LCCS rebrands as Carbon Markets Association

London, 13 September: London Climate Change Services (LCCS) has relaunched itself as the Carbon Markets Association (CMA), reflecting a broadened remit for the London-based trade association.

“Many of our members are international organisations and the group needed to represent that,” said Adam Nathan, the recently appointed director of communications and policy at the CMA.

The renaming was endorsed at the association’s annual general meeting in London on Tuesday, at which chairman Anthony Hobley – of law firm Norton Rose – noted: “It doesn’t make sense to promote London specifically. It makes more sense to promote a global market.”

LCCS was originally established as a lobbying organisation for companies providing services to the carbon market, excluding large carbon emitters.  

The CMA, with more than forty members, will work closely with emitters and organisations such as the International Emissions Trading Association, Nathan said, but aims to “promote more of a market-based, financial perspective”.

The group has established a number of policy streams, focusing on the future of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism; US climate policy; the interaction between renewable energy and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme; taxation; voluntary carbon markets; and government relations.

“We’re working on a number of policy issues that will feed into the UK government, Brussels, and we’re increasingly looking towards the COP/MOP [UN climate negotiations, to be held in Bali in December]," Nathan said.