Carbon Pulse

Bulgaria’s supreme court deferred a decision on Tuesday that could have shut down one of the biggest coal power plants in the EU ETS, according to green groups frustrated that their long-running air pollution battle is now set to continue.

European carbon began the month of August on a mixed note on Tuesday, with early strength giving way to sustained selling that drove prices to a new 11-day low even as the first of the month's reduced-volume auctions took place, while UK Allowances dropped to their lowest in two years as the outlook for demand continued to worsen.

A collective of more than 150 companies and associations has called on the French government to make the regeneration of nature the focal point of its laws regarding development, in a column in Le Monde published Tuesday.

The founders of a carbon exchange are counting on an upswell of compliance carbon pricing to drive demand for carbon credits in the coming years, with the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) expected to speed a global expansion and ratcheting up of carbon pricing schemes and the eventual convergence of the voluntary and compliance markets.

A Luxembourg-based ocean fund has increased its funding target after attracting €30 million from an insurance company, while investing in a Norwegian tech firm specialising in harvesting seafood from the seabed without harming ecosystems.

German utility Uniper's EU ETS-covered power production fell by over one fifth in the first six months of 2023 compared to 2022, as it announced plans to triple its green investments in the coming years, in quarterly results published Tuesday.

British lawmakers have opened a consultation to scrutinise whether the UK government’s policies to promote natural capital and investment in biodiversity protection are adequate, focusing on greenwashing risks as well as how best to scale private finance to achieve the goals of imminent biodiversity net gain legislation. 

A power company in Japan has introduced a self-consignment service for businesses to generate domestically issued J-Credits from solar projects, the first of its kind in the country, aiming to streamline the credit creation process.

Stepping up efforts to protect and restore seagrass in Indonesia, as well as counting it in its climate change monitoring and reporting frameworks, could drastically mitigate the country’s CO2 emissions, according to new research.

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

The Republic of Congo and an Italian company have signed an $88 million agreement to develop a carbon forestry project in the country, they announced Monday.

Chinese steel firms are making considerable investments in new coal-based steelmaking capacity, even though the sector continues to suffer from multiple issues including low profitability and overcapacity, a report has found.

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard net credits exceeded the 1 million mark for the fourth straight quarter during the January-March period, though the total additions to the programme's surplus bank slowed for the second three-month stretch in a row, according to state data published Monday.

RGGI Allowance (RGA) values kept up recent momentum to new register new year-to-date highs this week amid the latest spike in California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices, while the first legal challenge to Virginia's planned cap-and-trade repeal regulation was announced Monday.

Benchmark California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices on Monday traded at a record high for the third time in the past four sessions, as market participants pointed to the impact of state regulator ARB’s potential cap-and-trade allowance budget cuts and options volatility sellers raced to cover their deltas amid the rally.

Pervasive growth in retail consumers purchasing offsets to mitigate the environmental impact of their expenditures will drive voluntary carbon market growth to outsized proportions, a global consultancy outlined in its annual financial predictions on Monday.

Governments' recent declarations to exercise more control over carbon market activities in their jurisdictions are far less an example of “nationalisation risk” than a case of a maturing market where countries are making an understandable and arguably inevitable assertion of sovereignty over their natural resources, writes Verra's Robin Rix.

The prices of most standardised voluntary carbon market contracts fell over the past week with volume concentrated on project-specific nature-based projects, one exchange noted, as the market digested the publication of a much-awaited set of guidelines for carbon credit supply.

The Qatar-based Global Carbon Council (GCC) and Seoul-headquartered Climate Change Center (CCC) on Monday said they will form a partnership to promote voluntary carbon markets in their respective geographic areas.

The EU will commit €466 million to green initiatives in the Philippines and relaunch negotiations for a free trade agreement with the Southeast Asian country, the European Commission announced on Monday.