EcosystemMarketplace.com Website providing info on markets for ecosystem services
Title
The Katoomba Group's Ecosystem Marketplace
Description
The Ecosystem Marketplace seeks to become the world's leading source of information on markets and payment schemes for ecosystem services; services such as water quality, carbon sequestration and biodiversity. We believe that by providing solid and trust-worthy information on prices, regulation, science, and other market-relevant issues, markets for ecosystem services will one day become a fundamental part of our economic and environmental system, helping give value to environmental services that have, for too long, been taken for granted.
Ever since the US launched the first large-scale market in an environmental commodity sulfur dioxide, or SO2 markets have been revolutionizing the way governments approach environmental policy. Since then we have seen the creation of multi-million dollar markets in greenhouse gases, in wetlands, water pollution, and even in endangered species (read more >>). And these are just the formal markets. Throughout the world, countries like Costa Rica, Mexico (read more >>), Australia, Colombia, Ecuador, and South Africa (to name but a few) have been setting up what might be considered "proto-markets" systems of payment for the services provided by ecosystems; systems that could one day become the precursors of larger, more traditional markets.
The potential of these markets can be seen in the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) which was officially launched in January of 2005. It is a standard cap-and-trade market established by the EU to allow it to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Convention on Climate Change. Twenty years ago the creation of a vibrant market in greenhouse gas emissions credits would probably have been considered fanciful, if not downright laughable. Today, the EU ETS exists and it traded an estimated $40 million dollars-worth of carbon credits in its first month of operation (read more >>). Credible observers are now predicting that the global carbon markets could be worth nearly $40 billion dollars by 2010, and $200 billion dollars sometime in the future. If they are right, carbon could one day become one of the world's largest commodity markets. While not all environmental markets are likely to be as large and robust as carbon, there are reasons to believe that markets for ecosystem services could one day be worth tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide.
Languages
English
Address
- 1050 Potomac Ave. NW
- Washington DC 20007 US
Additional Information
Related Domains
External Links
- Alexa: EcosystemMarketplace.com
