Feed aggregator

US says current climate rules are satisfactory, prompting condemnation from activists and vulnerable countries

Climate justice campaigners have condemned the US after the world’s largest historic greenhouse gas emitter argued against countries being legally obliged to combat the climate crisis.

The US intervention came on Wednesday as part of the historic climate hearing at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where island nations and other climate-vulnerable countries are calling for wealthy polluting nations most responsible for climate breakdown to be held legally responsible.

Continue reading...

A California-based climate finance firm inked an agreement Wednesday with a carbon farming programme in which the firm will gain access to 250,000 credits sourced from a US-based regenerative agriculture soil carbon project.

A California-based direct air capture (DAC) company announced on Wednesday $150 million in funding from a range of industrial and venture capital investors aiming to drive down costs of the technology.

Summer is a great time to go beetle-watching in Australia. By protecting these dazzling insects, we can ensure they survive for future generations to enjoy. Tanya Latty, Associate Professor, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney James Bickerstaff, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australia National Insect Collection, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Mary Lawlor criticizes US’s failure to respond to concerns after Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal charges

A leading UN human rights expert has expressed dismay after the US government failed to respond to questions about the criminal crackdown on peaceful climate protesters.

Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, on Tuesday published a letter sent to US authorities raising concerns about the potential violation of international human rights law after two climate activists, Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal, were charged with crimes that carried lengthy jail terms.

Continue reading...

An upcoming law defining low-carbon hydrogen could help scale up the market and help reduce emissions in the EU's hard-to-abate sectors while renewable hydrogen is still not available in the required quantities, a report by a Brussels-based think tank said on Wednesday.

Airlines need to show a clearer demand signal if countries are to supply sufficient levels of CORSIA-eligible credits to meet the demands of Phase 1 (2024-26), a representative from Guyana told a carbon industry conference.

Ecuador is reportedly preparing to enter into its second deal to swap debt for conservation funding in the Amazon rainforest, according to a stock exchange filing released this week, while Barbados has announced a first of its kind debt-for-climate-resilience arrangement.

The Klik Foundation plans to buy around 20 million international carbon credits under Article 6 by the end of 2030, up from an earlier forecast for 15 mln, according to presentation slides circulated Wednesday.

A Europe-wide market for CO2 with access to the UK could reduce carbon storage costs by 20%, equal to €11 per tonne, according to a report released on Wednesday.

Developers can bolster the integrity of the carbon credits they sell by making sure there is gender equality across the design, implementation, and monitoring of their projects, according to experts. 

Cement decarbonisation technologies, including carbon capture, supplementary cementitious materials, and alternative fuels could help the sector cut an extra 422 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over the next decade, according to a new report.

UK-based investor Climate Asset Management (CAM) reveals how it has attracted $1 billion in investment following increasing interest in regenerative agriculture, high-quality food, and nature impacts.

One year into the inclusion of shipping in the EU ETS, the system is now “well understood” by the maritime sector – but issues persist regarding data transparency, division of contractual responsibilities, and access to EU accounts, according to a maritime data analytics firm in its 2024 review.

Carrboro officials say Duke Energy broke state laws waging decades-long ‘deception campaign’ about fossil fuels

A small North Carolina town has launched the nation’s first-ever climate accountability lawsuit against an electric utility.

The litigation, filed by officials from Carrboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday morning, accuses Duke Energy of waging a “deception campaign” to obscure the climate dangers of fossil fuels. Those efforts resulted in delayed action to curb planet-heating pollution, which has pushed up the costs of climate action today, the lawsuit says.

Continue reading...

A US-based methodology developer has launched the first registry-independent standard in the carbon removal (CDR) market, the company announced on Wednesday.

An AI-powered climate tech company has shut down its online voluntary carbon market platform and halted access to its project data and other services.

The voluntary carbon market has done a considerable amount of work to address criticisms over standards and environmental integrity, but now it needs the finance sector to help create the conditions for large-scale demand to trigger the investment required to scale up the market, according to speakers at a conference on Wednesday.

European carbon continued to slip lower off the back of weakening TTF natural gas prices, amid bearish near-term fundamentals for thermal power generation, as investment funds extended their net long position to the highest total since the end of July 2023.

Chile-based investor Toesca Asset Management will invest $350 million in regenerative agriculture practices in Latin America, via a partnership with a UK-headquartered financier, to help reduce the impacts of agriculture on biodiversity loss and carbon emissions.