Carbon Pulse

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

Some 11 NGOs are suing the European Commission over its inclusion of biomass and forestry activities in the bloc-wide Taxonomy Regulation, they announced on Friday, arguing that rather than channelling private capital into climate action the move would exacerbate warming and forest degradation.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices withstood broader market setbacks after a higher-than-expected inflation print on Tuesday and following regulator comments on cap-and-trade programme changes, while RGGI Allowances (RGAs) held their ground despite last week’s Q3 auction clearing failing to continue a 1.5-year streak of record settlements.

An Ottawa-headquartered personalised carbon footprint calculator and offset investor has raised C$25 million ($18.9 mln) in equity financing from a Newfoundland-based iron company and high-net worth investors, according to a press release Thursday.

Infrastructure that aims to compile and standardise information from the world’s fragmented carbon markets will launch to the public next month, with partners and founders at the World Bank Group providing more details on how the metadata platform will operate and help scale the market.

Emissions from the maritime shipping sector inched higher in the first half of the year, according to research by a shipbroker that comes as EU institutions prepare to resume negotiations over how to include the sector in the bloc's ETS starting within the next couple of years.

The California cap-and-trade system will see allowance supply exceed demand in 2022 before switching later on this decade, while market fundamentals in the Northeast US RGGI scheme will move in the opposite direction, analysts said this week.

More than 5 million carbon credits will be generated by a cookstoves project in Malawi after a project developer found backing from a Swiss-based investment foundation

Crypto carbon group KlimaDAO has finally rid the market of more than 670,000 remaining carbon credit tokens from a Chinese HFC-23 project that were bought onto blockchain last year, acting alone after fellow tech firm Toucan Protocol declined to join in.

The price direction of EU carbon allowances will continue to be directed by the scale of emissions from fossil burning utilities balanced against the curtailment of energy consumption by industry this winter, an audience heard Thursday.

EUAs drifted lower in a relatively calm market on Thursday morning as traders caught their breath after Wednesday's volatility surrounding the 'State of the EU' speech, while energy prices were slightly higher as French nuclear generator EDF lowered its estimate for output this year.

Participants in the fledgling on-chain carbon market are looking to move past public perceptions of the industry’s unfeasibly high carbon footprint after the world’s second-biggest blockchain on Thursday made operational changes that will shed 99.5% of its energy consumption.

A coalition of scientists backed by multiple global governments and US space agency NASA will launch a free-to-access digital platform in November to track using AI and satellite data the carbon emissions and removal of all forests across the globe.

The investment needed to decarbonise the steel and iron ore industry by 2050 could reach as high as $1.4 trillion over the next three decades, in order to finance “revolution” across every stage of the value chain, consultants said in a report released Thursday.

Oil and gas company Woodside Energy Group says offsets are likely to be an easier option to invest in than CCS in order to neutralise carbon emissions from its proposed Browse LNG development offshore Western Australia.

Samsung Electronics will target net zero emissions by 2050, spend 7 trillion won ($5 billion) on green and low emission technologies, and has joined RE100, which aims for corporates to reach 100% renewable energy use, the South Korean company announced on Thursday.

The head of a global carbon fund has argued that the mitigation hierarchy surrounding offsets needs to be turned on its head, and that it was unjust for rich nations to withhold revenues that stem from carbon markets to poorer nations that need it.

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

South African business groups have urged the government to slow the proposed pace of national carbon tax increases for fear it could hurt growth and hinder their decarbonisation strategies.

A Berlin-based startup that aims to help the cement industry slash its carbon emissions has secured €10 million in Series A funding.