Carbon Pulse

Rio Tinto and trading house Marubeni have agreed to a first sale under a new strategic collaboration agreement to secure the supply of the mining giant’s low carbon aluminium products to downstream Japanese customers, the two companies announced on Thursday.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has updated its green bonds framework to allow the bonds to also fund biodiversity, ocean, and water protection, opening a new pathway for project finance.

Danish energy company Orsted has stepped up plans to enter the clean fuel market for shipping ahead of the maritime sector being introduced into Europe's carbon market.

A digital art exhibition in Melbourne has created its own form of carbon credits that are generated by acts of industrial sabotage, such as blockading coal ports and slashing SUV tyres.

An Australian low carbon technology start-up has signed a long-term strategic co-operation agreement with Austria’s RHI Magnesita, a supplier of refractory materials for heavy industries such as steel and cement, to help decarbonise the European company’s own global operations, it announced on Wednesday.

The Australian Greens have engaged in a pitched battle with the government over the Safeguard Mechanism, vowing that it will only pass the supporting legislation if Labor agrees to ban new coal and gas developments, while ACCU issuance remained low for a second consecutive week.

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

A US Senate hearing on Wednesday for a national clean transportation fuel standard saw Republicans and Democrats clash and industry panellists take sides over technology-neutrality and the benefits of existing state-level low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) programmes.

The central bank of one of the world's largest economies has suggested that so-called "debt-for-nature" swaps could tackle two of the world's most significant issues - the rising debts facing low-income countries and nature degradation - but cautioned that the full effects and associated risks of the policy must be fully considered.

The World Bank on Tuesday announced it has partnered with a private Vietnamese company to issue upfront capital for a water purifier initiative funded through the sale of carbon credits.

A Texas-headquartered company on Wednesday announced it has gained $4 million in seed funding to scale up carbon removals from belowground fungal biodiversity restoration to the tune of 3 billion tonnes by 2050.

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) values increased slightly from 5.5-year lows this week as traders pointed to a forthcoming workshop that may provide more details on ratcheting up the transportation sector programme’s environmental ambition.

US biofuel credit (RIN) prices rebounded from two-month lows after the past week, which traders attributed to refiners stepping back in after selling down the market.

Carbon market analysts on Wednesday pointed to the strong likelihood that South America will significantly increase its REDD+ carbon credit issuance in the coming months and years, with jurisdictional-level methodologies quickly increasing in prominence.

A carbon removals marketplace is spearheading a campaign to urge the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance (NZAO) to reverse its recent decision to exclude their members use of carbon removals for their own sub-portfolio or sector climate targets before 2030.

The European Commission is due to present three new legislative proposals for its energy and industrial policy next month, EU sources said on Wednesday as lawmakers struggled to unite on how the bloc should best support its industries to decarbonise. 

The Swedish Energy Agency has proposed that state-supported removals credits from bioenergy carbon capture and storage (bio-CCS) projects could be sold onto the voluntary carbon market (VCM), with the units counted towards achieving Sweden's national climate goals.

Swedish furniture firm Ikea said on Wednesday that its value chain emissions fell 5% in 2022 year-on-year due to renewable energy use, reiterating that its wider 2030 climate goals will not be achieved by purchasing carbon offsets.

A US-based start-up is on a mission to help governments make it profitable to implement and enforce Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) by setting up an open-access analytics platform that among other things can form the basis for issuing biodiversity and blue carbon credits.

Returning hydro and nuclear generation is expected to help push EU ETS-covered emissions levels lower in 2023, despite a strengthening macroeconomic picture and low expectations of a resumption of coal-to-gas fuel switching.