Carbon Pulse

A New York-based RGGI facility must surrender allowances for failing to comply with historical obligations if the state adopts its proposed post-2020 ETS regulation, a state official confirmed on Friday. 

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credit generation bucked three straight quarters of deficits over the final three months of 2019, with stronger electric vehicle and renewable diesel figures helping to boost the surplus bank over 8 million tonnes to finish the year, according to data posted Thursday.

New Jersey's entrance into the Northeast US carbon market prompted RGGI emissions to rise during Q1, but the Garden State’s return overshadowed significant reductions from the other nine member states as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

EUAs dropped below €19 early on Friday, extending a two-week low in thin holiday trade, as bearish sentiment was driven by Thursday's passing of the 2019 EU ETS compliance season and wider financial market weakness.

Closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week.

NZUs have held steady near the NZ$25 fixed price option level throughout the week, with sound demand despite the uncertainty over the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis and looming reforms.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices neared the WCI floor price this week as higher compliance buying offset fewer sellers in the market, while RGGI Allowance (RGA) values rose to a nine-week high on bullish sentiment about post-2020 revisions to the ETS.

WCI market participants traded California Carbon Offsets (CCOs) without any invalidation risk on ICE for only the second time ever on Thursday, representing the first transaction in over a year for the sparsely-used contract.

EUAs sank below €20 to a two-week low on Thursday, with traders attributing the fall to month-end profit-taking following and the end of the annual compliance cycle.

Lawmakers from the European Parliament’s environment committee will on Monday debate its position on the bloc’s Just Transition Fund (JTF), though the draft opinion submitted by the eurosceptic Czech MEP directing the effort has considerably softened the proposal’s tone.

Countermeasures to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic such as complete lockdowns in a number of countries are causing unprecedented drops in global energy demand and will likely drive an 8% fall in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions this year, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

California regulator ARB should consider a rule-based mechanism to automatically adjust allowance supply based on surplus volume, as well as tweak ETS auction provisions to sell state-owned permits simultaneously with consigned volume, a government watchdog group said Wednesday.

Alberta’s large emitter programme will not significantly harm the Canadian province’s oil industry compared to a pre-coronavirus scenario, as some facilities may even come out ahead, according to new analysis published Tuesday.

New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released a draft RGGI regulation that aligns with the post-2020 Model Rule on Thursday, with enhancements that include coverage for peaking plants underneath the 25MW threshold for the regional ETS.

The EU should widen an industrial pollution law to cover greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, environmental campaigners have said, a move that would effectively put an additional layer of regulation on companies already covered by the bloc's carbon market.

EU power generators Vattenfall and Iberdrola have both reported substantial drops to their ETS-covered thermal power generation in Q1, with milder, wetter weather crimping demand even without account for coronavirus impacts.

Plunging EU ETS emissions due to the COVID-19 crisis and other market forces will balloon the scheme's allowance surplus this year to the equivalent of around two years’ worth of demand, analysts have predicted.

In our latest instalment of the Carbon Pulse Conversations podcast, we speak to Marcus Ferdinand, head of European power and carbon analytics at ICIS, about what's driving EUAs at the moment, how the coronavirus crisis is impacting the EU ETS, and his forecasts for allowance prices.