Emissions trading, also known as the global warming market or cap and trade, is an attempt to control pollution and emission levels by giving traders economic incentives for lowering their rate of emissions. There is a lot of money now in reducing emissions, saving the planet, hugging trees, and so on. Al Gore himself commented on the bonus features of “An Inconvenient Truth” that you need to “follow the money.” When you dig deep enough, you’ll see that energy companies are still getting rich on this, even though it would seem that oil companies could only lose money in a campaign to lower emissions.

Carbon trading is a scheme that was proposed by Goldman Sachs, and has now made it through the White House and the Senate. It’s based on putting a cap on the emissions that a particular business is allowed to produce. Oil companies understandably aren’t thrilled about that, but they are still making some green by being closely tied in with financial and investment firms. So who really gains from this new carbon emissions trading system? Again, it’s the financial companies like Goldman Sachs who make the most on it, just like usual. The rich get richer and the poor get taxed. In 2009, the entire carbon emissions trading operation of Constellation Energy was purchased by Goldman Sachs.

Al Gore isn’t getting left behind either. He owns a company called Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that deals in venture capital. They provided the capital for a firm that produces the equipment needed to get the most efficiency out of energy grids, and guess what happened next? Out of $3.4 billion given out by the U.S. Department of Energy, Al Gore’s little company Silver Spring got $560 million. Al Gore is well on his way to becoming the first billionaire from carbon trading.

Of course everybody remembers Enron, the infamous energy trading company that went down for embezzlement. They were among the first to capitalize on the global warming market. It’s easy to see how closely intertwined the government and the corporations are on this, and it isn’t difficult to pinpoint why a lot of wealthy people could stand to gain from the continuing idea that global warming is real. I mean, Al Gore, one of America’s most famous supporters of global warming, is now filthy rich because of it.

The Kyoto Protocol was the treaty that put a cap on carbon emissions for the first time, and was supported by many famous political figures. If you didn’t know, Ken Lay, CEO of Enron, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton all held meetings at the White House to discuss the Kyoto Protocol before it was made official. Ken Lay and George Bush were once friends as well, although Bush refused to sign the Protocol for unknown reasons.