Carbon Pulse

South Korea will introduce a market maker in its emissions trading scheme from June 10, the environment ministry announced Friday, in a bid to boost the sluggish liquidity in the programme.

Australia's Clean Energy Regulator’s carbon credit issuance fell to below 30,000 this week, around a seventh of the long-term average, while the government finally legislated softer Safeguard Mechanism rules flagged last year that likely ensure lower offset demand from the private sector.

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

Adopting an ambitious emissions cap and allowance bank adjustment would unfairly burden Virginia as it looks to join the northeast US RGGI carbon market next year, utility Dominion Energy wrote in public comments.

Several wealthy EU nations are mulling introducing or raising air travel taxes to help tackle the sector’s emissions, which are still rising despite having been covered by the bloc's ETS since 2012.

The US EPA made an unannounced and fundamental change to its methodology used to grant compliance waivers under the federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) that allowed for an increasing number of companies to receive exemptions to the biofuels credit market, a new court filing alleges.

A surge in buying after the February WCI auction spurred higher California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices this week, while RGGI allowances (RGAs) fell by double-digits ahead of the programme's first quarterly sale of the year.

The Dutch government will close one of the country's five coal-fired power plants next year - four years earlier than originally planned - to help reach its court-enforced deeper climate goals, broadcaster RTL reported on Thursday.

Ten US companies and organisations have formed a consortium to advance a voluntary market programme for promoting soil carbon sequestration and water conservation in agriculture, with more developments underway to scale up nationally in the next few years.

EUAs surged back above €23 late on Thursday to eye their recent highs, dragging up power prices despite falls across other financial markets on weak ECB economic forecasts.

Swiss lawmakers in both legislative chambers have approved the country’s carbon market link to the EU ETS, advancing the bill to a final vote later this month that will also likely approve a price floor for the small scheme.

The COP25 UN climate conference in Chile will be held this December, the international organisation confirmed on Thursday, reversing an initial decision by the host nation to push the next annual negotiation round to Jan. 2020.

South Korea’s environment ministry has halved the allowance volume each ETS participant can bid for at next week’s sale, a move designed to allow more buyers to bid successfully.

Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority (EA) on Thursday recommended that new projects emitting more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2e a year should be required to offset their emissions using high-quality carbon credits.

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

UN aviation body ICAO announced Wednesday that it had enacted an advisory body to review emissions credits under its CORSIA global offsetting mechanism, but it was unclear whether it had reached further decisions on the panel’s membership and transparency.

European carbon prices fell for a second straight day, unwinding more of the rally recorded over the past week and a half.

Connecticut regulators have sent on regulations to install the northeast US RGGI carbon market's post-2020 Model Rule and still anticipate it being finalised by April, a government official said.

Power plants linked to industrial sites across the EU could see their annual free carbon allowance allocations slashed from next year if the EU court upholds an expert opinion, though it is unclear whether regulators will be able to oversee the move without further changes to auditing rules.

Australia is within its rights to use carryover Kyoto credits to meet its Paris goals, but experts find it hard to believe a Labor government would do so because the move would be seen internationally as undermining the Paris Agreement.