Emissions trading is a form of permit trading (most commonly in the form of carbon emissions trading) between companies and countries in order to meet emissions obligations such as those laid out within the Kyoto Protocol.
One of the aims of the Kyoto Protocol is to preserve the environment and energy reserves for future generations. In order to accomplish this, participating countries were assigned strict guidelines and emissions reduction targets.
Ethically speaking the burdens of climate policy costs (both in terms of actual money value and assessed future ethical value) fall deservedly at the feet of no-one and everyone likewise. Whilst every country and business agrees with the idea of taking steps towards workable climate change policy, none are eager to foot the bill. And with no ethically obvious culprit, the decisions seem likely to rebound between economists and environmentalists.
The main argument of environmentalists and economists’ alike being that neither has the necessary experience in the other’s field to accurately assess the future economical cost plus environmental implications of climate change and potential climate change policies as one.
Commercial gas and electricity is an industry that never seems to wane. Every business needs cheap, accessible commercial gas and electricity with little sign of any alternative. Thusly the issue of ethics and climate change is ever present in the minds of business gas and electricity suppliers and recipients alike. Ethical business gas and electricity suppliers offer Carbon Resource Management services in order to source emissions credits and pass them on to customers.
The support of environmental NGO’s is something eagerly sought by UK businesses and energy suppliers. Criticisms against the emission trade industry (which focus on rich nations’ maintaining unhealthy emissions levels thanks to their bought emissions credits) have generally been counteracted by green NGO’s, who are largely in favour of the emissions trade as a climate change tool.
