The Carbon Challenge

Jim Owens says any carbon reduction costs must fairly imposed on companies around the world,  otherwise it will hurt US competitiveness by having an "adverse impact on particularly our basic industries—aluminum, steel and chemicals.”

State regulators just set energy efficiency standards for new TVs, but the Consumer Electronics Association isn't happy about. It should be. If past is prologue, this new regulation will drive innovation in the form of exciting new technologies that can be adapted for other products.

The recent green agreements have lowered expectations for any global deal at the Copenhagen climate conference next month, but they may also foreshadow a new approach focusing on job creation and technological innovation.

Ahead-of-the-curve retail investors looking to play carbon as a commodity may want to bone up on the facts while they are waiting to for the nascent market to scale up.

California is flirting with car insurance paid at the gas pump, so you’re actually paying based on how much of highway system you use—and how much carbon you pump into the air. Allstate, State Farm and Progressive are considering the idea.

In addition to the usual specialized brokerage and accounting services any commodity needs, carbon markets also require established standards to ensure credits are reliably similar and registries to track those credits from birth to retirement