Carbon Pulse

Azerbaijan's capital Baku will be confirmed as the next host of the annual UN climate summit, the country's ecology minister announced at COP28 in Dubai on Saturday, after Armenia formally gave its blessing earlier in the week and Russia lifted its veto threat.

A consortium led by two major South Korean companies has taken an undisclosed stake in a global developer of carbon credits as they seek to increase their involvement in nature-based as well as technology-based projects.

EU institutions agreed on updated rules to decarbonise the gas market and create a hydrogen one on Friday evening, which will enable the bloc to further reduce its dependence on gas, as well as agree that long-term contracts for unabated fossil gas should not extend beyond 2049.

It is Day 10 – Nature Day – at COP28, where already tense negotiations about the global stocktake (GST) and Article 6 carbon markets are heating up, with announcements also seeping in on biodiversity and nature-based solutions (NbS). Week 2 is well underway, and it's now crunch time in Dubai. Fortunately, Carbon Pulse's hardworking correspondents are on the ground in Expo City wading through reports, gathering intel, and skulking around the sidelines of the summit so you don't have to. In our daily running blog, we will report relevant or useful updates throughout the day. Timestamps are in local time (Gulf Standard Time, GMT+4).

Global public and private funding that has a detrimental impact on nature stands at a massive $7 trillion per year, while funding with a positive impact last year reached $200 billion, UNEP said in its annual State of Finance for Nature report, released Saturday.

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

Compliance entities and speculators moved in opposite directions with their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and RGGI holdings, while both groups reduced their Washington Carbon Allowance (WCA) positions over the last week, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data showed Friday.

California's free carbon allowance distributions to industrials will rise for 2024, with petroleum and hydrogen production accounting for the highest year-on-year climb, according to data from state regulator ARB published on Friday.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruling in favour of small refineries' arguments for exemptions for ethanol blending under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) against the EPA could cause a renewable fuel supply glut, two industry experts agreed.

In the context of increasing reports of forest carbon-related cooperative approaches under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, Parties should apply strive to ensure that all credits transacted are of the highest quality by applying guidance developed by leading environmental and Indigenous organisations, writes the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups.

Deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado region was the worst on record last month, according to government data.

A global network of forest mapping and monitoring actors on Friday launched the development of a biomass reference system in an early step towards a free, independent, and public system for the validation and calibration of forest carbon stock data. 

Xpansiv's spot carbon credit exchange CBL is set to introduce a new fee in January for access to its platform, although charges will be waived for customers that meet minimal trading thresholds, the company announced this week.

Norway-based utility Stakraft has signed a long term offtake agreement for African cookstove emissions reduction carbon credits, although the company's focus is set to switch to removals over time, the company revealed to Carbon Pulse.

Two more carbon-counting methodologies have been added to the French government’s carbon credit certification programme, the ministry of ecological transition said this week.

A US-based carbon crediting start-up for smallhold farmers has partnered with a Nigerian non-profit, as it looks to scale its operations in the new year, its co-founder told a side event at COP28 in Dubai Friday.

The next replenishment of the World Bank's International Development Association, its concessional financing arm for the poorest countries, needs to be the "largest of all time", according to World Bank President Ajay Banga speaking Thursday in Zanzibar as part of the IDA20 Midterm Review.

Canada’s patchwork system of carbon pricing, particularly relative to US incentives, threaten the competitiveness of Canadian trade-exposed sectors, say representatives of the nation’s oil and gas economies.

The Q4 RGGI cap-and-trade auction cleared well above its previous all-time record settlement and in line with broad market expectations, slightly below secondary market values with an uptick in compliance participation, according to results published Friday.

The Asian Development Bank’s carbon crediting fund that goes live next year signed its first partner on Friday at Day 8 of the COP28 summit.