RBC Capital Markets is moving ahead into Canada's fledgling carbon market despite the absence of formal government legislation, Reuters reports.
Since RBCCM launched an emissions desk last Spring, the investment bank has become active traders in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and in the U.S. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, as well as on climate exchanges in Chicago and Montreal.
Its competitor Toronto Dominion Securities also has a carbon desk. However, the rest of Canada's five big banks say they have yet to begin trading emissions.
According to Point Carbon, an Oslo-based group of GHG analysts, global carbon trade rose 80 percent last year to $60 billion, and resulted in a global reduction of 2.7 billion tons of carbon emissions.
