everal recent trades involving large quanti-S ties of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions point to significant opportunities that already exist for certain types of domestic products. In late October of last year, one landfill gas company, Zahren Alternative Power Corporation, said that it sold 2.5 million metric tons of credits for reducing carbon dioxide emissions to Ontario Power Generation Company. The two companies said this was the world's largest spot trade of GHG credits to date. Meanwhile, EPCOR Utilities reported the same week that it bought 18,000 tons of CO, credits from TransAlta Utilities through the commodity exchange in Calgary, Alberta. These trades occurred despite the prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty that has severely hampered efforts on a number of fronts to promote GHG credit trading both in the United States and abroad.
For a variety of reasons, the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty has not yet been fully embraced either in the United States or within the international community as a whole. Uncertainties surrounding climate change, particularly risk allocation and implementation methodologies, have led to widespread paralysis and polarization, especially in the Congress, which has alternatively debated either banning the Clinton administration from taking any action to implement the Kyoto treaty or granting businesses credits for taking voluntary actions to reduce GHGs.