Carbon credits

China launches a new pilot carbon market in the southern city of Shenzhen. Carbon cap and trade schemes have had a hard time getting off the ground in other countries. Can China make it succeed?

The European parliament is voting to halt new carbon permits in an effort to drive up the price of emissions, but will the tinkering hurt the credibility of the carbon trading system?

Europe has the largest market for carbon permits in the world. The idea is, the more a company has to pay for permits to pollute, the greater incentive it has to reduce pollution. But the economic slowdown has greatly reduced the cost of permits.

An entrepreneur under contract with a native village in Canada dumped tons of iron in the Pacific to spark a plankton bloom that would capture carbon dioxide. That violated ocean treaties, and angered scientists who are studying that kind of geo-engineering.

This final note today: The curious case of the missing carbon permits. Europe, as you may know, has an emissions market (cap-and-trade is the term)...