Carbon Pulse

A major US-headquartered exchange operator Nasdaq is pivoting blockchain technology originally developed for cryptocurrency trading towards carbon markets.

The European Parliament and Council of EU member states have reached a provisional deal on rules setting obligations for large companies to identify and remedy risks to the environment, human rights, and health arising from their value chain, including an obligation for companies to adopt Paris Agreement-aligned climate plans.

European carbon prices were largely steady on Thursday morning, as traders digested the relatively light price impact of the options expiry on Wednesday, as well as the weekly Commitment of Traders data that showed investment funds extended their short positions, while Dec-23 positions continued to be rolled into the Dec-24 contract.

Several companies have announced a partnership to ship captured CO2 from an UK ETS-covered gas power plant in southeast England up to northeast Scotland to then pipe onto permanent storage below the North Sea using re-purposed gas pipelines.

Co-legislators for the European Parliament and Council of member states struck a deal to reform the EU’s electricity market design early on Thursday morning, aiming to reform the market so as to shield citizens from higher energy prices and enable increased investments in renewable capacity.

A major Japanese power company has inked an agreement with a global commodity trader for the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) alongside investment in a nature-based carbon project in Australia, which it said was the first deal of its kind in Japan.

Tech giant Microsoft has collaborated with a biochar producer for large-scale removal of carbon emissions with credits to be delivered within the next six months, the company announced.

A consortium led by a Japanese bank has teamed up with two regional governments for the development of forest-based carbon credits under the domestic J-Credit programme, the companies announced Thursday.

New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission (CCC) has provided its first set of advice to the newly elected conservative government, saying it is not on track to meet its 2030 climate goals, and has urged it to resolve underlying issues with its emissions trading scheme.

All Australian banks and investors will soon need to make zero-deforestation commitments because it is increasingly well known that Australia is a deforestation hotspot, and this is attracting the scrutiny of legislators, consumers, and investors, the Wilderness Society writes.

A group of companies said Thursday they have bid to explore several of the 10 areas made available for carbon capture and storage location exploration by the Australian government earlier this year in a bid to establish themselves in the emerging Asia-Pacific CCS value chain.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific has filed a lawsuit against a major oil and gas company over claims the company has made in connection with its use of offset credits.

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

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) is looking to advance infrastructure for transport and storage of CO2 from industrial and power generation sources in pursuit of federal climate goals.

California boosted the issuance of compliance-grade offsets since the prior distribution in November, but none of the credits were tagged with direct environmental benefits to the state (DEBs) this time round, according to data published by the state regulator ARB on Wednesday.

Voluntary carbon market (VCM) proponents are pressed to bring integrity to the ecosystem with new tools outlined across multiple events on the sidelines of the COP28 UN climate summit, but the collapse of negotiations on international emissions trade in Dubai may hinder efforts to converge markets.

Bolivia has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a global carbon standard to educate stakeholders and share knowledge about the nation's carbon market activity.

Researchers evaluating the robustness of carbon credit baselines for jurisdictional-scale avoided deforestation projects have exposed serious challenges in their accuracy and consistency, according to a new study.

A Belfast-based carbon capture firm on Wednesday announced partnerships with four more cement manufacturers aimed at expediting the implementation of this nascent technology within their operations.

The auction of December current vintage units for Washington’s WCI-modelled cap-and-invest programme sold out just under the Allowance Price Containment Reserve (APCR) Tier 1 price, while the second advance sale settled much lower, according to results published Wednesday.