Before Copenhagen, the markets in trading greenhouse gas emissions were buoyant. For the first time, nearly all of the world’s big economies, including the US and China, had set carbon reduction targets that vastly boosted prospects for the trade. As another fillip, the US was considering a federal system of carbon trading capable of sending the value of the market rocketing.
Traders were looking forward to an accord at Copenhagen that would lead to the forging of a new worldwide legal pact on reducing emissions. They would be among the main beneficiaries of such a treaty, as trading in emissions is one of the key ways of encouraging countries and businesses to cut emissions. But the outcome from Copenhagen was nowhere near as definitive as the markets would have liked.
