Carbon Pulse

Two weeks of negotiations among the almost 30 member nations of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) ended Friday evening in Hobart, Australia with a fresh failure to establish three marine protected areas (MPAs) in the region representing more than 1% of the global ocean.

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

Regulated parties entered the third week of growing their V23 California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and RGGI Allowance (RGA) holdings while reducing V24 net length, as financial players continued to build V24 net positions, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data showed Friday.

Washington state industrial emitters will receive slightly more free allowances under the cap-and-invest programme in 2024 than this year, with some individual economic sectors seeing fluctuations of several hundred thousand permits, according to government data published Friday.

While carbon removal technologies and measures to address supply chain emissions still hold numerous challenges, industry proponents are maintaining an optimistic outlook for the future, a conference heard this week.

Members of the public, non-profits, and energy producers want the RGGI cap-and-trade system to better model the impacts of renewable energy projects, and also reconsider a proposed full annual compliance surrender, according to newly released comments submitted to the scheme’s ongoing RGGI’s Third Program Review.

The UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) approved $736.4 million of funding across 15 climate projects in developing countries this week, support that is expected to be boosted to $3.6 billion once co-financing is included.

Levels of optimism on whether the EU is on the right track eight years on from signing of the Paris Agreement diverged amongst key climate stakeholders at an event in Brussels on Friday, as the experts prepared for this year's UN negotiations where they deem it crucial to secure a global fossil fuel phaseout commitment.

Now is the time for regulation to hold the financial sector to account on nature loss, and tools like biodiversity credits and patient capital can catalyse action, according to a Switzerland-based NGO.

The $750-million dollar deal between New York-headquartered Hess and the Guyanese government for the purchase of tens of millions of avoided deforestation carbon credits will not be affected by the former's acquisition at the hands of the global energy giant, Guyana's vice president said Thursday.

EU leaders tasked Brussels to accelerate work to safeguard the competitiveness of the bloc's clean technologies in the conclusions adopted on Friday following their European Council summit, responding to pressures from the industry for the upcoming legislature.

Using acoustic monitoring devices to collect data about ecosystem health based on the sounds of different animals living in an area is a powerful and cost-effective way of measuring biodiversity and should be one of the primary data collection methods in new biodiversity crediting systems, say industry sources.

A roadmap for implementing a forest partnership between the EU and the Republic of Congo has been signed by the European Commission's environment chief Virginijus Sinkevicius.

The government of British Columbia has launched a “unique” crowdfunding initiative for protecting old growth forests with C$300 million ($217 mln) of initial capital.

European carbon prices traded within Thursday's high-low range on Friday morning, reflecting a lack of momentum or conviction in either direction as traders took to the sidelines ahead of the weekend, while energy markets were modestly firmer even as fundamentals remained broadly unchanged.

South Pole has pulled out of the troubled Kariba REDD forest protection project in Zimbabwe with immediate effect, it said on Friday, following earlier news that certifier Verra was halting credit issuances and launching an investigation into the project amid allegations of trophy hunting and financial malpractice.

Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms, or CBAMs, are one of the key drivers of carbon pricing development across Asia as nations increasingly seek to cooperate with the EU on its policy slated to enter into force in 2026, a conference heard Wednesday.

China's national carbon market saw prices remain stable over the past week with a relatively high trading volume, while voluntary trading volume ticked up as sentiment has been lifted by the multiple regulatory updates recently.

Standardisation and scale are the watchwords of the growing removal industry, seen as key by its proponents and the IPCC in the path to net zero but getting it into compliance markets will be essential, a conference heard this week.

Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) transactions have largely been bilateral over the counter (OTC) deals in recent months as the brokered secondary market has been trading sideways, according to analysis.