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Verra has removed a voluntary carbon REDD avoided deforestation project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from its registry after a senior government committee recommended that its concession contracts, alongside many others, be cancelled for breaking the law, the standard body told Carbon Pulse Friday.

Ambassadors from the 27 EU member states reached agreement Friday on a bill setting due diligence rules for large companies, including an obligation to adopt Paris-aligned climate plans, with a weakened text ending a cycle of meetings to resolve the EU's internal divisions.

The UK government has announced £25 million in funding towards 20 projects aimed at protecting and restoring wildlife habitats across a total area equivalent to the size of York.

Germany is on track to reach its 2030 national greenhouse gas (GHG) target, recording the sharpest decline in emissions since 1990 last year, but is lagging behind on sectoral goals for agriculture, transport and the building sector, the country’s environment agency said on Friday.

Legal experts say directors could face personal claims for failing to consider how businesses affect nature

Company directors in the UK could be held personally liable for failing to properly account for nature and climate-related risks, according to a group of lawyers.

A legal opinion published this week found that board directors had duties to consider how their business affected and depended on nature. These included climate-related risks as well as wider risks to biodiversity, soils and water.

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The Q1 RGGI cap-and-trade auction earlier this week cleared at a new all-time record, triggering additional volume from the programme reserve in line with broad market expectations, even as compliance participation dropped to the lowest in three years, according to results published Friday.

Discovery was made after First Nations tipped off ecologists about groups of fish gathering in a fjord off British Columbia

Deep in the hostile waters off Canada’s west coast, in a narrow channel surrounded by fjords, lies a coral reef that scientists believe “shouldn’t exist”. The reef is the northernmost ever discovered in the Pacific Ocean and offers researchers a new glimpse into the resilience – and unpredictability – of the deep-sea ecosystems.

For generations, members of the Kitasoo Xai’xais and Heiltsuk First Nations, two communities off the Central Coast region of British Columbia, had noticed large groups of rockfish congregating in a fjord system.

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Research raises more questions over safety of material that health advocates say is made with dangerous levels of ‘forever chemicals’

Athletes who play on artificial turf are likely to be coated with higher levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” than before playing on the field, new research suggests, raising more questions about the controversial material’s safety.

All artificial turf is made with what public health advocates say is dangerous levels of PFAS. When the highly mobile chemicals break off from plastic grass blades, they can be absorbed through the skin, inhaled, ingested or get in open wounds.

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European carbon prices rose for a second day on Friday morning, approaching key technical levels as a rally in gas appeared to support sustained buying in EUAs amid the strongest auction result in nearly two weeks.

Nearly 60,000 hectares of forest was cleared in Brazil's Cerrado and the Amazon in late 2023, with likely ties to the supply chains of some of the world's largest soy exporters, including Bunge and Cargill, a report has found.

The Community Advisory Panel (CAP) of the UN-backed Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) has released draft recommendations on biodiversity credits for consultation, in a bid to bring attention to Indigenous People and local communities' rights in the emerging voluntary market.

China’s environment ministry on Friday released for public consultation draft CO2 emissions accounting and reporting guidelines for the aluminium smelting industry as part of preparations to expand its emissions trading scheme beyond coal-fired power plants.

Right to Roam finds areas of outstanding natural beauty have on average poorer footpath access than rest of England

England’s most stunning “national landscapes” are largely out of bounds, and 22 of the 34 have less than 10% of their area open to the public, research has found.

The government last year renamed areas of outstanding natural beauty to national landscapes, and said part of their aim was to widen access to nature. Ministers said at the time the new name reflected a recognition that they are not just beautiful but important for many reasons including improving wellbeing.

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The European steel industry has won a special carve-out from the EU ETS, ensuring the sector continues to receive an estimated 18 million carbon allowances for free until 2030, according to previously unreleased documents seen by Carbon Pulse.

Norway is scrapping the floor price for its indirect EU ETS cost compensation scheme and introducing an annual ceiling on the total amount of grant funding available to companies, which is intended to shield energy-intensive industries from carbon leakage.

Moscow says it is looking to build up its clean energy industry and price greenhouse gas emissions — but the talk is seen by some as purely “lip service” designed to look like Russia is acting on climate change.

Chinese carbon prices reached a new high this week despite a lack of substantial compliance demand, as optimistic expectations about policy updates continue to buoy the market.

The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), spanning 13 countries across the region and the US, has penned a Clean Economy Agreement (CEA) that involves collaboration on the Paris Agreement’s Article 6 and potential spending of as much as $10-15 billion on carbon removals this decade.

A subsidiary of a German chemicals manufacturer will work with two project developers to promote its crop cultivation management software, which can simplify the process of creating carbon credits under Japan's domestic offset scheme.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

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