Carbon Pulse

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

South Korea this week signed a number of bilateral deals with Laos on the development of large-scale solar and landfill projects, as Seoul is seeking to leverage the Article 6 mechanism of the Paris Agreement.

The New Zealand government has agreed to reconsider the current price settings and controls of its ETS, after it admitted in the High Court that it made a mistake leaving them largely unchanged at the end of last year.

Strategic deployment of direct air capture and storage (DACS) technology can help bring costs down from current levels, though they are unlikely to drop below $100/tonne of CO2 without strong policy support like integrating removals into carbon markets, according to a journal article published Thursday.

A flurry of activity after the close of the secondary market on Wednesday and into Thursday trade, in light of the ARB announcing the next cap-and-trade public workshop date, lifted California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices to year-to-date highs, while Washington Carbon Allowances (WCAs) rose slightly in light transaction activity through the week.

A Virginia regulatory agency granted the reinstatement of utility Dominion Energy’s request to recoup the costs of tens of millions of RGGI allowances on Wednesday via an extra charge on customers’ bills before the state's planned exit from the power sector carbon market this year.

California regulator ARB during the forthcoming cap-and-trade rulemaking should implement an Emissions Containment Reserve (ECR) to help address allowance oversupply in a predictable manner, a collection of environmental organisations, business groups, and utilities said in public comments.

Carbon credit certifier Verra released a new methodology on Thursday to quantify emissions reductions from activities that avoid food loss and waste (FLW) by keeping food in the human supply chain.

Oil major ExxonMobil announced on Thursday it has purchased a US-headquartered carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) solutions company with a vast network of CO2 pipelines across the South.

A Washington lawmaker on Thursday said New York should not emulate the Evergreen State’s 10% allowance purchase limit for compliance entities at cap-and-trade auctions, noting he hopes to revisit the rule in the next legislative session.

The Asia Society Policy Institute, a solutions-oriented think and do tank headquartered in New York with an office in Washington, D.C., seeks an Associate Director as part of the clean energy transition pillar of a new and innovative China Climate Hub that will produce cutting edge and rapid response analysis of developments related to China’s climate policies; and undertake various behind-the-scenes work to support the international community’s understanding of and engagement with China’s climate action agenda.

The UN body with a mandate to shape carbon crediting under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement has signalled that draft recommendations on removals are to be prepared by the end of August as it scrambles to ready guidance before the UN's main COP28 climate summit at the end of the year.

Brazil's national cap-and-trade legislation will pass Congress by the time the country hosts the COP30 UN climate summit in 2025, a government official said Wednesday.

A Vancouver-headquartered environmental asset investor on Thursday announced it is aiming to combine with another company in order to pursue a listing on the US-based Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

Governments should use all means necessary for decarbonisation, said the president of the upcoming COP28 UN climate summit, Sultan al-Jaber said on Thursday while unveiling his long-awaited plan for the meeting.

New analysis has warned against Australia adopting legislation to allow the transboundary transport and underground storage of CO2, claiming it will encourage more investment in CCS, which the analysts argue is a failed technology that must be abandoned.

More than three-quarters of all oil and gas production in the US Gulf of Mexico features lower greenhouse gas intensity than the average for the basin, according to a new analysis.

A California-based startup that produces water from removed CO2 has signed strategic partnerships with ConocoPhillips, JetBlue Ventures, and Shell Ventures, securing more than $80 million in multi-year investments towards developing its innovative technology.

European shipping emissions rose 3% year-on-year in 2022 though remained below pre-pandemic levels, according to analysis published on Thursday that shows LNG-carriers and cruise ships to be the main drivers of the increase for the sector due to face ETS obligations from next year.

The European Commission on Thursday announced the results of the third call for large-scale projects under the bloc’s EU ETS-financed Innovation Fund, with €3.6 billion being disbursed to 41 clean tech activities.