CO2 certificates are becoming more and more expensive. While the CO2 price in euros per tonne was still €32 in February, it is now already around €56. As can be seen in a new infographic from Block-Builders.de, various market observers, including banks and hedge funds, expect the price of these CO2 certificates to rise to around €100 towards the end of the year.
CO2 certificates represent the volume of emissions that are to be offset. The underlying idea is as simple as it is obvious: anyone who releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has to pay for it.
A look at car company Tesla demonstrates that this is also a good way to bring in revenues: Tesla made profits of $518 million US from trading emissions certificates in the first quarter of 2021. The US pioneer’s net profit in this period amounted to $438 million: without trading in certificates (and bitcoins), Tesla would not have ended the first quarter in the black.
CO2 Certificates
Meanwhile, the infographic reveals that an estimated 6% of CO2 allowances are held speculatively. The majority is not speculative: companies are ensuring that their emissions are adequately covered by the allowances.
In 2019, 36,441 million tonnes of CO2 were emitted globally. This figure has been increasing continuously in recent years, rising by 290% since 1960. In 2020, the year of the Corona crisis, things have been different: there were 6.3% fewer CO2 emissions between January and September than in the same period of the previous year. However, this is presumably just a one-off phenomenon owing to the restrictions imposed over the course of the pandemic.
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