The VAT Carousel Fraud has seriously undermined the financial integrity of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). This timely book is the first to give an overview of fraud in the carbon market. Written by a former broker, it presents unique material on the carbon fraud mechanics and analyses the missing trader fraud (VAT fraud) on European carbon allowances markets with a focus on financial and organised crime issues. Fraud and Carbon Markets: The Carbon Connection assesses the weaknesses of the Kyoto Protocol and environmental markets, using statistics as a forensic tool on the capital markets. It describes specific cases, the court investigations and various mechanisms. It addresses issues of money laundering and international fraud on capital markets, such as stock manipulation, by exploring the financial mechanisms of the fraud, their impact on the market behaviour and the consequences on their econometric features. Researchers and students in climate change policy, environmental finance, financial law, organised crime, forensic statistics, financial regulation and risk management as well as financial regulators and policy makers will find this book of great interest.

The aim of this paper is to show evidence and to quantify with forensic econometric methods the impact of the Value Added Tax fraud on European carbon allowances markets. This fraud mainly occurred at the beginning of between the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. In this paper we explore the financial mechanisms of the fraud and the impact on the market behavior as well as the reflexion on its econometric features. In a previous work, we showed that the European carbon market is strongly influenced by fundamentals factors as oil, energy, gas, coal and equity prices. Therefore, we calibrated Arbitrage Pricing Theory-like models and showed that they have a good forecast capacity. Those models enabled us to quantify the impact of each factor on the market. In this study, we focused more precisely on the benchmark contract for European carbon emissions prices over 2008 and 2009. We observed that during the first semester of 2009, there is a significant drop in our model performances and robustness and that the part of market volatility explained by fundamentals reduced. Therefore, we identified the period where the market was driven by VAT fraud movements and we were able to measure the value of this fraud. Soon after governments passed a law that cut the possibility of fraud occurrence the performance of the model improved rapidly. We estimate the impact of the VAT extortion on the carbon market at 1.7-1.9 billion euros.

Upsetting the Offset engages critically with the political economy of carbon markets. It presents a range of case studies and critiques from around the world, showing how the scam of carbon markets affects the lives of communities. But the book doesn't stop there. It also presents a number of alternatives to carbon markets which enable communities to live in real low-carbon futures.

"If you care about America's future, read this book."—Mark Levin "A must-read book that shows how the Green New Deal is dangerous, impractical, misguided, and guaranteed to fail with disastrous results for the American people.”—Sean Hannity A New Lockdown to "Save" the Climate That’s what’s in store for us if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Democrats pass their radical climate plan—the Green New Deal. It is packed with guarantees so completely irrelevant to the problem it purports to “solve” (like “free college” and incomes for everyone “unable or unwilling to work”) that even its boosters have admitted it’s not really about the climate. The intrepid Marc Morano, author of the bestselling Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change, breaks down the science and the politics to expose the truth about the Green New Deal: • The science is settled: copious evidence—and prominent defections from the “climate consensus”—make clear we are not facing a man-made climate disaster • “Climate change” is the perfect Trojan horse for the socialist agenda of the Left • Fossil fuels lifted the West out of poverty—but our elites now want to deny them to the world’s poor • The Green New Deal is on a collision course with self-government and our fundamental rights Climate change has already been “solved” multiple times over the past two decades—with highly touted international agreements—and yet it never goes away as an excuse for leftist policies that will cripple our economy, impoverish the world, and take away our freedoms. Packed with telling statistics, damning quotations, and real science, Green Fraud is your source for all the facts you need to understand—and resist—the threat.

The global response to climate change will demand unprecedented international cooperation, deep economic transformation and resource transfers at a significant scale. Corruption threatens to jeopardise these efforts. Transparency International's Global Corruption Report: Climate Change is the first publication to comprehensively explore such corruption risks. More than fifty leading experts and practitioners contribute, covering four key areas: governance: investigating major governance challenges towards tackling climate change mitigating climate change: reducing greenhouse gas emissions with transparency and accountability adapting to climate change: identifying corruption risks in climate-proofing development, financing and implementation of adaptation forestry governance: responding to the corruption challenges plaguing the forestry sector, and how these challenges need to be integrated into current international strategies to halt deforestation and promote reforestation. The Global Corruption Report: Climate Change provides essential policy analysis to help policy-makers, practitioners and other stakeholders understand these risks and develop effective responses at a critical point in time when the main architecture for climate governance is being developed.

Various carbon products are traded in the United States, but volumes have been small compared to other commodity markets. The products traded include carbon allowances, which entitle the holder to emit a specific amount of a greenhouse gas, and carbon offsets, which are measurable reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from an activity or project in one location that are used to compensate for emissions occurring elsewhere.1 Derivatives on carbon products are also traded in the United States, including primarily futures contracts.2 Although no official measure of volume of trading exists, various sources estimated that from $2.4 billion to $2.7 billion of carbon products traded in United States in 2009, with offsets accounting for around $74 million.3 U.S. carbon trading volumes appear to have fallen sharply in 2010, with volumes of RGGI allowances trading at around 15 percent of their 2009 levels as of June 2010. Carbon product trading poses various risks and challenges that were similar to those found in other commodity markets. For example, carbon products pose market risk, which is the exposure to losses from changes in product prices. Similarly, carbon product markets face the risk of potential manipulation and fraud. Although no fraud involving carbon products has been identified in the United States since 2001, carbon products traded in Europe have been part of several fraudulent activities, including those involving value-added tax violations. Carbon markets could be significantly affected by political or regulatory changes after implementation of any U.S. cap-and-trade program, but market observers noted that this risk could be mitigated by including elements in the program that increased certainty of its duration and features. Under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) carbon emissions are considered to be an "exempt commodity." Before Congress amended the CEA in the recently enacted Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act, Pub. L. No. 111-203), derivatives on exempt commodities were eligible for limited oversight by the primary U.S. commodities regulator, CFTC. They could be traded between qualified parties on an over-the-counter (OTC) basis generally free from CFTC regulation.4 CFTCs authority over such trading was limited to instances in which CFTC suspected fraud or manipulation. Although typical transactions in carbon emissions qualified for OTC trading, to date market participants have traded carbon products mostly on exchanges subject to CFTCs full authority. The Dodd-Frank amendments, which are not yet in effect, replaced this regime with clearing requirements and other requirements intended to increase transparency of the OTC derivatives market and reduce the potential for counterparty and systemic risk. The amendments provide an exemption from clearing, exchange trading, and other requirements for counterparties that qualify as end users.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Discusses carbon trading in the U.S. and various design and implementation issues to be considered in discussions about a national carbon trading program. Industrial activities in the U.S. emit significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases each year, substantially affecting the earth¿s climates. Some have suggested capping emissions and allowing them to be traded in secondary markets just as other commodities are traded. This report provides info. on: (1) carbon-related products currently traded in the U.S. and the extent of trading; (2) risks and challenges posed by these products; (3) the extent to which and how these products are regulated; and (4) issues identified as part of creating a national cap-and-trade carbon market. Illus.