Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading global provider of data, technology, and market infrastructure, today announced the publication of the 2022 auction calendar for the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (“ETS”).
ICE hosted the first UK ETS auction in May 2021, alongside launching UK Allowance (UKA) Futures contracts and UKA Daily Futures. Since then, more than 156,000 lots of UKA futures have traded, equivalent to 156 million tons of carbon, open interest has grown to 42,131 contracts, and roughly 67 million allowances have been bought through fortnightly auctions.
ICE hosts the four largest and most liquid carbon cap and trade futures markets in the world. Since launch, the UK ETS has grown into the third largest carbon cap and trade futures market based on total traded carbon allowances. ICE’s European emission allowance market is the largest in terms of volume, followed by ICE’s California carbon allowances in second place, and ICE Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) as the fourth largest.
“By putting a price on UK emissions, the UK ETS is supporting the climate ambitions of the UK”, said Gordon Bennett, Managing Director of Utility Markets at ICE. “Having grown into the world’s third largest carbon cap and trade futures market in just five months, the liquidity of the UK ETS is growing in terms of volume and open interest, and participation is increasing. The UK ETS is one part of ICE’s global environmental markets which help the market to price, manage and hedge climate risk, helping companies to make decisions on where to allocate capital and invest in green technologies”.
ICE offers customers access to the largest and most liquid environmental markets in the world to price climate risk. More than 14 gigatons of carbon trades on ICE annually, equivalent to approximately 40% of the world’s total annual emissions footprint based on current estimates.
For more information on how to trade and clear ICE’s environmental markets, visit https://www.theice.com/energy/environmental, read our FAQs or contact sales-utilities@ice.com.
