The Kyoto Protocol has given birth to a new market called carbon credits and emission trading. Carbon credit futures are now traded on MCX and NCDEX in India. While the prices are lucrative, the success depends on the physical delivery mechanism of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) being traded on the exchanges.

Global warming is the new buzzword haunting environmentalists, economists and all cosmopolitans at large. No issue is more global than global warming: everyone on Planet Earth shares the same atmosphere. The world is currently engaged in an experiment, studying what happens when carbon dioxide and certain other gasses are released into the atmosphere. The scientific community is, however, sure of the outcome and it is not pretty either. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the average temperature of the earth has been on the rise—it has already increased by 0.6^oC and is likely to go by another 1.4 to 5.8^oC by 2100, unless mankind starts behaving more responsibly.

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up by the United Nations in 1988 to assess the magnitude of change in the climate and its impact. The evidence of growing dangers of global warming is indicated in the three reports published by IPCC between 1990 and 2001. In order to formulate some possible solutions, more than 100 Heads of State gathered in Rio de Janerio in 1992. With the help of the UNFCCS they drafted a treaty, which was signed by the US and 152 other countries. This treaty on controlling emission of greenhouse gases and other pollutants has become the cornerstone of the international community's attempt to come to grips with one of the major threats to our planet. A series of technical meetings followed, culminating in the next major worldwide conference on global warming, held in Kyoto in Japan.

Portfolio Organizer Magazine, Carbon Trading, Certified Emission Reductions, CERs, Environmentalists, Economists, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Greenhouse Gasses, GHGs, United Nations Environment Programs, Clean Development Mechanism, CDM, Kyoto Protocol, Environment Strategies, Indian Carbon Markets.