Baker & McKenzie and Centre of Energy and Environmental Markets Announce Winners of Copenhagen Prediction Market
Firm News
March 19, 2010
Sydney, Australia, 19 March 2010 – The Centre of Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM) at the University of New South Wales and Baker & McKenzie are pleased to announce the winners of the Copenhagen Prediction Market which ran from 7 to 19 December 2009. More than 100 people participated in predicting the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Summit during the course of the negotiations. Baker & McKenzie is donating the winning prizes across each of 17 different "markets" or scenarios of agreement predicted and then reached at the conclusion of the Summit. First Prize is one year of offsets (4 tonnes of carbon as an approximate world average); Second Prize is four months of offsets (1.33 tonnes) and Third Prize is two months of offsets (0.66 tonnes).
The Prediction Market "predicted" the outcome of the Summit when the winning share was traded at the highest price at closing. The most actively traded markets were “The Deadline for Legally Binding Agreement” and the “2020 Reduction Target for Australia”.
Paul Curnow, Partner in Baker & McKenzie's Global Environmental Markets group based in Sydney commented that, "Baker & McKenzie is proud to be participating with CEEM in this unique project. The Prediction Market was an innovative way to use market mechanisms to formally track participants' predictions about the outcome of international negotiations, in this case the Copenhagen Climate Summit. The process of trading helps add to our understanding about responses to climate change which are perceived by individuals to be achievable, as well as describing the accuracy of participants' perceptions of the final result during the process of international negotiations."
Dr Regina Betz, Joint Director of CEEM, added, "After this first experience will employing the Prediction Market methodology we are likely to use this tool for future research."