Climate change has been increasingly preoccupying the political and business worlds, since the Brundtland commission submitted its final report in 1987. The basis for emissions trading was laid down with the adoption of the “Framework Convention on Climate Change” at the 1992 United Nations World Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the regular conferences that have been subsequently held by the signatory states. The minutes of the 3rd conference of signatories, named after the conference venue as the Kyoto Protocol, have gained high profile. In this document, emission targets in respect of a total of 39 so-called annex 1 parties have been defined for greenhouse gas emissions– carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen oxides (N2O), fluorocarbons (HFCs and PFCs) plus sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). For 34 countries that have agreed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, this commitment works out at an average decrease of 5.2 per cent.