Carbon Pulse

A voluntary carbon standard has made a step forward on a deforestation risk mapping tool for jurisdictional REDD projects by advancing work across the first set of forest-rich nations, it said Thursday.

Key differences between the most prominent biodiversity disclosure initiatives have been examined in a report published by the EU Business & Biodiversity (B&B) Platform.

The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) has maintained that it still has an important role in providing guidance for corporate climate claims and voluntary carbon credit use, in light of an announcement this week from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) that signalled the body would undergo a major position change and also endorse offset use towards net zero goals.

The European Parliament voted on Thursday to approve a reform of the EU electricity market design aiming to protect consumers from sudden price shocks, along with a plan to facilitate the uptake of 'low-carbon gases' such as hydrogen.

A California-based direct ocean capture (DOC) company has raised additional funding to support the commercialisation of its technology to harness the ocean's role in carbon absorption.

European carbon prices rose sharply on Thursday morning, erasing Wednesday's losses and setting a new 11-week high, as energy prices surged after Russia attacked Ukrainian energy and gas facilities.

Serbia will join Hungary and Slovenia’s regional energy exchange to encourage development and as part of the country’s efforts to avoid having to pay the EU’s new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) fee, it announced this week.

A Japanese project developer has entered into an agreement with a Bangkok-based firm for an afforestation project in Thailand under Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), the companies announced Thursday.

A UK waste-to-energy company announced Thursday that it is moving ahead with plans to invest £200 million in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at a site in Wales, which it says will turn the plant into a carbon-negative power producer.

Almost 1.4 million kilometres of roads not marked in official road maps and often built illegally, known as “ghost roads”, are presenting a grave threat to tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region, researchers have found.

China has introduced state-level regulations governing compensation for ecological protection, as the government aims to encourage the use of market-based instruments such as carbon credit purchases. 

An internal letter to the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) board and CEO has called for the non-profit's chief executive to resign and to reverse the decision to allow companies to use carbon credits to meet Scope 3 emissions targets, Reuters reports.

Global coal capacity rose last year, with China – the world’s largest LNG importer and biggest developer of new solar and wind capacity – accounting for two-thirds of that growth, according to a think tank report published Thursday.

Environmental market standards are intensifying their push to establish an international framework for plastic credits under the UN plastics treaty, even as experts raise concerns over the viability of recycling at scale.

Australia’s Climate Change Authority proposed an indicative 2035 emissions reduction target of 65-75% below 2005 levels in an issues paper released Thursday, saying additional actions would need to be taken by all sectors to reach it.

Almost a million tonnes of cotton grown on deforested mega estates in Brazil’s biodiverse Cerrado region have been linked to the production of clothing and homeware for two of the world’s largest retailers, finds an investigation by an environmental NGO.

Stakeholders voiced support for an increased step-down in the 2025 carbon intensity (CI) reduction benchmark, and expressed an array of enthusiasm, concern, and confusion regarding the role of biofuels in California's transportation system, at an informal workshop on Wednesday to discuss proposed amendments to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).

A global investor intends to vote against Woodside Energy’s climate strategy at its upcoming annual general meeting, in part over its reliance on carbon credits to meet the company’s Scope 1 and 2 emission reduction targets, it announced Wednesday.

Two Brazilian states expect the issuance of their first batch of carbon credits in the next week and within the next few months, and also anticipate volumes in the hundreds of millions more in the future, as both continue their efforts to develop the carbon market in their jurisdictions.

California regulator ARB issued the highest number of compliance-grade offsets thus far this year and all with direct environmental benefits (DEBs) to the state, raising year-to-date totals above 2023 levels for the first time, data published Wednesday showed.