Current Challenges in the Carbon Markets
In association with the London School of Economics Carbon Market Group, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, the Carbon Markets & Investors Association, and the Environmental Defense Fund.
This event explored the complimentary and competing perspectives of the academe and market participants with regard to complex key issues in the carbon markets, to enable attendees to better understand these.
More information
Event programme
Tuesday 2 November 2010, 3.30-7.30pm, LSE
This event will explore the complimentary and competing perspectives of the academe and market participants with regard to complex key issues in the carbon markets, and enable attendees to better understand these.
15.30 Registration and coffee
16.00 Welcome remarks: Judith Rees, Director, Grantham Research Institute, LSE
16.10
Market Panel: understanding price trends
What are the short and long-term price drivers in the carbon markets? How does auctioning affect price dynamics and the trading behaviour of regulated companies?
Chair: Alexander Golub, Senior Research Fellow, Environmental Defense Fund
Panel: Adrien Assous, Natixis’ Environment and Infrastructure Chief Carbon Economist and Board Member of the CMIA; Alessandro Vitelli, Director, IDEAcarbon; Luca Taschini, Research Associate, Grantham Research Institute, LSE
16.55 Break
17.00
Policy Panel: Price control mechanisms
Do we need price controls in the carbon markets? How do these relate to offsets? Are banking, borrowing and a tight cap enough to ensure the smooth functioning of the markets?
Chair: Sam Frankhauser, Grantham Research Institute, LSE
Panel: Matthew Whittell, CFO at Environova Consulting and Vice president for Communications at CMIA; Ruben Lubowski, Senior Economist, Environmental Defense Fund; Cameron Hepburn, Grantham Research Institute, LSE
17.45 Break
18.00
Keynote panel: Outlook for the Carbon Markets – US, EU, UK
Chair: Sam Frankhauser, Grantham Research Institute, LSE
Panel: Miles Austin, Director, Carbon Market & Investors Association; Nathaniel Keohane, Chief Economist, Environmental Defense Fund; Simeon Thornton, Chief Economist, DECC (UK)
19.30 End of Conference – drinks reception
Downloads
Alessandro Vitelli’s presentation:Auctions in the EU ETS Phase III
Luca Taschini’s presentation: Expected Price Trends and Deviations in the Short- and Long-run
Nathaniel Keohane’s presentation: Prospects for US Carbon Markets
Simeon Thornton’s talk: A UK Perspective on Carbon Markets
Biographies
Adrien’s role is to help the NEI’s investment decisions by providing recommendations on price trends, policy developments, market opportunities and hedging instruments.
He has been involved in the carbon market since 2004 and in financial markets since 2000.
Adrien joined Natixis from the research firm New Carbon Finance, where he was in charge of its EU ETS analysis.
Before this, he led a quantitative analytics team at BNP Paribas’ London office, as part of the Fixed Income department.
Adrien has an MSc in engineering from Ecole Centrale de Lyon, and a Masters in International Economic Policy, specialising in climate change, from Buenos Aires.
Matthew is CFO of both Aggregated Micro Power Ltd and Environova Consulting Ltd.
He worked at Climate Exchange plc as CFO, and, from 2007, Finance Director, until the company was sold in 2010 to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
Previously, Matthew had 18 years’ investment banking experience, specialising in Equity Capital Markets, both in Europe and Asia.
He has an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London. He also holds an MA in Physics from Oxford University, in 1986, and Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance.
Ruben oversees EDF’s analytical efforts to reduce emissions from tropical deforestation using emerging carbon markets. He also develops and promotes proposals to integrate forestry and agriculture into domestic and international climate policies.
Before joining EDF, he worked for the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the World Bank, the Harvard Institute for International Development, and the United Nations Development Program.
Ruben received his PhD. and AM in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University and his AB from Harvard College.
He holds a DPhil and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford and first-class degrees in Law and Engineering from the University of Melbourne.
Miles has sat on the UK treasury’s Carbon Market Expert Panel since its inception. He served on the board of the Carbon Markets & Investors Association (CMIA) and chaired its Flexible Mechanisms working group. He has given evidence to the House of Lords, and advised developing world governments on the impact and opportunities of cap and trade legislation.
Prior to his appointment as CMIA’s director, Miles was Head of European Regulatory Affairs at project developer EcoSecurities, and was an analyst for Point Carbon. He holds a Masters in environmental science and technology, specialising in climate change and policy from Imperial College London.
Nathaniel oversees economic policy and analysis at EDF, leading a team of economists who help staff across the organisation develop and advocate market-based solutions to a wide range of environmental problems.
Nathaniel’s particular focus areas include the economics of climate change; the design and performance of cap-and-trade programs to control pollution (including greenhouse gases, as well as air pollutants like sulphur dioxide); and the design of water markets.
Before coming to EDF, Nathaniel was Associate Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management.
He has published widely in economics journals and has co-authored/edited two books:
- Markets and the Environment (Island Press, 2007);
- Economics of Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, 2009).
Nathaniel is a member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Council on Clean Air Act Compliance Analysis and is a lead author for Working Group III of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He has a PhD in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University, 2001, and a BA from Yale College, 1993.
Simeon is currently Chief Economist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), where he has overall responsibility for the provision of high quality economic advice to inform DECC’s climate change and energy policies and for the professional development of its 75 economists.
Before taking up his current post, he was Head of Climate Change Economics Division at Defra, a team of 25 economists providing economic advice on all DECC’s climate change policies, both internationally and at a domestic level.
Simeon was previously employed as a Senior Team Leader at the Office of Fair Trading, where he led an investigation into the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, the system that sets the price of branded pharmaceuticals prescribed in the UK, covering some £8bn of annual expenditure.
Prior to joining Government, Simeon was a Senior Consultant at National Economic Research Associates (NERA), where he worked extensively on projects relating to the regulation and restructuring of the power sector, particularly in West and East Africa, as well as conducting economic due diligence studies for major investments by IFC, OPIC and EBRD in Ghana and Bulgaria.