The Climate Mafia—Fraudulent Emissions-Trading Schemes Rob German Tax Authorities

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,665594,00.html

12/07/2009

The Climate Mafia

Fraudulent Emissions-Trading Schemes Rob German Tax Authorities

By Beat Balzli

The Kyoto Protocol introduced a scheme for trading emissions certificates as a way to help reduce CO2 emissions. German tax authorities are now investigating almost 40 companies that traded certificates for allegedly taking advantage of loopholes in sales tax laws to bilk the taxman out of hundreds of millions of euros.

German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen has hardly been in office for much more than a month, but he's already choosing his words for dramatic effect. "It's about the way we live, and it's about survival," Röttgen said last Thursday before the German parliament, the Bundestag, referring to the climate summit beginning Monday in Copenhagen. At the summit, the nations of the world will search for ways to reduce the CO2 emissions behind global warming. One of the tools to be discussed is the trading of emissions certificates.

In Germany, though, it is precisely this instrument that is causing a huge headache for Röttgen, as dozens of tax offices across the country are investigating shady emissions trading companies. All of the companies in question maintain accounts with the German Emissions Trading Authority (DEHSt), an arm of the ministry Röttgen heads. According to DEHSt head Hans-Jürgen Nantke, since September, his agency has "received official requests for assistance in cases relating to suspected sales tax fraud from various regional tax offices and tax investigation offices."

The authorities are investigating questionable transactions in Germany's central emissions trading registry. As in any other EU country, public utilities and industrial enterprises maintain accounts in the registry, which provides them with a certain number of emissions credits. Under the 2005 Kyoto Protocol, the emissions of climate-harming carbon dioxide are to be reduced as efficiently as possible with the help of this method of trading emissions certificates. According to this system, companies that invest in new, eco-friendly technologies no longer need all of their certificates and can, in turn, sell them to others -- and at a steep price.

Current prices for these certificates are set on exchanges, such as France's Bluenext, the ECX in London, the EEX in Leipzig and, more recently, the Greenmarket segment of the Munich Stock Exchange. At the moment, the right to emit one ton of CO2 into the atmosphere is worth about €14 ($21). In the first half of 2009, the volume of trade in emissions certificates in Europe alone already amounted to €40 billion.

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[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Is that you Exxon/Mobil?

lol