EU carbon prices nudge up, follow energy

LONDON (Reuters) - European Union carbon prices nudged upwards early on Tuesday, in very quiet trade tracking prices of power, gas and oil, traders said.

EU Allowances for December delivery were up 6 cents or 0.4 percent at 14.47 euros ($18.54) a tonne at 0730 GMT, with light volume at 370 lots traded.

"That's all it is," said one trader, referring to moves in line with energy markets.

"There's very little going on."

Corresponding certified emissions reductions were up 5 cents at 12.35 euros a tonne, making the EUA-CER spread 2.12 euros.

German Calendar 2011 baseload power on the EEX was up 22 cents at 49.9 euros per megawatt hour, while day-ahead UK natural gas prices gained 1 pence or 2.4 percent to 42 pence per therm.

Crude was steady below $76 as a falling dollar and soft equity markets capped investor appetite ahead of U.S. petroleum inventory and other economic data.

Japanese shares closed at their lowest level in eight months on Tuesday and the dollar hovered near a 15-year year low against the yen on concerns of a global slowdown ahead of data from the United States and Europe.

Ahead of the next major U.N. climate conference starting in November, hosts Mexico said they hoped to "rescue" the global climate change talks by agreeing concrete actions to control greenhouse gases, its chief negotiator said on Monday.

Expectations for a decisive climate change agreement this year have been lowered as negotiators and United Nations officials cautioned that major stumbling blocks persist with just a few months before the December meeting in Cancun, Mexico.

"We will not be able to negotiate a new treaty in Cancun, that much is clear," Mexico's chief delegate Fernando Tudela told Reuters in an interview.

"But that does not mean that there can't be a spectacular breakthrough." "We need to achieve a set of meaningful decisions," he said. "We have a window of opportunity that is closing... What we want to do is rescue these negotiations." (Reporting by Gerard Wynn; editing by Alison Birrane)