ICE launches global carbon price tracker

LONDON (Reuters) – Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) (ICE.N) has launched an index to track and benchmark the global price of emitting carbon dioxide, it said on Wednesday.

Charging polluters for each tonne of the greenhouse gas they emit is seen by many governments as a way of spurring investment in low carbon technology and helping countries meet pledges made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. [nL8N28K4Y5]

The ICE Global Carbon Futures Index is made up of pricing from the world’s three most actively traded carbon markets, ICE said: Europe’s Emissions Trading System, California’s Cap and Trade Program and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

RGGI includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

“This is a first step in producing an accurate, transparent global price for carbon, and one that utilizes a market-based mechanism for the evaluation of that price, as we move toward the longer-term shift to a net-zero carbon economy,” said Lynn Martin, President of ICE Data Services.

The global price will be calculated in U.S. dollars using a volume weighted average price of the three markets.

As of 2019, some 46 nations and over 30 cities, states and regions have a price on carbon emissions via a tax or trading schemes, covering just over 20% annual global greenhouse gas emissions, World Bank data showed.