Carbon Pulse

Whether Australia should increase its emissions target under the Paris Agreement, change the approach of the ERF, and access the international carbon offset market were among the issues in the policy review launched by the independent Climate Change Authority on Thursday.

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

Quebec retired 1.8 million V17 carbon allowances on Wednesday to account for surplus Ontario permits left over in the WCI market, according to an updated Compliance Instrument Tracking System Service (CITSS) report.

California regulator ARB doled out more than 1.5 mln new offsets (CCOs) this week, while the supply of CCO-0s surged as the invalidation period expired on the programme's second largest project.

California hydroelectric generation dropped by 36% in 2018 and was replaced by natural gas and renewable energy, potentially impacting emissions from the sector under the state's WCI-linked carbon market, according to government data.

Ghana will take in up to $50 million for protecting its forests under the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCFP), becoming the third African nation to sign the REDD deal seen as a base for possible international emissions trade.

Nominated European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday promised to introduce legislation within her first 100 days in office to deepen the bloc’s 2030 greenhouse gas emission cut target from 40% to 50%.

Project developers are exploring the possibility of creating a methodology that would make it possible to earn carbon credits from land management schemes in Australia’s vast desert areas.

European carbon barged to a 2.5-month high on Wednesday on the back of stronger energy, a brief pause in the daily auctions, and technical buying.

South Korea sold all 550,000 carbon allowances on offer in its July auction held Wednesday, with permits clearing well below secondary market prices.

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

The Alberta government opened a consultation Tuesday on its proposed overhaul next year for the Canadian province’s carbon trading programme for large emitters, with the ruling United Conservative Party offering input on the CO2 regulation’s excess emissions charge and usage limits for offsets and performance credits.

The British Columbia government is floating the incorporation of a credit clearance market that would act as a hard price cap for the Canadian province’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), while also considering the possibility for new alternative fuel types to generate credits.

The European Commission confirmed Wednesday that it wants to monetise hundreds of millions of Innovation Fund EUAs in equal annual volumes, a move that analysts said will mean the sales are less likely to affect allowance prices.

Roughly 1.8 million V17 Quebec allowances remain in WCI auction accounts after the second quarter despite proclamations by the province that those credits were retired last month, according to Carbon Pulse calculations.

EU finance ministers on Tuesday kept on the table the option of earmarking a fifth of ETS auction revenues for the post-Brexit 2021-2027 central EU budget, and discussed a bloc-wide aviation carbon tax as France pushed ahead with its own plans.

The northeast US RGGI cap-and-trade programme will auction off more than 13.1 million carbon allowances at its Sep. 4 auction, the regulator announced Tuesday.

EUAs climbed towards €27 early on Tuesday, hitting a five-day high on strong demand in the day’s auction.

New Brunswick is abandoning its plan to sue the Canadian government over the federal backstop carbon tax, the province’s premier announced late Monday, adding that his administration would still intervene in Saskatchewan’s Supreme Court appeal.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved $266.9 million in new funding to ten mitigation and adaptation projects, including a payment to Ecuador for cutting emissions by halting deforestation, the second programme of its kind to receive GCF funds.