Carbon Pulse

European carbon extended its rally for a third day on Friday morning, climbing to its highest in a month as the market speculated whether recent short covering has been overtaken by investors building new long positions, while gas prices fell for a fifth day as the supply outlook continues to improve.

A US-based green steel firm has secured $120 million of Series C fundraising led by EU-based multinational steelmaker ArcelorMittal, it announced on Friday, with tech giant Microsoft also involved.

Sweden’s CircHive and UK-based NatureAlpha this week became the latest initiatives seeking to offer businesses and financials insight into their impact on nature and how to deal with it, a field that is rapidly becoming crowded.

Japan aims to secure between 6 -12 million tonnes of CO2 storage annually by 2030, with the target acting as a benchmark to realise a longer-term goal to reach storage capacity of the greenhouse gas of between 120-240 Mt annually by 2050, according to a CCS roadmap released by the Japanese government on Thursday.

Japanese companies looking to voluntarily offset their emissions from activities abroad will from now on be allowed to use J-Credits for the purpose, the government said on Friday.

South Korea has signed its first government contract to buy Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) carbon credits from a landfill gas project in Uzbekistan.

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A non-profit Canadian conservation group along with federal and provincial governments, First Nations, and several private and individual donors announced Thursday an agreement to establish a conservancy in the Incomappleux Valley of south-eastern British Columbia.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices retraced this week to continue a relatively weak first month of the new year, while Washington carbon market participants await further clarity on price developments from next month's auction and as more entities register for the programme.

The co-founder of a carbon credit ratings agency on Thursday urged the UN to ensure that the "lessons of the voluntary carbon market" are applied to the issuance of credits under the Paris Agreement's Article 6, referring to recent media allegations of over-crediting in REDD+ projects.

Pilot trading in Russia's domestic carbon market has begun on the gas-rich island of Sakhalin after two projects have been issued with credits, economy minister Maxim Reshetnikov was reported as saying. 

The Canadian affiliate of oil major ExxonMobil on Thursday announced a C$720 mln ($539 mln) investment in a renewable diesel facility that will lower emissions under both provincial and federal low-carbon fuel standards.

Concerns about over-crediting of REDD+ forest conservation projects have rekindled debate on whether carbon removals are preferable to carbon avoidance, though the differences are not always clear.

Understanding the scalability of different carbon removal methods is a crucial first step on this journey towards achieving the billions of tonnes of removals a year needed to meet international climate targets, write Ted Christie-Miller and Victoria Harvey of BeZero Carbon.

A carbon credit rating agency has created a scalability assessment for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies, as the voluntary market tilts further towards projects that remove rather than avoid CO2 emissions.

EUAs extended their recent sharp gains to reach a one-month high on Thursday on the back of what was generally acknowledged to be a short squeeze by speculative traders, while energy prices were mixed amid forecasts for higher temperatures and increased wind generation.

Several Japanese companies announced collaborations on Thursday to sign a total of four agreements  to develop CCS value chains in both Japan and the broader Asia-Pacific region, as momentum builds for carbon capture and storage to play a more integral role in meeting the decarbonisation goals of the country’s large industrial emitters.

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Investors at the London Stock Exchange have launched the Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030 to raise the industry’s sustainability standards across a number of issues, including biodiversity protection.

Conservation charity Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and carbon standard Plan Vivo International (PVI) have released a set of proposed high-integrity standards for the emerging voluntary biodiversity credit market to help guard against greenwashing and low-quality units.