Opportunities in carbon trade regime

By BRUCE McKAY - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 26 September 2007

The carbon trading structure announced by the Government last week appears to have meet with widespread support across most of the economy.

Predictably, the Greens are saying it's all too little too late, but the rest of the political spectrum has at least given a tick of endorsement to the plans put forward by the Government.

The phase-in over a few years gives the economy time to adjust to the changes in price relativities that pricing carbon will have.

The basic idea behind the carbon trading scheme is that the Government will allocate a set number of carbon credits to each industry free.

If the industry or a company within the industry expels carbon in excess of this number, credit will have to be purchased on the open market.

This is intended to make the price of carbon transparent to both the creators and users of the carbon credits.

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