Seeking to match a desire to make money with his environmental instincts, Lo

游客2023-12-22  21

问题     Seeking to match a desire to make money with his environmental instincts, Louis Redshaw, a former electricity trader, met with five top investment banks to propose trading carbon dioxide. Only one, Barclays Capital, was interested in his proposition.
    Three years later, the situation has turned around entirely, and carbon experts like Redshaw, 34, are among the rising stars in the City of London financial district. Managing emissions is one of the fastest-growing segments in financial services, and companies are scrambling for talent. Their goal: a slice of a market now worth about $30 billion, but which could grow to $1 trillion within a decade.
    If greed is suddenly good for the environment, then the seedbed for this vast new financial experiment is London. A report released Tuesday by International Financial Services London, a company promoting British-based financial services, said that British companies were the leading global investors in carbon projects and that more carbon was traded in London than in any other city.
    The rapid emergence of carbon finance in London—not only trading carbon allowances but investments in projects that help to generate additional credits—is largely the result of a decision by European governments to start capping amounts that industries emit.
    Factories and plants that pollute too much are required to buy more allowances: those that become more efficient can sell allowances they no longer need at a profit. The system, started in 2005, is part of the Kyoto Protocol and bears the grant of the United Nations. Even so, doubts remain as to whether carbon finance can deliver tangible emissions reductions, let alone the huge economic transformation needed to tackle climate change.
    For now, however, green-minded graduates and an eclectic range of professionals from banks, consulting companies and aid organizations are eagerly joining one of the most vibrant new sectors in London finance.
    To be sure, carbon traders and investors do not yet make the same staggering amounts of money as some of their counterparts in foreign exchange and corporate finance. But remuneration is rising rapidly. A successful financier at Climate Change Capital, which manages a fund worth $1.25 billion to invest in credit-generating projects, might in a very good year take home as much as 10 times the basic salary.
    But the industry has run into criticism. One reason is that European governments handed out too many free allowances in preparing for the start of the program, rendering the system less effective than was hoped. The over-allocation fueled volatility, and some traders reaped fatter-than-expected profits.
    Controversy has also dogged some of the projects promoted by the financiers to generate new credits.
    But overall, prospects for the industry are good, especially if the United States joins Europe in establishing a trading system, said Imtiaz Ahmad, 34, senior carbon trader for Morgan Stanley in London.
    Human activities create about 38 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, and governments regulate only a fraction of that amount. But if more governments decide to cut billions more tons of emissions, as leaders of industrialized nations discussed this month in Germany, and if the existing system in Europe is enlarged to cover transportation, there will be many more credits available—and a lot more finance and trading. [br] According to the passage, which one of the following is true?

选项 A、Factories and plants that pollute too much should be punished.
B、Companies efficient in emission control can sell additional allowance to others at a profit.
C、Carbon finance contributes to the reduction of gas emission.
D、As a new industry, carbon finance does not draw much attention from the society.

答案 B

解析
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