Carbon Pulse

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

WCI compliance entities and speculators added length in the California Carbon Allowance (CCA) market this week as prices continued on a bull run fuelled by increased financial interest and rising 2022 floor outlooks, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

Stakeholders are advocating for a variety of technical tweaks to the Transportation & Climate Initiative Programme’s (TCI-P) draft cap-and-trade regulation, while industry groups claimed the four participating US jurisdictions’ CO2 reduction goals were unachievable.

The UK’s Environment Agency has rated domestic offsetting methods, attempting to form preferences for meeting its own net zero emissions goal and potentially setting a useful precedent for how other entities can follow.

Norwegian fertiliser company Yara launched a new business on Friday aimed at generating voluntary emissions reductions (VERs) from farmlands worldwide at upwards of $20 per tonne, adding to the spate of agriculture-focused carbon programmes unveiled in the past year.

California power sector emissions increased for the third consecutive month in March as electricity demand rose across the Golden State, according to California Independent System Operator (CAISO) data released this week.

The European Commission this week published another year's worth of trading records from the EU ETS emissions registry, offering a comprehensive glimpse of how carbon units equivalent to over 9.3 billion tonnes of CO2 were shifted across more than 30,000 transactions between May 2017 and Apr. 2018.

A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing, clean fuel standards, and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level this week, including developments in California, New York, and Virginia.

Swedish miner LKAB has filed a lawsuit against the European Commission over new benchmarks used to determine the free allocation of carbon allowances for steelmaking, according to documents seen by Carbon Pulse on Friday.

Singapore and Japan will steer international emissions trade talks on the Paris Agreement's Article 6 rulebook to a July ministerial-level meeting, according to Alok Sharma, President of the COP26 UN climate negotiations.

EU carbon held near record levels above €50 on Friday amid signs of continued investor inflows and as Europe's climate chief played down prospects of market intervention over soaring EUAs, while calling for even higher prices.

Two of Europe’s major airline groups have flagged difficulties in recovering from the COVID-19 crisis in Q1 2021, but expect demand to ramp up in the coming quarters as lockdown restrictions ease and vaccination rates accelerate.

The combined value of the two US-listed carbon allowance ETFs has topped a quarter of a billion dollars as investor cash continues to flood in.

The European Commission should be “very careful not to intervene” in the EU ETS amid the recent speculator-led rally that has brought allowance prices to a record above €50 this week, the bloc’s climate chief said Friday.

Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi and Switzerland-headquartered developer South Pole are planning a facility to assist companies in purchasing $300-800 million worth of carbon removals offsets a year.

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

*PREMIUM LISTING (viewable by non-subscribers until June 7) – For ICAP’s Secretariat based in Berlin, Germany, we are now seeking to recruit an analyst, consultant or advisor – candidates will be employed in one of these roles based on their level of prior professional experience.

Speculators continued to fuel bullish pressure for California Carbon Allowances (CCAs) on the secondary market this week, as RGGI allowance (RGA) prices hit a two-month high with an uptick in compliance demand.

Nature United seeks a proven and dynamic Provincial Policy Advisor to work with the Director of Strategic Partnerships and conservation program leads to develop and implement strategies to advance provincial and territorial government relations and achieve Nature United’s conservation goals through public policy, funding, and programming. 

European utilities Enel and Uniper both reported a year-on-year rebound in power output for Q1 on Thursday, with last year’s generation levels disrupted by the start of the coronavirus crisis and dampened by warmer weather.