Carbon Pulse

EUAs climbed above €70 for the first time in over a week on Wednesday, though prices later fell back in thin trade as EU chief Ursula von der Leyen suggested boosting the size of the bloc’s REPowerEU initiative that is already set to be partly funded by carbon allowance sales.

WCI emitters in the third quarter moved the largest number of allowances into compliance accounts since 2018, while the linked cap-and-trade system's compliance instrument glut continued to tick higher, according to programme data published Wednesday.

A shortfall of voluntary carbon offsets could become reality later this decade in a high demand, low supply scenario, analysts said Wednesday.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Inc. (“RGGI, Inc.”) seeks to hire a Program Associate to be based in New York City.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday called for a boost to funding for the REPowerEU programme to exit Russian fossil fuels, arguing that the bloc otherwise risked fragmentation as member states roll out different levels of support to citizens and businesses.

Carbon markets will play an essential role in scaling engineered removals such as direct air capture (DAC), experts told an event on Wednesday, but initial government support is also key given the current cost of the technology.

The nascent direct air capture (DAC) industry needs supply chains to develop and coordination with the ramp up in renewable energy for the technology to move past proof-of-concept and start to scale, a conference heard Wednesday.

With gas prices set to remain elevated for at least five years, there is now a clear price signal for green hydrogen switching supported by a carbon price, experts told an event on Wednesday, noting that a lack of infrastructure is now a more significant bottleneck to decarbonising heavy industry and transport in the EU.

Western Australia’s (WA) state Environmental Protection Authority has outlined measures for GHG abatement at Chevron’s Gorgon gas and LNG project that will require the project’s operator to commence a straight line GHG emissions reduction trajectory from 2025 to achieve net zero GHG emissions by 2050.

New Zealand’s climate change minister has suggested that large emitters would have to buy forestry NZUs from the government rather than from foresters in what would be a dramatic shakeup of the ETS, according to domestic media reports.

Japan’s hydrogen strategy is misguided in terms of what hydrogen can be best used for and how it can be best produced, and needs to be fundamentally revised if it is to contribute to the country’s decarbonisation goals, a Japanese green energy think tank has argued in a report.

Land-based carbon credit projects could be severely threatened by worsening climate change impacts, according to Australia National University, urging the government to reassess the risk-of-reversal buffer in its carbon accounting.  

A decentralised exchange (DEX) has launched an option that will allow its users to have all their transactions on the platform automatically offset.

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

Steady year-on-year growth in renewables generation was enough to meet the rise in global electricity demand in the first half of 2022, enabling global power sector emissions to be unchanged from the same period last year, according to analysis from an energy and climate think-tank released on Wednesday.

The CEO and owner of an electric vehicle company recently charged with committing Oregon Clean Fuels Program (OCFP) fraud by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and facing a multi-million-dollar penalty – the largest in agency history – said on social media Tuesday that he plans to file an appeal.

Introducing zero waste systems in cities around the world would be one of the quickest and most affordable ways to reduce CO2 and methane emissions, a report published on Tuesday found, with the potential to save 1.4 billion tonnes of CO2e from the waste sector alone.

A certifier expects to issue its first credits in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) this month, it revealed Tuesday as it rolled out a new methodology for forestry conservation that will quantify greenhouse gas removal.

One of the world's few urban forestry offset projects to date has been awarded high marks by a ratings agency this week, while two cookstove schemes have had their ratings reaffirmed.

Integrating carbon removals into the EU ETS will be essential to meet the current near-zero emissions goal by 2040, describing them as a "blind spot" in light of their current lack of attention ahead of crunch reforms due by the end of the year, an event heard on Tuesday.