Carbon Pulse

Traded volumes in China’s eight pilot emissions trading schemes fell by two-thirds in April compared to the same month last year, as the delay of the national ETS has seen many traders exit.

The Australian government has contracted around 20 million offsets from landfill gas projects, but 95% of those seem set to stop generating carbon credits in 2021 after the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC) recommended their crediting periods should not be extended.

Australia will not replenish the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) in Tuesday’s budget even though the ERF is quickly running out of cash, news agency AAP reported Monday.

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Four research institutions have partnered to test a forest carbon trade that would involve transferring REDD carbon credits from Colombia to South Korea to help meet Paris Agreement goals.

EU carbon prices nudged back above €13 on Friday to halt a run of three straight daily losses notched since the 2017 compliance deadline passed, as a looming week of tighter auction supply deterred selling.

EU countries handed out a further 3.68 mln free carbon allowances to industry for 2018 in the past two weeks, European Commission data released late Friday showed, as the deadline for surrendering units against last year’s emissions passed.

Companies regulated by the EU ETS exchanged 10.57 million Kyoto Protocol credits for allowances over the last six months to use for compliance, the European Commission said Friday, continuing the slow usage rate as the market’s overall quota is almost exhausted.

CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the EU rose by an estimated 1.8% in 2017, according to the bloc’s statistics office Eurostat.

Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator this week handed out 738,134 carbon credits to maintain its recent above-average issuance rate as a small secondary market for carbon offsets continues to form.

The Guangdong provincial government this week issued some 61,000 carbon credits in its first issuance since last June, as China’s national offset programme remains sidelined.

Below is a table of the closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week. All prices are in RMB, and volumes in tonnes of CO2e. Data sourced from local exchanges.

South Korea has posted the final rules on use of UN-issued carbon credits from international projects in its domestic emissions trading scheme.

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The Climate Action Reserve’s revised grasslands protocol offers developers significant savings that could usher in a host of new US-based initiatives, experts said, as the project type’s profile rises.

North American carbon prices in the RGGI market increased slightly this week on the back of expectedly bullish emissions data, while WCI prices idled for another week ahead of the market’s second tripartite auction later this month.

EU carbon prices fell for the third consecutive session on Thursday to end below €13 for the first time in almost two weeks.

The faster-than-expected expansion of renewables worldwide is helping to narrow the gap to Paris Agreement goals, despite some governments making little progress on climate action and the effects of US President Trump’s policies not yet taking hold, researchers said Thursday.

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The Hawaii House and Senate have again passed two carbon offset and sequestration-related bills after a bicameral committee made minor changes to both pieces of legislation in April.