US president Barack Obama is already starting to make good his election promises on dealing with climate change. One of his first moves since his inauguration has been to reverse former president George W Bush’s climate change policies by allowing states to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and by ordering vehicle fuel efficiency standards for 2011 to be set by March.
This is nothing new of course. Obama had campaigned on the notion that the US can revive its economy in part by investing in renewable energy, and can trim its carbon output through a federal carbon cap-and-trade market.
What will be interesting in the coming months is where all this will lead the global carbon market, which grew 83% in 2008 to a total value of Eu92bn ($125bn), more than double the 2007 value of Eu40bn, according to Point Carbon’s January 2008 Year in Review. ...