Carbon Climate Exchange Going Out Of Business

The Center's Carbon Mercantile Exchange (CMX) Will Stay Open Indefinitely

The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) will close at the end of this year due to stalled legislation in Congress and Republican gains in the midterm elections. Since 2003, CCX has operated a voluntary network where companies can pledge to meet annual targets for the emissions of carbon from their factories and businesses. Those below the targets can sell surplus allowances or bank them; those above can purchase credits to offset their emissions.  The Center's CMX is available to provide this same service.

The users of the CCX platform did not want to continue to trade voluntarily in the absence of any credit for their work by the federal government.  The CCX platform will be replaced with the CCX Offsets Registry Program. The new program will allow users to offset gasses, rather than trade credits for their emissions. Should an executive take a lengthy flight, the new Registry will allow the company to purchase an offset for the gas emitted by the flight.

The House passed a climate bill last year that would set a national 2020 emissions reduction target on greenhouse gas emissions and outlined a national emissions trading scheme. But Senate Democrats  abandoned the cap-and-trade method of cutting emissions. Big Republican gains in the midterm elections further diminished the prospects of further climate legislation passing Congress in the near term. The CCX was envisioned as the main clearinghouse for what would eventually have been a $10 trillion non-voluntary market had cap-and-trade legislation passed the Senate as it did the House.

(FOXNews, 11/8/2010, Washington Examiner, 11/8/2010, National Geographic, 11/3/2010)