EUA and sCER Phase II Price Drivers: Unveiling the reasons for the existence of the EUA-sCER spread.

This article studies the price relationships between EU emissions allowances (EUAs) - valid under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) - and secondary Certified Emissions Reductions (sCERs) - established from primary CERs generated through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Given the price differences between EUAs and sCERs, financial and industrial operators may benefit from arbitrage strategies by buying sCERs and selling EUAs (i.e. selling the EUAsCER spread) to cover their compliance position as industrial operators are allowed to use sCERs towards compliance with their emissions cap within the European system up to 13.4%. Our central results show that the spread is mainly driven by EUA prices and market microstructure variables and less importantly, as we would expect, by emissions-related fundamental drivers. This might be justified by the fact that the EU ETS remains the greatest source of CER demand to date.Emissions Markets; Arbitrage; EUA-sCER Spread;

The EUA-sCER Spread: Compliance Strategies and Arbitrage in the European Carbon Market

MISSION CLIMAT WORKING PAPER N° 2010 – 6This article studies the price relationships between EU emissions allowances (EUAs) – valid under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) – and secondary Certified Emissions Reductions (sCERs) – established from primary CERs generated through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Given the price differences between EUAs and sCERs, financial and industrial operators may benefit from arbitrage strategies by buying sCERs and selling EUAs (i.e. selling the EUA-sCER spread) to cover their compliance position between these two assets, as industrial operators are allowed to use sCERs towards compliance with their emissions cap within the European system up to 13.4%. Our central results show that the spread is mainly driven by EUA prices and market microstructure variables and less importantly, as we would expect, by emissions-related fundamental drivers. This might be justified by the fact that the EU ETS remains the greatest source of CER demand to date

Carbon portfolio management

The aim of the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is that by 2020, emissions from sectors covered by the EU ETS will be 21% lower than in 2005. In addition to large CO 2 emitting companies covered by the scheme, other participants have entered the market with a view of using emission allowances for the diversification of their investment portfolios. The performance of this asset as a stand alone investment and its portfolio diversification implications will be investigated in this paper. Our results indicate that the market views Phases 1, 2, and 3 European Union allowance futures as unattractive as stand alone investments. In a portfolio context, in Phase 1, once the short-selling option is added, there are considerable portfolio benefits. However, our results indicate that these benefits only existed briefly during the pilot stage of the EU ETS. There is no evidence to suggest portfolio diversification benefits exist for Phase 2 or the early stages of Phase 3

On the role of financial investors in carbon markets: Insights from commitment reports and carbon literature

Several papers by academics and various reports by financial analysts suggest that non-compliance traders, mostly investment funds and firms, are manipulating the EU ETS and causing EUA prices to rise. In response, the European Commission has mandated the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to investigate whether “certain trading behaviours would require further regulatory actions” (ESMA, 2021). The objective of this paper is (i) to analyse the participation of non-compliance traders in the EU ETS and their role in the financialisation of the scheme, and (ii) to contribute to the debate on price manipulation by the non-compliance sector in the EU ETS. Both our analysis of the EUA Commitments of Traders reports and our review of the main findings of the empirical papers on portfolio management with EUAs suggest that non-compliance traders mainly take short positions in the European carbon futures market in order to arbitrage the spot market. Only a small portion of the long positions are used by financial investors to diversify or hedge risks coming from financial markets. Therefore, in both situations, non-compliance traders would be acting as long-term liquidity providers rather than speculators

What You Should Know About Carbon Markets

Since the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, carbon trading has been in continuous expansion. In this paper, we review the origins of carbon trading in order to understand how carbon trading works in Europe and, specifically, the functioning of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and the workings of several spot, futures and options markets where European Union Allowances are traded. As well, the linking of the EU ETS with the other United Nations carbon markets is also studied