Where are all the bankers? That was one of the big questions at the Carbon Markets Expo, held at the Gold Coast over three days this week. Macquarie was there in numbers, stamping their intention to play a major role in carbon markets, and so was Commonwealth Bank - the only one of the big four trading banks to have a presence this year. Of the foreign contingent, Barclays Capital sent a small group from its commodities and future trading division in Sydney, Deutsche sent a representative from its Singapore office, while Geoff Sinclair, the Australian heading the carbon trading division for Standard Bank, made his second consecutive appearance. As for the others? JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Nomura were well represented at Singapore's Carbon Forum Asia, held at the same time and attracting larger numbers than the Australian equivalent. So too were Standard and Deutsche, along with Ecosecurities.  The attraction? Singapore is considered a more likely spot than Australia to establish an Asian carbon-trading hub, and in any case, that's where most of the clients - the large utilities from Asia, Europe and the US - were also attending. At the Gold Coast expo, there was an abundance of sellers and service providers, but no buyers. Macquarie, though, is clearly leading a major push into the carbon space. It was represented by a sizeable team led by Macquarie Capital's executive director of utilities and climate change, Oliver Yates, and the London-based head of environmental products for Macquarie Bank, John Marlow.Commonwealth Bank has only recently broken cover on its carbon services, which have been quietly put together for the past 2 ½ years by its head of carbon solutions, Neil Hereford. Hereford leads a three-person team that links in with the commodities and project financing teams to focus on the institutional banking sector. "We've been flying under the radar until we had the capability," Hereford says. CBA has recently unveiled an $A-denominated CER contract, which will allow clients to hedge their forward risk for carbon credits. CERs are Certified Emission Reduction certificates issued under the UN-sponsored Clean Development Mechanism. The purchase of CERs and direct investment in CDM projects are expected to be a major part of the offsetting strategies for major Australian emitters as they will be able to source all of their credits from overseas markets, which in principle will offer a cheaper form of abatement. "We will tailor the delivery dates and assume the currency risk," says Hereford. "Right now there is no liquid market except for the forward hedges." Hereford says clients are in "various stages of readiness" for the emissions trading scheme, largely as a result of the legislative uncertainty as the bill is subject to another round of negotiations between the government and opposition. CBA also trades in renewable energy certificates and has financed around $500 million of renewable energy projects, mostly in wind. Hereford says the bank will look at energy efficiency projects as well as forest sink investments. Standard's Sinclair says his bank is unlikely to create an office in Australia, but will look