“Avoiding tropical deforestation - or REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) in the parlance of the emerging policy dynamic - is the most mind twistingly complex endeavor in the carbon game. The fact is that REDD involves scientific uncertainties, technical challenges, heterogeneous non-contiguous asset classes, multi-decade performance guarantees, local land tenure issues, brutal potential for gaming and the fact that getting it wrong means that scam artists will get unimaginably rich while emissions don’t change a bit. You can understand why back in 1997 in Kyoto everybody threw their hands up and just decided this was too hard to try.”

“The sectoral approach is no silver bullet, but if we use it wisely and rationally it can become a great source of learning for the next stage of carbon market development, a crucial step to addressing climate change. Now we just need to define the term.”

“I caught up with a friend of mine, Marc Stuart, to give us a little teach in about the real story in carbon offsets, what matters, what does not, what works, and what still needs to be tweaked. Marc should know, he’s one of the founders of EcoSecurities plc (AIM:ECO.L), one of the first, and still the leader in generating and monetizing carbon credits. Marc, thanks for joining us, we appreciate the time and the teach in.”

“The chief executive of London-listed carbon project developer EcoSecurities , Bruce Usher, will step down once a successor is found, the company said on Wednesday. The change in chief executive had nothing to do with trading issues, EcoSecurities said in a statement. “Usher, who is stepping down to pursue personal interests, remains fully committed to the Company. The Board confirms trading is in line with its expectations.””

“Goldman’s purchases are only the latest demonstration of investment banks’ interest in the offsets field. Last year, Credit Suisse invested 44 million euros in EcoSecurities, an Ireland-based offsets firm. In March, JP Morgan bought ClimateCare, another offsets group. In 2006 Morgan Stanley took a 38 percent stake in MGM International, yet another such firm.”

“Bruce Usher, chief executive of Eco-Securities, a carbon trader, says: “The CDM functions, but it is challenging. It can take a while to get approval.”