EU Carbon Permits Drop to Record Low as European Debt Crisis Trims Demand - Bloomberg

The European Union’s sovereign-debt crisis is hurting the region’s economic production, driving benchmark carbon permits to their lowest since 2009. Prices for the December 2011 contract declined as much as 7.1 percent to 8.45 euros ($11.32) a metric ton on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London, a record low for this contract. They were at 8.42 euros at 2:55 p.m. in London. Prices have plunged 41 percent in the year to date. In February 2009, the benchmark December contract for that year fell as low as 8.05 euros a ton. The EU program, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas market by traded volume, will be oversupplied by 212 million tons of carbon dioxide next year, or 9.1 percent of expected emissions of 2.3 billion tons, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance model.

JPMorgan World Bank Veteran Leaves, Saying CO2 ‘Died’ - Bloomberg

Odin Knudsen, the JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) managing director for environmental markets, resigned last month as the largest U.S. lender scaled back its climate-related practice. Knudsen, 68, left the New York-based lender by mutual agreement after it became apparent the U.S. was not going to join a global system to trade carbon emissions, undermining the bank’s business plans, he said in a Nov. 21 phone interview. JPMorgan spokesman Brian Marchiony declined to comment.
“We’d all been geared up for the U.S. coming on board at some point,” Knudsen said. “The market pretty much died out.”