Posted by
Aaron McLucas on Sunday, May 11, 2008 12:00:32 PM
Here is just another reason why the Kyoto treaty does not work and how easy it is for some countries to take advantage of its position without having to reduce any of their own emmisions.
One controversial scheme under the agreement allows industrialised countries which are comfortably below their emissions targets to sell the difference to other industrialised nations, in a trade which is not necessarily related to any emissions cuts.
According to available data, Russia may have more than 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide rights, called Assigned Amount Units (AAUs), to sell at the end of Kyoto's first commitment period (2008-2012).
This is more than the estimated AAU demand of every other Kyoto signatory country combined.
Alexander Khanykov, head of Russian clean energy project developers Carbon Project Group, told Reuters on Friday that he believes Russia will save most of its AAUs past 2012 instead of selling them and possibly flooding an already precarious carbon market.
Just another reason why the U.S. made the correct choice in not getting involved in that ridiculous CO2/money swaping scheme. I am still waiting for the news to break that someone at the U.N. is getting rich off this scam. Give it tome time.