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Analysts painted a bullish long-term picture for the voluntary carbon market (VCM) on Friday, stating that they expect to see a premium for the ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principle (CCP) labelled credits that are due to appear from next year.

US President Joe Biden on Friday announced his administration would fund seven regional clean hydrogen hubs using $7 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to create a national market.

Party coordinators in the European Parliament have preliminarily agreed on a united stance on what to count as a carbon removal as part of the bloc's framework for certifying carbon removals, according to sources close to the matter.

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is too small-scale and volatile to meet the needs of institutional investors for now, with some asset owners looking to bypass it altogether and invest directly into tree planting projects, according to a multinational asset management company. 

Two guidance documents for financial institutions on setting nature-related targets will launch this year, led by the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and the Finance for Biodiversity foundation (FfB).

'Greenwashing' through biodiversity credits must be avoided via the development of robust methodologies, the director general for the environment at the European Commission has said.

Carbon credit standards body Verra announced Thursday that it is introducing a "corporate emissions inventory accounting" option as an interim measure to increase transparency and reduce the risk of double counting.

Plumes of ‘forever chemicals’ from at least 245 sites are contaminating water for nearby communities

Plumes of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” flowing from at least 245 US military bases are contaminating or threatening to pollute drinking water for nearby communities, and hundreds more are likely at risk across America, a new Department of Defense report finds.

The number of communities threatened by the military’s pollution is likely to increase as further more investigations are carried out. The defense department has only looked at about one-third of more than 700 facilities suspected of having contaminated the ground with PFAS.

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EUAs extended their gains for the fourth time this week on Friday, finding support from rising energy prices and reaching a three-week high in active trading, even as market participants continued to debate whether the market's current price direction reflected current or future fundamentals, or was subject to pressure from technical signals and natural gas.

A group of 37 businesses and environmental organisations have signed the European Business Nature Commitment, following the EU’s Business and Nature Summit in Milan this week.

India will need to spend $627 billion in order to decarbonise its steel and cement sectors so the country can realise its goal of reaching net zero, according to a report published this week.

Allowances in the Chinese carbon market this week rose to their highest level since the market launched two years ago, with analysts expecting the carbon price to climb to above 85 yuan ($11.63) later this month due to strong compliance demand.

Nineteen captive-bred cats released at secret location in Cairngorms in first phase of rewilding project

Nearly 20 young wildcats have been released into the wild in a pine forest in the Scottish Highlands, in the first phase of a project to rescue the species from extinction in the UK.

The cats were reared at a wildlife park operated by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) as part of a breeding programme that will eventually lead to about 60 wildcats being released in the Cairngorm mountains south of Inverness.

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A carbon credit fungible across all Southeast Asian markets would be a “brilliant” idea, according to a veteran carbon market expert based in Singapore.

The first batch of credits to be tagged with the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market's (ICVCM) label of quality will now be seen in "early 2024", rather than the previous end-of-year target, the head of the cross-stakeholder initiative said on Friday.

Taiwan has updated its management rules to streamline the development process of voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction projects, as the island is gearing up for a domestic carbon levy scheme as part of its Paris-aligned climate targets.

Finland will use EU funding to boost target habitats and garner private-sector funding to make biodiversity projects more financially sustainable, the government announced.

Developing nations need equivalent of US Inflation Reduction Act, says Nobel prize-winning economist

Poor countries should be provided with $300bn (£246bn) a year from the International Monetary Fund to finance their fight against the climate crisis, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said.

Speaking to the Guardian at the IMF’s annual meeting in Marrakech, Stiglitz said developing nations needed their equivalent of the US Inflation Reduction Act – a package of grants and subsidies designed to promote green growth and jobs.

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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a released beaver, mating damselflies and a fat bear

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Findings raise concerns among experts who say climate funding works best when invested directly in local communities

More than £2bn of UK foreign aid aimed at helping poorer countries cope with the escalating climate crisis has been channelled through private consultancies since 2010, according to an analysis.

The investigation by Carbon Brief found that more than 10% of UK foreign aid spent on climate-related projects had gone through consultants like KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Adam Smith International.

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