Climate Futures Exchange Is No More - NYTimes.com

With climate legislation in the United States dead in the water for the foreseeable future, participants in the exchange have lost interest, said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, chief executive of Intercontinental Exchange, an operator of futures exchanges for agricultural, credit, currency and energy contracts that purchased the Chicago Climate Exchange in July 2010 for $600 million.

“The bulk of the users have said to us that they really don’t want to continue to trade voluntarily [Don't they care about my grandchildren any more?!] in the absence of any credit for their work by the current administration,” Mr. Sprecher said in an earnings call this month.

Intercontinental Exchange will lay off the bulk of the Chicago Climate Exchange’s employees over the next few months, he said, and will replace the cap-and-trade system with a less ambitious registry program for carbon offsets next year.