Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Carbon currencies: CO2e-White-Green and MDG-Certificates ... rfc SWOT

The CO2e-Certificate (AAU/EUA/CER/VER/ERU) market where this "currency" from the Low Carbon Economy is traded is near to worldwide.

Green-certificates obtained from producing green power is a very welcomed system too, kicked of by governments and taken up by the private sector from then on, and the number of countries applying it rises as it doesn't cost the Public Budget.  Imagine you could really make it as global as the CO2e-Certificates market... it would be a support for the projects that fail the additionality criterium under the "Kyoto Protocol".

White Certificates: "printed"/"generated" by energy-efficiency projects: insulation, low consumption bulbs, more efficient computers, ... actually we should start there: prevent we need power in the first place, recycle, reduce ... and then at the end we should invest in Windturbines/Photovoltaics etc.  If the leaders in all their wisdom that for strategical reasons it is important to first go ahead with PV/Wind etc. ... so be it.  But ... now the budgets get stricter... maybe this is the time to insert a new Low Carbon Economy currency: White Certificates ... I think the markets/private sector will catch up immediately with the system without the government having to spend money to kick-start it.

I can imagine in a year or so that if you want to participate in "Copenhaegen" or some big conference: you either pay in Fossile Economy Currency e.g. 1000 €/person or in Low Carbon Economy Currency: 100 € + 10 CO2e certificates + 10 Green Certificates + 20 White Certificates... if you live sustainbly in the Low Carbon Economy... you / the group to which you belong / the town you live in will produce these yourself.  Of course you have a right to pollute and then you just pay 1000 € for the entrance ticket to the fair.... and your assumed footprint will be offsetted for you.

Why not allow projects to "print"/"generate" Green and White ... and Millennium Development Goal certificates?

Request for participation in a SWOT please.