Carbon Pulse

Senior MEPs negotiating EU carbon market reform may be nearing a deal on accepting a proposed second ETS for buildings and road transport, according to draft compromise amendments seen by Carbon Pulse on Friday.

Biofuel producer Renewable Energy Group (REG) saw higher year-on-year revenues from selling California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) credits during the first quarter of the year, according to a company filing published Thursday.

The UK is tightening the rules of additionality for forestry projects after a surge in the number of large-scale woodland planting projects tested the current criteria “to its limits”.

Hydro levels at multi-year lows across Europe will continue to support ETS-covered fossil fuel burn amid an already-tight regional power mix, with analysts expecting that the resulting rise in coal and gas generation could offset reductions from renewable capacity expansion in 2022 and support a year-on-year rise in EU power sector emissions.

Several European airlines this week reported greater confidence in achieving a sustained rebound in passenger numbers in 2022 due to easing pandemic restrictions, but demand will remain well below pre-pandemic levels meaning any resulting EUA and offset impact is likely to be muted.

Carbon prices repeated the early gains of the previous day on Friday, reaching a session high just below €92 amid robust buying, while energy markets drifted amid a worsening macroeconomic outlook and strong LNG supply to Europe.

A second shipping company has joined a unique scheme in the marine industry that allows participants to claim carbon credits for investment in retrofitting of vessels designed to reduce emissions.

Australia’s waste and resource recovery industry wants a bigger say in offset methodology issues on the basis that it generates more than one-third of all the Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) in the market.

Ontario’s opposition parties began campaigning this week to unseat the Progressive Conservatives in the June 2 election, with Premier Doug Ford’s decision to scrap the province’s WCI-linked cap-and-trade programme four years ago still looming large over the jurisdiction's climate policy.

AgriProve Solutions has added additional projects to the Clean Energy Regulator’s (CER) project registry, as opposition energy and climate spokesman Chris Bowen reiterated the Labort party’s commitment to add Safeguard Mechanism Credits and review Australia’s broader carbon market.  

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The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has rescheduled a hearing for next week where GOP lawmakers and the coal industry seek to block the implementation of the state’s RGGI-linked cap-and-trade regulation in July.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices vacillated this week as activity remained light ahead of the Q2 WCI auction, while bid-side interest in RGGI Allowance (RGAs) was robust on reported demand from emitters.

Frontloading more EUA sales over the next two years to raise cash for the bloc’s Innovation Fund would help accelerate the clean energy transition with limited bearish impact on carbon prices, ICIS analysts said in a position paper that suggests various scenarios for an upcoming EU proposal.

Offset project developer and retailer Bluesource on Thursday announced it has received the first offsets from improved forest management (IFM) projects explicitly tagged as removals, while voluntary carbon market (VCM) participants are already witnessing the price premium commanded by such credits over reduction-based units.  

Utility Dominion Energy on Thursday asked Virginia to suspend its existing rate case to recover RGGI allowance costs, as the company anticipates Governor Glenn Youngkin (D) will remove the state from the power sector cap-and-trade programme.

Senior MEPs are nearing agreement on parts of EU ETS reform, with alignments emerging on expanding the market to new sectors and backloading cap cuts, according to EU sources on Thursday.

Criticism abounds for carbon credits stemming from projects that do not result in any additional climate benefits, encouraging experts to figure out how the UN’s new crediting mechanism can avoid making the same mistakes in the post-2020 era.

A record volume of carbon credits traded on Xpansiv market’s CBL platform in Q1, although activity dropped sharply in April, the company announced Thursday.

California-based tech firm Pachama on Thursday announced it has raised an additional $55 million to develop forest offset projects and technologies that unlock the potential of nature, the latest instance of massive investment sums flowing into the voluntary carbon market (VCM).