not happy, no,'' said David Porter - Bloomberg )

The CBI comes out strongly on their side (with a little too much enthusiasm if you ask me, that guy Digby Jones cracks me up) and the Defra spokes woman is always playing deep throat (no not that one, the Watergate one) by requesting not to be named.

What a bunch of pansies.

But some fun like this makes the market rally closing on valentines day near 7.35 for 2005 and 7.45 for 2006 EUA's. The EU being tough seems to be a good force in the market. And leans more in favor of the group mentioned below who say there are too many for the effect to be felt.

"Despite the threat, the U.K. will proceed with adding some 20 million extra tons of carbon dioxide to industry for the period 2005-2007, raising the total number of allowances granted to companies during the first phase of trading to 756 million. " - Dow Jones Newswire Okay, so they will pay a fine, also.

Will the fines also, be charged to the electric companies?

The Goldilocks view today on emissions trading

Too Hot, Too Cold, And Just Right: Russia wants to pull out, UK says they are delayed again in their plan and the EU sees a future of many - even the toughest - nations working in harmony.

Russia should withdraw from Kyoto Protocol because it will hurt the Russian economy, said Andrei Illarionov, an aide to President Vladimir Putin. But then this shoot-from-the-hip-boffin also says ``I can think of communism and fascism as the only two other cases in human history that set limits on development of certain regions before the Kyoto Protocol,''

Where as the EU executive says that an impasse should be broken by extending participation to developing nations immediately. ``The objective is a multilateral climate-change regime post- 2012 with meaningful participation of all developed countries and the participation of developing countries,'' the European Commission said in a paper released today in Brussels. Emissions trading is one of the ``building blocks to a truly international carbon market.''

The UK plan, on the other hand, has been delayed a number of times due to the British asking for more concessions and generally being a bad sport about things since they were the first to publish its allocation plan a year ago. ``We received a response from the EC,'' the London based Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair said Feb. 4, without being more specific. ``We are considering further how to respond to the points raised in the commission's letter.''

A Dissenter's View on EU ETS

The Green Alliance has come out against current policies applied in the EU ETS. While some advocates of the Emission Trading scheme such as Point Carbon use more direct criticism of this report ["Report slams ETS allocation process" ] another view might point out that they are only lobbying for the scheme to be much stronger.

Of the EU ETS and the message of reducing harmful emissions, Green Alliance says:

"..there was no clear link between this overall message and individual policies. Many criticised the complexity and lack of coherence of the package of measures in place."

However, mention of supporters of this report, such as Scottish Power may raise some suspicions, too.

Full text of the Point Carbon statement here .