LONDON: The world's carbon markets are estimated to rise in value by two-thirds this year to 64 billion euros ($87.5 billion), posting the first growth seen since 2011, analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon said on Wednesday.
The rise will be mainly fuelled by a jump in European carbon prices triggered by market intervention efforts, the analysts said, adding that traded volumes in the European Union's Emissions Trading System (ETS) are expected to climb to 8.3 billion tonnes this year from 8 billion in 2013.
In a bid to prop up depressed carbon prices which finished 2013 at 4.95 euros-tonne EU lawmakers will withdraw 900 million units from the ETS between 2014 and 2016, under a plan that is due to start next month.
"EUA prices could rise to 7.50 euros/tonne, increasing over-the-counter and exchange-traded liquidity," said Point Carbon analyst Emil Dimantchev.
He added that this could increase the value of the EU ETS the world's largest carbon market to 61 billion euros in 2014 and from 36 billion last year.
Global trading volumes are also expected to rise by 3 percent to 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent this year, 10.3 billion in 2015 and 10.9 in 2016.
North America's two largest regional schemes the Western Climate Initiative and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative - are forecast to grow in value by 22 percent to a combined 2.7 billion euros, the analysts said.
However, the United Nations' main carbon market the Clean Development Mechanism will fall to 236 million euros from 275 million, as rich countries continue to show little appetite for the programme's credits.
Point Carbon's Olga Chistyakova said North America's carbon trading systems are set to overtake the CDM in 2015 and become the world's second largest market by both volume and value amid a widening of the scheme's coverage to include emissions from transportation and other fuels.
Meanwhile, China's seven nascent regional trading schemes could see total volumes top 24 million tonnes this year, before growing tenfold to around 227 million tonnes in 2015, the analysts added.
Carbon prices in markets worldwide have crashed in the past few years due to a chronic oversupply of permits fuelled by the global economic slowdown and a lack of political will to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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