Slovak News Back to the news
Price for CO2 Emission Quotas Could Break €11 per tonne in March
Monday 04 January 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava January 4 (TASR) - The market price of one tonne of CO2 emissions bound to so-called 'green projects' could reach €11.15 in Slovakia in March of this year, according to the expectations of the Price Exchange Committee, an advisory body to the Commodity Exchange in Bratislava, which had its latest meeting in December.
The price for a tonne of CO2 emissions is currently set at €5.05. If emissions were sold without being bound to green projects, the committee estimates that the price would go up to only somewhere around €10.15 per tonne in the coming months.
"Developments on the international market with emission quotas (AAU) are hard to estimate at the moment," TASR was told by Karel Polanecky, who co-operates with Greenpeace. He added that the market rules are clearly defined only until 2012, which is the date on which the first controlling period of the Kyoto protocol is set to end. "As a result of the failure seen at the climate conference in Copenhagen, it's unclear how trading will continue in the years to come, and if there will be trading at all," said Polanecky. According to him, it's likely that potential buyers will hang on to see the new rules set.
An emission-quota deal that received massive media attention in Slovakia recently was from 2008 when the country sold 15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions to a U.S.-based company called the Interblue Group for €75 million. The deal was made at a rate of €5.05 per tonne, and the sale has been harshly criticised by the Opposition, which claims that it was disadvantageous for the selling party. Moreover, based on the wording of the contract, the Interblue Group has the right to purchase another 35 million tonnes from Slovakia. The case was cited as one of the reasons why Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) infringed the Coalition Agreement by taking management of the Environment Ministry away from his Coalition partner, the Slovak National Party (SNS).
The current Environment Minister Jozef Medved has declared that the ministry will sell emission quotas transparently in future. At the same time, the ministry is currently trying to terminate the contract with the Interblue Group. Ministry spokesperson Jana Kaplanova confirmed for TASR on Monday that talks on this matter are still in progress. "Given that the situation is complicated, we can't comment on this," she said.
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
