Compliance Carbon Market

However, regulating the aggregated emissions at a utility-level makes sense from a regulatory perspective and quantifying indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity use makes sense to individual companies because it is so closely tied to cost-saving efforts from energy efficiency projects. This example should start to demonstrate how complicated GHG legislation can become when ownership of emissions is itself a difficult concept to grasp.

Japan, besides setting a 60-80% CO2 reduction goal (by 2050, not 2020 like environmentalists want), plans to launch a carbon market in autumn, which, if successful, could go global at some point in the future. Japan is the world's fifth-largest emitter. This move advances Japan's green agenda before hosting the G8 summit next month.

Carbon Offsets Daily: When do you think the domestic voluntary carbon market will become a compliance market and how will that change affect the environment?