1 June 2011: During the Carbon Expo taking place in Barcelona, Spain, the World Bank released the 2011 edition of its State and Trends of the Carbon Market Report, which indicates a slight decline in carbon markets compared to 2009.

Among the reasons for the carbon market’s lack of growth, the report signals the lack of legal certainty about the future of the market post-2012 and the loss of political momentum on setting up new cap-and-trade schemes in several developed economies, such as the US. The report also mentions that the recession in several industrialized countries led to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, easing emissions reduction compliance obligations.

The report shows that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS) is sustaining current demand for carbon. It shows that the EU allowances traded under the ETS are responsible for 84% of the total value of the carbon market. Taking secondary Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) transactions into account, the value of the market driven by the ETS reached 97% of the global market value.

Furthermore, the primary Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) market, which accounts for the bulk of project-based transactions, fell by double digits for a variety of reasons, including lower demand for credits and competition from more predictable assets (Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) and secondary CERs). The CDM market is now at its lowest level since the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005, having dropped by 46% to an estimated US$1.5 billion in new project-based transactions. Similarly, other carbon markets also declined or stayed at their plateau. Nevertheless, cumulatively, primary offset transactions have reached almost US$30 billion since 2005 and are expected to have catalyzed much larger resources, mostly from the private sector. [Publication: State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2011]