Consumers are beginning to get their point heard in the carbon debate. This is difficult because there is no doubt that people anti carbon are being seen as social pariah's. Consumers are pointing out that the power companies are profiting from the scheme in a way that they were never supposed to. There is some merit in this argument as the wholesale price is being influenced heavily by the carbon price. As the carbon is levied at the point of generation this price is therefore being exagerrated along the supply chain as each part accounts for the cost of carbon. Gas players, power players and coal players all looking at the effect of carbon.

Consumers are accutely aware that they paid last year €30/tonne for carbon and at the moment are paying significantly in excess of the €0.5 tonne to account for the trading patterns of the power companies. In short they pay the upside and never receive any of the downside. The complaints will continue but the market will not change it is to difficult to get signatories to Kyoto and this is the main political debate at the moment.