HONG KONG — As world leaders continue to debate the best way to deal with industrial carbon emissions, financial firms in Ireland and China have teamed up to offer a voluntary trading platform.

Carbon Bank Ireland, Ltd. — an Irish investment bank — revealed the execution of a joint-venture agreement with the Chinese financial conglomerate, CITIC GROUP, to implement a trading platform for Voluntary Emission Credits (VERs). Voluntary emission credits represent one tradeable credit for each ton of carbon dioxide not emitted into the atmosphere.

These will be generated by companies that wish to reduce their carbon emissions in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC).

This platform will be the first of its kind in the PRC to harvest VERs from government owned and private companies and sell them globally. Presently, existing Chinese enterprises which are “going green” include the dairy industry (bovine digesters), the cement industry (co-generation facilities) and urban landfills (biogas projects).

The new company, Ciam – Puresky Carbon Trading Ltd., will also offer consulting services to Chinese companies which wish to go green and help provide financing for both clean development mechanisms under the Kyoto protocols and non-Kyoto clean-technology projects.

Implementation of the joint venture with CITIC follows Carbon Bank Ireland’s execution of a cooperation agreement with the Central Government’s National Development and Reform Commission to further clean development mechanisms in the PRC.

"Today’s joint venture is another sign of China’s commitment to green energy and an implementation of its promise to bear a fair share of the world’s greenhouse gas reduction," said Bill McCann, chairman of the Irish company.

Carbon Bank Ireland is a privately owned company domesticated in the Republic of Ireland. Their primary mission is to invest in clean development mechanism projects in the People’s Republic of China, as well as other countries which will originate certified emission reduction credits with a view to creating certified emission reduction credits tradable in the European Union.

In North America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently issued a final rule requiring large emitters of greenhouse gas emissions, including manufacturers of heavy-duty trucks and engines, to report emissions data annually.

Perhaps the front-runner for dealing with carbon is a cap and trade system, which is largely opposed by the trucking community. Back in June, the U.S. House has passed an energy bill that includes a cap and trade provision. The American Trucking Associations insists that a carbon cap and trade system places disproportionate burdens on mobile sources like trucking companies, which should be addressed differently than traditional stationary under any carbon reduction regulation.

In B.C., the provincial government instituted a carbon tax, which was also widely opposed by the trucking community. The carbon tax is intended to rise annually until 2012, when it will reach a whopping 8.07 cents a liter on top of the provincial sales taxes and federal excise taxes that already exist.

However, B.C. did recently sign an MoU with Alberta and Saskatchewan to further research carbon capture and storage technology.

Whether taxation, trade or storage emerges as the way to deal with carbon emissions, it’s likely to get global attention.