Carbon Pulse

The Lao government is working on a decree to regulate the sale of forestry carbon credits to international buyers, with an initial draft likely to be ready around summer, local media reported Wednesday.

China has accelerated the work of adding cement to its national emissions trading scheme with the release of CO2 accounting guidelines, while it may take longer to include steelmakers amid data quality concerns.

Australia’s energy regulator has released draft guidance on its ‘value of emissions reduction’ (VER), which will act as a shadow carbon price to help guide regulatory policy decisions related to the National Electricity Market (NEM).

The Clean Energy Regulator issued 17.2 million Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) in 2023, and expects this figure to rise to a record 20 mln in 2024, it said in its latest quarterly report, published Wednesday.

An Australian biodiversity credit company has partnered with a local skin care product producer to launch a body wash and moisturiser set that will protect one square metre of a biologically rich area of coastal South Australia per unit sold, in what they hope will prove a use case for demand in the fledgling nature crediting market.

Eight energy outlooks published in 2023, alongside historical data sources, see substantial fossil fuel consumption through at least 2050, implying a scale-up of carbon removal technologies will be required in order to meet international climate targets, according to a report published Tuesday by a US non-profit research institution.

Nova Scotia on Tuesday submitted an alternative strategy to the Canadian federal carbon tax, though observers noted that the proposal was a rehash of previously-released measures aimed at achieving the province's environmental targets.

An Oregon Department of Environmental Protection (DEQ) advisory committee on Tuesday discussed modifications to emissions caps, covered entity thresholds, and compliance distribution alternatives as part of a new rulemaking for the state’s scrapped Climate Protection Program (CPP).

Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator has issued just over 1 million new Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), while an industry body calls for sufficient budget funding from the government to ensure reforms to the market are carried out.

RGGI confirmed near-universal compliance for the fifth three-year compliance period of the regional power sector cap-and-trade scheme, while RGGI allowance (RGA) prices dipped considerably in an unrelated development, correcting from historic highs in the face of continued lack of Program Review news.

A Toronto-headquartered voluntary carbon investor saw positive income in 2023 following a major revaluation of its only credit-issuing project to-date, but needs to raise more cash to fund planned operations for the next 12 months, it reported Tuesday.

The bioenergy division of a Brazil-based steelmaker has sold a San Francisco-headquartered carbon removals marketplace 15,000 tonnes of biochar credits so far in 2024, they said Tuesday.

Eleven Canadian conservation groups have urged federal government ministries to include logging and forestry emissions in an ongoing review of national greenhouse gas accounting practices.

The body that monitors compliance by members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) with the EU’s single market rules has opened an investigation into Norway’s proposed exemptions from certain carbon taxes for industries covered by the EU ETS, saying it “has doubts” as to whether the country’s measures are in line with the bloc’s state aid rules.

Divesting from fossil fuels could cost banks dearly as a result of model-based EU financial regulations that rely on backward-looking risk estimates, which are insensitive to ‘structural breaks’ like the clean energy transition, according to peer-reviewed research published Tuesday.

With EUA prices trading below €60 per tonne and benchmark European gas futures down by double-digits in the year to date, current market dynamics should incentivise some utility forward hedging, analysts have said, but any added compliance demand for carbon permits will be limited by the overall bearish fundamentals, widespread power sector decarbonisation, and the tough macroeconomic environment.

The glut of available credits in the voluntary carbon market started to grow again in March to leave the surplus close to 1 billion credits from across the big four standard bodies, according to Carbon Pulse VCM Portal data.

A project set to capture more than 900,000 tonnes of CO2 annually from an incinerator in northwest England has progressed further by agreeing a statement of principles with the UK government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).

The Commonwealth of Nations is looking to help member countries implement a carbon tax based on a model law designed to make it easy to administer, ensure a just transition, and reduce the impact on low-income and vulnerable groups.

Swedish steel producer SSAB plans to turn one of its steel plants fossil-free, shaving an estimated 7% off the country’s CO2 emissions, the company announced on Tuesday.