Carbon entrepreneurs heat up

Greenhouse concerns have propelled sales of carbon credits, but the potential is much higher. By KRISTEN LE MESURIER

Businesses trying to sell carbon credits as recently as a year ago would have been greeted with a puzzled ‘What’s that?’ before being shown the door. But the continuing drought, Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the Stern Report on climate change have shifted public perceptions and created a more receptive audience for entrepreneurs in the business of carbon trading.

A boom market is in the making. An Australian carbon trading scheme could create a market worth more than $4 billion a year, according to traders at Dutch investment bank ABN-Amro.