The Guardian discuses JPMorgan’s acquisition of carbon offset firm ClimateCare, marking the first time an investment bank has outright purchased a developer of emissions-cutting projects. Other investment banks such as Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch have all entered the market by purchasing only stakes in developers.

The Associated Press takes a look at a Maryland bill that proposes an initiative to use funds generated from the state’s involvement in RGGI for electricity rate relief instead of promoting energy efficiency. This bill would repeal the Maryland Renewable Energy Fund with the Maryland Strategic Energy Investment Program, but opponents to the bill believe that investing in energy efficiency programs will save more money long-term.

According to Reuters, U.S. officials will meet this week to interpret Section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which bars large federal fuel buyers from using fuel made from coal if it contains more carbon than fuel made from crude oil. This act has hindered federal agencies, such as the Air Force, from embracing less expensive nonpetroleum fuel sources.

Today’s Globe and Mail discusses how the Canadian carbon market is taking off, with Alberta and now British Columbia having carbon legislation in place. The World Green Exchange’s auction with Verdant Energy was featured as a successful example of this growing market:

In Calgary, Blue Source Canada, formerly Baseline Emissions Management Inc., last year started marketing offsets in Alberta and has a supply of more than 10 million credits, from areas such as biomass and renewable energy. In January, it worked with World Energy Solutions Inc., which has an auction system, to help Calgary’s biomass power company Verdant Energy Ltd. sell 80,000 credits for roughly $1-million.

Also discussed is the fluctuating price of carbon due to uncertainty in the market; however, even with this uncertainty, the international market continues to expand rapidly.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the future of the Canadian carbon market.

As promised last week in our post announcing Verdant’s auction with World Energy, we wanted to share with you some industry commentary, as it was the first auction of its kind in North America. Some articles posted that discussed the Alberta regulations and trading market, and the actual auction:

Point Carbon (registration needed, free trial available) looks at Alberta’s regulations and how the Verdant auction was facilitated under that legislation. Hal Hamilton, founder of Verdant Energy had been previously “underwhelmed” with the price of carbon credits – most were under C$10 per tonne, well under the C$15 per tonne option emitters have to pay directly into the government. Utilizing World Energy, Verdant was able to receive prices between the C$10 – 15 range.

Air Daily (registration needed, free trial available) discusses the Alberta trading scheme and the success of the auction, by looking at the price range of the credits. With companies still trying to understand Alberta’s new GHG trading program and prices in the bilateral market running fairly low, the auction exceeded Verdant’s expectations.

Restructuring Today (registration needed, free trial available) looks at the auction, focusing on how the auction worked within this immature market. They also describe how Verdant gained the credits by burning biomass at one of the company’s Alberta plants.

We’d love to hear your comments on the articles as well as where you think the Alberta market, and other trading schemes, are headed.

The Wall Street Journal looks at the rise in activity in the carbon market – with 2.7 billion metric tons traded last year, equaling $69.1 billion. With this increase in trading, most major investment banks have created carbon desks. Kind of a carbon market 101 as it doesn’t delve too deeply into either the US or foreign market.

This article is from Reuters and announced that 58 companies, cities and orgs have volunteered to begin reporting emissions to the Climate Registry in June - including Shell, Xcel Energy, Alcoa, Duke Energy, PG&E and the USPS.

Two additional blog posts to consider, both from RenewableEnergyAccess.com. First the story of former NH Governor pleading with the US to devote money to renewable and second a housing project featuring shared renewable energy.