Carbon Pulse

The demand for carbon credits in the international voluntary carbon markets is terrible and needs to be fixed, the prime minister of Bhutan said at a panel discussion on the first day of COP29 in Azerbaijan on Monday.

News of the COP29 presidency securing an early Article 6 outcome during Monday’s opening plenary session lifted spirits in the voluntary market, which had been left uneasy by last week’s election of Donald Trump to the White House despite improving liquidity amid a typical fourth quarter pick-up.

Azerbaijan's COP29 presidency secured an early endorsement of key methodological standards under Article 6 during Monday's opening plenary, driven to action by two years of failure at the annual UN climate summit to move forward on the Paris Agreement's carbon crediting mechanism.

US climate envoy John Podesta acknowledged the election of Donald Trump as “disappointing” for climate action, but remained steadfast in continued private sector and subnational-led efforts to reduce emissions at COP29 on Monday.

Further details from the UN aviation body ICAO on its voluntary credit approvals is unlikely to be published until the end of the month at the earliest, according to Verra’s CEO, making it hard to say when eligible credits are likely to appear and from what countries.

Initial recommendations for a joint Article 6.2 Crediting Protocol between Singapore, Verra, and Gold Standard advise synchronised, detailed reporting and credit traceability between UN, national, and private carbon registries – but avoid consolidation, giving each a distinct role.

A veteran carbon trader has joined a London-based energy transition investment firm as partner, Carbon Pulse has learned.

Standards body Cercarbono is working hard to be approved for Phase 1 of aviation offsetting scheme CORSIA and expects to receive first assessment by ICVCM for its Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) by year end, while it has also launched a circular economy programme with a first project in Bangladesh.

UN Regional Collaboration Centres (RCCs) channelling funds from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have played a key role in developing notable Article 6 and carbon pricing initiatives in the Global South, with ongoing projects expected to yield further concrete outcomes in the near and medium term.

Approximately half of China's protected areas (PAs) overlap with priority sites for species preservation, indicating high potential for enhancing conservation efforts across the country, according to a new paper.

New and broader compliance nature markets are needed in the UK to meet the 2030 biodiversity target, as voluntary schemes and existing regulations are not sufficient to drive business investment, a London-based think tank has said.

European carbon prices started the week brightly, catching a boost from rising gas and power but failing to hold on the full extent of the increase even as the energy markets consolidated their gains.

The state-owned oil company (SOCAR) of COP29 host Azerbaijan has made some $8 billion of deals with foreign firms in the year leading up to the talks, according to analysis published Monday.

Chinese legislators have passed the country's first energy law, giving additional legal clout to the development of renewable energy and hydrogen.

The EU does not have a single operational CO2 storage site, but the ambition of storing 50 million tonnes of CO2 a year from 2030, and while oil and gas operators are likely to be responsible for delivering the target, they have less than a year, until June 2025, to confirm how many tonnes they will store and where. 

Two investors on Monday announced they had put an additional $100 million into a Colombian project to earn carbon removal credits from restoring degraded land.

It is Day 1 at COP29 as some 50,000 diplomats, observers, and other stakeholders descend on Baku, Azerbaijan. In our daily running blog, Carbon Pulse will report relevant or useful updates throughout the day. Timestamps are in local time (GMT+4).

The Bahamas envoy to the COP29 UN climate summit has called out Europe for seeking “business as usual” commercial relationships in bilateral green development talks, saying cooperation with China has yielded more results, particularly in areas like electric mobility.

Colombian carbon body Asocarbono and the National Federation of Timber Industries (Fedemaderas) have rejected a peer-reviewed study criticising Colombia’s afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) projects.

The COP29 presidency is pushing for an early endorsement of key carbon crediting standards under Article 6, Carbon Pulse has learned, though is facing resistance from several countries.