Climate Law Update: Climate Change & Sustainable Energy News : Thelen Reid Law Firm : Renewable Energy, Construction, Project Finance Lawyers & Attorneys

Even during a period of scary economic headlines, some experts see efforts to control climate change through market mechanisms as a green light at the end of a dark tunnel.

The green lobbying group Environmental Defense Action Fund has enlisted top officials from manufacturing companies Deere & Co. and Eaton Corp. to appear in commercials touting the benefits of a national limit on emissions, as Congress nears a debate on the Lieberman-Warner bill that would establish a cap and trade system.

In a separate development, executives of Lehman Brothers, a major Wall Street firm, suggested that moves underway in the United States and elsewhere are likely to boost the carbon market, according to a Reuters report.

According to Reuters, Theodore Roosevelt, Lehman's council on climate change chairman, told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo that he was “fairly confident” the United States would pass “substantial climate change legislation” no later than 2010. The country’s involvement would then open “the possibility of a serious dialogue” with Asian countries on how to approach the problem. Another Lehman official quoted by the news service noted exchanges in Asia have recently indicated they want to get into carbon trading.

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Recession around the corner? There was no sign of that at a recent conference in San Francisco dedicated to examining issues pertaining to the brave new world of greenhouse gas emissions markets. Instead, around one corner of the vast Moscone Center was JP Morgan and around another Deutsche Bank. Cantor CO2e held down a choice booth and Bear Energy, a division of Bear Stearns Companies, also made its presence felt in a big way at Carbon Forum America 2008. 

As one of the event’s chief backers, Henry Derwent, president and chief executive officer of the International Emissions Trading Association, put it in the conference’s brochure, the gathering was the “first U.S. trade fair and conference dedicated to global business opportunities in the new carbon constrained economy.”

Or, as an attendant in one financial industry booth, who wanted neither his name nor affiliation revealed, bluntly described the attraction: “There’s going to be a lot of money in this.”

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