Here's an interesting development. This is neither tangible goods or real service being turned into a derivative of sorts. 

I just read that the "Dow Jones Indexes and the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the legally binding integrated greenhouse gas emissions reduction, registry and trading system, yesterday announced the launch of the Dow Jones/CCX European Carbon Index and Dow Jones/CCX Certified Emissions Reductions (CER) Index, which serve as benchmarks for participants seeking exposure to the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), respectively."

My problem lies in the securitization of those emission quotas. We're talking about creating a fully tradable commodity that can be traded like shares in IBM, or even closer in comparison to the like of coffee and pork bellies. Except those commodities are real goods which were produced by someone’s sweat where as these carbon emission quotas were a product of nothing more than gov't regulation. So now we're securitizing gov't regulation. Want to buy 17 shared of regulation or shall we measure it in its polluting metric?    

I can see the boardroom of all those pension funds & investment houses.... "WOW!!! Let's invest in pollution!"  How would that sell to the share holders and general public in this day and age of the PC (no, not personal computer but rather that other PC, Politically Correct)? Now that'd create a great corporate image, wouldn't it?