Carbon trading is becoming emission impossible, WWF says European companies are planning to meet their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by investing in dubious projects in the developing world, rather than schemes that will genuinely help reduce carbon emissions. In the year leading to the Copenhagen Summit, preventing climate change may now finally get a proper global hearing ?

Carbon trading began in response to the Kyoto Protocol, signed by 180 countries in 1997. The Kyoto Protocol, signed by 180 countries in 1997, called for 37 industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between the years 2008 to 2012 to levels that are 5% lower than those of 1990. However, Asia’s role in global carbon trading has remained limited as a supplier of carbon reduction emission (CER) or carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), which was born out of the Kyoto protocol.