Overview of carbon investment funds

The emergence of « carbon finance », based on new types of financial assets : CO2 assets or « carbon credits », which afford emission reductions and are circulated on these new markets. The advantage of investment funds and other purchase vehicles is the pooling of several purchasers, thereby creating an investment in a project portfolio. Investments in CO2 purchase funds have seen robust growth, which reflects the growing interest in carbon markets and the strengthening of the institutional context. The number of funds created shall however slow down in the future due to strong uncertainties regarding the post-2012 period, the end of Phase I of the Kyoto Protocol. Beyond this date, all has yet to be defined and no one can possibly anticipate prices nor certify the existence of today’s CO2 asset exchanges. JEL classification : G11, G23, Q53, Q54de Dominicis Ariane. Overview of carbon investment funds. In: Revue d'économie financière (English ed.), n°83, 2006. Carbon finance. pp. 45-51