Carbon Pulse

Four of the world's largest technology companies have joined forced under a new coalition to contract up to 20 million tonnes of nature-based voluntary carbon credits, they announced Wednesday.

Microsoft has signed an agreement to buy 36,000 tonnes of biochar from a Canadian producer, the firms announced on Wednesday, while the tech giant also increased by 1 million tonnes the purchase volume of an existing deal for Danish bioenergy removals.

EUAs need to be trading at least €150 per tonne to start incentivising ship owners to switch to biofuels in a subsidised environment, while the price would need to be markedly higher than that to ensure a shift to more expensive green fuels like ammonia or methanol, a freight manager told a conference Wednesday.

Two sea trials of a new slow steaming solution for the shipping industry have sharply cut CO2 emission levels, confirming earlier pilot programs, a shipping consortium announced this week.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released Wednesday its first-ever assessment of the world's mangrove ecosystems, showing that more than half of them are at risk of collapse by 2050.

The nascent biodiversity credits market can learn from the work of the World Bank’s rhino bond, according to an expert whose organisation worked on the issuance.

A series of tests awaits the European Union, as the bloc still debates how to respect climate commitments and remain economically ambitious at the same time, with the 27 nations' ministers set to gather in Brussels at the Competition Council on Friday.

Failure to modernise the power grid could lead the EU to miss its climate targets by over 30% and jeopardise energy security, the European electricity industry association has warned.

Environmentalists are increasingly sounding the alarm over what they claim are destructive impacts of the global fish farming industry, but government hesitance in imposing stricter regulations is seen as an illustration of the challenge ahead in meeting biodiversity targets.

EU carbon allowance prices were modestly firmer at midday on Wednesday as the market tested technical resistance levels after the weekly Commitment of Traders data showed investment funds increased their bearish bets for the first time in six weeks.

Campaign group Business for Nature has accepted its first batch of strategies targeting a nature positive economy by 2030 from corporations based in the UK, France, and Taiwan, six months after launch .

Carbon credit buyers have been few and far between at conferences in recent years, but the Carbon Farming Industry Forum in Cairns this week hosted a record number, and percentage, of attendees on the buy side, demonstrating confidence in the Australian market, attendees told Carbon Pulse.

A Berlin-based carbon tech startup has launched a free voluntary carbon credit insight platform on Thursday, with the aim of making purchases more accessible to all.

A group of investors has partnered to finance a reforestation project in Panama aiming to restore 10,000 hectares of degraded tropical forests and generate over 3 million carbon removal credits.

South Korea should consider more policy arrangements for domestic cities to utilise carbon market mechanisms, such as the creation of a regional carbon trading framework, to drive down emissions from the urban sector, researchers have suggested.

A debate on Tuesday among lead contenders for the post of European Commission President made little room for green considerations, with discussions focusing mostly on defence spending and the need to protect Europe’s interests in the face of China's aggressive economic policies.

The UN-backed Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) on Wednesday released a paper seeking to give a definition of biodiversity credits and associated terms, in an attempt to avoid the market making a false start.

Market participants are scrambling to submit methods to develop Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to the government’s interim process, as Canberra itself is still finalising methods that have been in the works for a long time.

Australia will release the first Nature Repair Market methodology in January, a government official said Wednesday, officially kicking off the world's first government-regulated voluntary biodiversity credit market.

Only 35% of afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) initiatives within the voluntary carbon market (VCM) reviewed by a US-based carbon management firm was found to revert ecosystem degradation, the company said Tuesday.