Copenhagen is currently an argument between cripples fighting over a crutch ie between developed and developing energy user nations.
Little is being said about the catastrophic wastefulness of energy producer nations. That is the low-hanging fruit, and as I said here, I think it is through the unitisation/monetisation of energy that we may achieve an optimal outcome.
Natural gas is homogeneous in the way that other fuels are not; does not have the same established marketplace, and vested interests; and would take relatively few nations (Russia, Qatar, Iran, China, maybe Japan) to kick-start a global market.
Units redeemable in gas have a use as long as the underlying gas exists. But don't forget (say) biomethane, and don't forget the potential use of synthetic gas as an energy vector, as is proposed for ammonia by strandedwind. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I'm sure you can find examples of disaster caused by organic farming (a humanure spill upriver of a drinkable water uptake? :-) En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
Transparency of the Units in issue, as is a "framework of trust" and the need for due diligence in ensuring suppliers' capability to supply.
The proposal creates virtual financial markets in gas Units which are linked to, but which do not affect, the underlying physical market. The physical market price formation for gas, and the price at which producers sell Units into a "Gas Pool" are an interesting subject.
Infrastructure such as terminals, pipelines and shipping could gradually be assimilated into a global monopoly in common ownership, and operated by a networked consortium of service providers receiving an agreed proportion of gas sale revenues.
I don't know exactly how the market would develop globally in practice, but I am quite sure that the commercial logic for consumers and producers alike is compelling. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
