Carbon Pulse

The Labour party in the UK wants to make the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme easier to manage for land owners while better understanding its impacts, according to a minister.

LEGO Group has signed a nine-year deal with a direct air capture technology developer to permanently remove CO2, the companies announced on Tuesday.

EU carbon prices were slightly weaker at midday on Tuesday after strong early gains were followed by renewed selling, while energy prices eased back after the previous session's sharp gains, which one analyst called "exaggerated".

A last-minute failure to green-light the so-called Nature Restoration Law will leave the European Union "empty-handed" at the upcoming UN summit on biodiversity, EU commissioner for Environment Virginijus Sinkevicius said during a bitter speech on Monday.

Concerns about social acceptance, industrial policy, and finance came to the fore on Monday as the EU’s 27 environment ministers debated the bloc’s 2040 climate target.

A German-based research network has released a set of recommendations to enhance conservation efforts, ranging from transforming food systems to improving monitoring, in an attempt to better inform nature policies at a national and European level.

A Japanese information services provider has launched an AI-powered solution for data acquisition, which can quantify and simulate changes in the marine environment to support blue carbon and biodiversity initiatives. 

China’s second-largest oil and gas company and French oiler TotalEnergies plan to develop sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at an existing Chinese oil refinery.

Japan’s Jera plans to buy into a giant US hydrogen project that would supply it with 500,000 tonnes of green ammonia per year, it said Tuesday.

Indonesia’s state-owned energy company Pertamina will lobby the country’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) to allow more energy efficiency projects on the country’s national carbon exchange, a representative told local media.

Treating voluntary carbon credits as intangible property rather than a commodity can provide the clear commercial basis participants need to confidently make transactions and manage risk in the market, according to a a legal paper released Tuesday by a Singaporean investment platform.

A New Zealand start-up focussing on decarbonising concrete has secured NZ$6.5 million ($4mln) in seed funding that will go towards scaling up its business, it announced.

RGGI allowance (RGA) prices continued to soar past last week's peaks amid heightened market strength, fuelled by the outcome of the first auction of the year and expectations surrounding the ongoing programme review.

The Canada Growth Fund (CGF), a federal investment vehicle, allocated C$50 million ($36.8 mln) towards a Montreal-based investment firm backing clean tech companies, the federal government announced Monday.

Expanding the EU ETS to new sectors of the economy will help the European Union reach its climate targets for 2040, according to some of the 27 national ministers who exchanged views at at a meeting of the EU Council in Brussels on Monday.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced Monday up to $6 billion in funding for industrial decarbonisation projects across multiple states, which the agency said collectively are expected to slash emissions by 14 million tonnes annually and facilitate wider adoption of carbon-cutting technologies.

The Council of EU member states gave the final go ahead Monday to measures aiming to reduce gas demand by at least 15% compared to 2017-2022.

Climate litigation cases look set to rise in coming years as new sustainability reporting requirements come into play, from the EU to the US, said lawyers during a conference on climate and ESG legal risk.

The recent ruling by a court in the Netherlands that KLM’s historical climate claims, including use of voluntary carbon credits, constituted greenwashing could change airlines' practice in the EU, said a lawyer who worked on the case.

Trade in the voluntary carbon market stumbled last week under a cloud of uncertainty created by key organisations.