Carbon Pulse

The environmental justice committee for California state regulator ARB on Thursday asked the Board to immediately scrap avoided methane credits in the agency's forthcoming Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rulemaking, as well as impose limits for lipid biofuels.

Australia announced on Friday it has cancelled its more than 700 million remaining Kyoto Protocol-era carbon credits to make sure no future government will be able to use them towards the country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.

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

In the base case scenario outlined by Wood Mackenzie’s new ‘Energy Transition Outlook’, an annual investment of $1.9 trillion is required to decarbonise the world's energy sector – a figure that escalates to US$2.7 trillion should the objective pivot to aligning with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C global warming limit.

Quebec distributed the remainder of its 2022 free carbon market permits on Thursday, with the year-on-year total seeing a slight decrease while the number of recipients remained the same, according to the data released by the province's environment ministry.

Confectionery and pet care titan Mars on Thursday pledged to invest over $1 billion over the next three years as it pursues a halving of its value chain CO2 emissions by 2030 and net zero by mid-century.

Four of the most popular forest protection offset methodologies give excessive flexibility and discretionary space to project developers, resulting in exaggerated climate impacts and overestimation of carbon credits issued, a policy watchdog detailed in a summary report of academic research released Friday.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and Washington Carbon Allowance (WCA) prices both increased this week despite volume going in opposite directions, while traders said regulatory drivers in the former market and heightened permit demand in the latter were behind the gains.

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) values dipped on Thursday afternoon to more than reverse a brief early-week rally, as traders said state regulator ARB’s extended timeline for implementing more ambitious carbon intensity (CI) reduction targets will come under pressure from the programme’s exploding surplus bank.

A global investment firm on Thursday announced the closing of one of the largest climate-focused funds to date, and will target investments in early- and growth-stage startups that drive timely decarbonisation.

A non-profit forest carbon measurement firm has launched a global radar-based alert system to detect tree-related disturbances, offering real-time information from forest in every biome worldwide.

Rugby World Cup 2023 host France has launched a tender seeking offers for carbon credits to compensate for the emissions resulting from the ongoing tournament.

Investment in the voluntary carbon market will tumble sharply in the next two years after a surge of money flooded in over the last two-and-a-half years when carbon credits prices hit a peak, according to research published on Thursday.

Lack of progress towards climate goals is undermining global efforts to tackle hunger, poverty, ill health, access to clean water and energy, and many other aspects of sustainable development, according to a UN report released Thursday.

The City of London Corporation has called for the UK to include marine biodiversity in its nature credits market as a “matter of urgency” as part of its ambition for the country to become a global nature finance centre, it has said.

A moratorium should be placed on the highly controversial practice of geoengineering to control climate change, while allowing for ongoing research into the possibilities of using solar radiation management given the magnitude of the problem and the need to prepare the ground for future generations, an expert body concluded in a report published Thursday.

Next week's summit, organised by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres in New York, will provide an opportunity to hold the rich world to account for their poor record on climate finance and set the tone for core topics of discussion at COP28 in Dubai at the end of the year, a webinar heard Thursday.

A Brazilian fintech firm is aiming to raise R$300 million ($61 mln) for a second carbon credit-focused fund after the success of its first offering and hopes to benefit from the proposed emissions trading scheme in the country, a local media outlet reported Wednesday.

The durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) market could grow to $135 billion by 2040 if the price of units can fall to $150 per tonne, according to projections made in a report this week from one of the world's largest consultancy firms.

The UN body responsible for guiding the Paris Agreement's carbon crediting mechanism made significant progress at this week's penultimate meeting, with observers noting they had never seen such consensus among the group, but ultimately failed to adopt final texts on methodological guidance after running out of time, leaving crunch discussions for the final meeting later this year.