Carbon Pulse

Under the radar corporate activity is continuing to drive the net zero agenda despite the US pullback from international and domestic climate initiatives this year under President Donald Trump, analysts said Tuesday on a webinar.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices briefly raced higher in early trade Tuesday as California lawmakers along with the governor released a joint statement in support of extending the cap-and-trade programme faced with federal actions seeking to terminate state-led carbon markets.

The European Commission launched a public consultation on Tuesday to reform its Innovation Fund, which was six times oversubscribed last year, and draws money from the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to finance emerging low-carbon technologies across the EU.

Polish power producer PGE, one of the largest emitters in the EU ETS, posted an 18% annual drop in hard coal generation and a 3% rise in lignite in 2024, in preliminary full-year figures published on Tuesday.

Clean energy projects will be prioritised for connection to the UK’s electricity grid under reforms to be confirmed on Tuesday by energy markets regulator Ofgem, with the government projecting the move will unlock £40 billion in annual investment.

Projects that use naturally occurring bacteria to capture methane emissions, and turn it into organic fertiliser are cropping up in the US, with one company looking to generate carbon credits from activities on oil and gas sites, landfills, and dairy farms.

 The new EU Emissions Trading System (ETS2) for building and road transport fuels risks creating a boomerang effect with prices modelled to start at well over €100 per tonne of CO2, unless there are further investments and social policies to support European households, according to new research.

Germany’s coal phaseout has been mostly successful, but only because it was structured to fit with the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), according to a new academic paper, which recommends aligning the country's future climate policies with wider European measures.

Sweden is set to miss its climate targets for sectors not covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), with projected gaps of 7 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, 4 Mt by 2040 and 21 Mt by 2045, according to the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Norwegian industrials affected by the EU ETS will receive NOK 7 billion (€0.58 bln) annually through the country’s industrial support scheme, but nearly half of the money must now be directed towards decarbonisation measures, the government announced Tuesday.

Transition carbon credits, generated from the early retirement of coal-fired power plants (CFPP), could potentially reduce the losses incurred from the shutdown of such plants in Asia, a report released Tuesday has found.

EU carbon prices rose for a fourth successive day on Tuesday, briefly coming within range of a technical level after a flurry of mid-morning buying, before easing back off, as trading activity began to diminish ahead of the Easter holiday.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) held a meeting with government officials on Monday to explore the development of a national scheme for biodiversity credits.

China has outlined this year's compliance deadlines and relevant tasks under the national emissions trading scheme for regional regulators and emitters.

The European Commission has launched a call for evidence on the revision of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), ahead of a formal legislative update due in Q3 next year that will look at extending the scheme to new sectors in order to reach the bloc’s upcoming 2040 climate target.

Tech giant Microsoft has continued to expand its portfolio of carbon removal (CDR) credits after inking the world’s largest offtake deal to date from a US bioenergy carbon capture and storage project (BECCS).

The 129 member banks of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) have approved a new protocol that changes previously mandatory requirements for reducing clients’ emissions into non-binding 'best practice' guidelines.

An Australian junior with hopes of decarbonising the high-emitting concrete production sector said Tuesday an independent trial using its product confirmed it can decarbonise concrete while “delivering significant gains in concrete strength”.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination (MoCCEC) has issued Host Country Approval (HCA) and Letter of Intent (LoI) to two offset projects under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, in a major step to operationalise its carbon markets.

New Zealand’s GHG emissions continued to drop in 2023, as the country closes in on the halfway point for its biogenic methane reduction goal.