Carbon Pulse

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

A nature-based annual award worth CHF 100,000 ($116,100) will aim to scale a minimum of 100 nature-positive startups by 2030, World Economic Forum attendees heard Tuesday.

A new study has found that off-grid direct air capture and storage (DACS) systems can significantly reduce carbon emissions when powered by renewable energy sources like solar and integrated with heat pumps and battery storage.

New Mexico state representatives this month introduced legislation for a clean fuel standard that aims to mandate a reduction in transportation fuel carbon intensity (CI) beginning July 2026, following previous similar but unsuccessful attempts.

Verra provided early-stage details and a preliminary outline of a new Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodology for reducing emissions from the cultivation of rice in a webinar Tuesday, as the international standard seeks to replace a formerly popular but now discredited Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) methodology that prompted integrity concerns last year.

Legal experts discussed the potential that enforcement action by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against carbon trading misconduct could place a damper on the voluntary carbon market (VCM), while the rollout of California’s climate disclosure bill is mired in ambiguity.

American Carbon Registry (ACR) issued the first credits from its new protocol aimed at plugging abandoned oil and gas wells to an Oklahoma-based project developer.

A twice-weekly summary of our biodiversity news plus bite-sized updates from around the world. All articles in this edition are free to read (no subscription required).

Some $2.5 billion per year is needed to revitalise deforested lands in the Amazon basin, the Colombian president has said, as his government prepares to host UN biodiversity talks later this year.

Several lawmakers belonging to the governing British Conservative Party have expressed concern over integration of carbon capture technology with a wood-burning power plant, as well as the possible deployment of hundreds of millions of pounds in subsidies towards the facility that underpins one of the world's biggest removals projects.

A large commodity trading firm said on Tuesday that it has agreed to buy carbon dioxide removal credits from 1PointFive, a carbon capture, utilisation, and sequestration company with an industrial-scale direct air capture (DAC) facility under construction in Texas.

The UK government’s advice on the biodiversity net gain (BNG) has incorrectly suggested the order of preference for how developers handle nature impacts is mandatory, a lawyer has said.

COP28 created a “paradigm shift” for the global economy, setting in motion a low-carbon transition that will continue regardless of who wins the US elections this year, outgoing US climate envoy John Kerry said in Davos on Tuesday.

Voluntary carbon stakeholders have expressed an optimistic outlook for the market over the next 12 months, with robust year-end credit retirements, a swathe of imminent developments aiming to boost integrity, and expected price support from the UN's CORSIA aviation offsetting scheme, all cited as reasons for why the VCM will be able to move forward after a bumpy 2023.

RGGI allowance (RGA) values dipped from all-time highs recorded during the week prior, as activity quieted ahead of the US long weekend.

Converting organic matter, such as crop residues and livestock manure, into biomethane and biogenic CO2 using anaerobic digestion, could facilitate the capture of 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to an academic study.

A sharp drop in carbon credit prices last year has left the top ranked projects by ratings agencies commanding a 200% premium on average over the lowest rated units, analysis has found.

India's largest carbon offset developer, EKI Energy, has launched its first cookstove pilot project in partnership with a major government-owned oil firm, the developer said Tuesday.

Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) could contribute up to 1 million hectares of land towards Germany's Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) target to protect 30% of its land and sea by 2030 (30x30), researchers have found.

Europeans lawmakers formally approved on Tuesday new rules to minimise emissions from powerful greenhouse gases, in particular to phase out fluorinated greenhouse gases (F-gases) by 2050, and debated a bill to empower consumers for the green transition.