Carbon Pulse

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices in the secondary market reversed course late Thursday after a week of sliding toward March lows on high ICE futures and options volume exacerbating the technical sell-off, market participants said, while Washington Carbon Allowances (WCA) declined heading into the second quarterly permit sale.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will jointly pursue marine CO2 removal (mCDR) research and development, the agencies announced Thursday.

Three of the busiest ports in the UK, a strategic stopover for EU-bound ships to cut down on ETS liability, saw more units and tonnage in Q1 2024 relative to the same period in 2023 as the EU ETS extends to shipping, according to British government figures published Thursday.

A US-based direct air capture (DAC) firm on Thursday announced that it has signed a lease for its first manufacturing site in Arizona to construct modules with a cumulative removal capacity of 2 million tonnes CO2 annually.

The environmental ministry of British Columbia (BC) has released stakeholder feedback on its draft carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) offset protocol that detailed concerns around monitoring periods and leak detection, project eligibility, crediting and stabilisation periods, quantification and verification, and additionality.

Xpansiv has moved quickly out of the blocks to ensure credits are labelled with the ICVCM’s high integrity CCP label after the stakeholder initiative approved eligibility of seven methodologies on Thursday.

More clarity from the government is needed on UK compliance and voluntary nature markets over the next 15 to 20 years, to provide sufficient incentives to ensure large-scale restoration while minimising confusion, non-profit Rewilding Britain said in a report published on Wednesday.

The planned expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure worldwide is slated to put coastal and marine ecosystems under increasing pressure, according to a study released Thursday, calling on governments and international organisations to ensure biodiversity-rich regions are effectively protected.

More than half of all climate finance from the EU and its member states in 2022 came through non-grant instruments, most of which were loans, although the overall amount of climate finance increased, according to research published on Thursday.

Europe could lose first-mover advantage in the game-changing production of perovskite solar panels, that is set to transform the renewable energy market, because of the allure of incentives in the US Inflation Reduction Act, a leading UK-based manufacturer told Carbon Pulse this week.

Competitive advantages arising from being early movers in biodiversity finance are among the main drivers for businesses considering investments in nature, accounting firm KPMG has said.

Momentum is building in specific markets for direct air capture investment, according to attendees at a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) event held in Zurich this week.

An Argentine conservation organisation has partnered with a French-headquartered environmental company to generate biodiversity and water credits within an area of 1.2 million hectares in the Andes.

European carbon prices were little changed by midday on Thursday despite trading in a nearly €2 range during the morning, as energy markets appeared to adopt a fairly cautious tone.

Trade flows of affected products under the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) could be redirected to markets outside the EU to avoid compliance with the scheme, leading to uneven competitive landscapes and a need for international coordination on carbon pricing, said a commodities price reporting agency.

A government-appointed working group this week began grappling with legal issues flagged by economy ministry officials as potentially challenging, as Japan begins designing its mandatory emissions trading scheme slated to launch in 2026.

Investor Mirova and non-profit Rainforest Alliance have announced a partnership to scale up nature-based solutions focused on regenerative agriculture around the world.

Ocean-based CO2 removal techniques, which are attracting greater interest due to the constraints on land-based methods, may have significant knowledge gaps that could in turn affect the credibility of carbon offset schemes, according to a paper published this week.

Investments in clean energy are surging globally to reach almost double the amount going to fossil fuels in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA's) latest annual investment report, with solar PV surpassing all other energy sources combined.

Leading politicians have stepped forward to ask for the inclusion of carbon removals in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), with Poland’s climate minister and the chief ETS lawmaker in the European Parliament joining calls to address a looming liquidity crunch to avoid “market manipulation”.