Carbon Pulse

The UN and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) have unveiled a new tool for quantifying and accounting for ecosystem values under a previously-launched framework and standard, a facility designed to complement current measurements of GDP.

Fewer petroleum-based fuel sales due to COVID-19 restrictions and strong renewable diesel (RD) volumes will result in a modest California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credit surplus in the fourth quarter of 2020, analysts said Thursday.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices surged on the secondary market amid increased speculative demand over the week, while RGGI Allowance (RGA) values rose as entities looked to move positions further out on the curve.

South Korea has appointed three additional market makers in a bid to boost liquidity in its emissions trading scheme, the government said on Thursday, bringing in the first private sector firms beyond those with compliance obligations.

EU carbon was little changed on Thursday, hovering near €48 as the annual ETS compliance cycle neared its end while data showed increasing investor flows.

The global maritime industry should look into emissions-cutting projects within the sector instead of relying on offsets, a representative from a Europe-based shipping company said Thursday, as the industry braces for EU mitigation measures.

California’s compliance offset programme could have erroneously issued up to nearly 40 million credits to forestry projects, and developers utilised gaps in the state’s protocol to inflate emissions reductions attributed to those initiatives, according to a non-profit study released Thursday.

The EU’s largest airline Ryanair plans to power an eighth of its flights with sustainable aviation fuel by 2030, it said on Thursday, aiming to fend off prospects to regulate more of its climate impact.

Germany will need to set further post-2030 emissions reduction measures by the end of next year, the country’s top court ordered on Thursday in a ruling that found its national climate law ‘partly unconstitutional’.

Swedish utility Vattenfall’s EU ETS-covered power output dipped 1.5% year-on-year in Q1, outpacing a 0.6% drop in total generation, the company said in its quarterly results on Thursday.

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Large US industrial timber companies are beginning to embrace reforestation through carbon finance, leaving small forest owners and government agencies key to scaling up offset efforts, a conference heard Wednesday.

Large stationary installations regulated under Canada’s ‘backstop’ output-based pricing system (OBPS) will likely not use any Alberta offsets for compliance against 2020 emissions, as higher prices and political risk make such purchases difficult, a panel heard Wednesday.

California regulator ARB issued roughly 63,000 new compliance offsets to two livestock projects this week, while Quebec divvied out over 40,000 credits for use in its cap-and-trade programme, according to data published Wednesday.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) of various types is technologically ready to be deployed at scale but needs streamlined permitting, increased tax incentives, and broad public outreach to do so, a conference heard on Wednesday.

A bipartisan group of Senators approved a resolution on Wednesday that would nullify Trump-era regulations on methane emissions for the oil and gas sector, effectively reimposing Obama-era rules that sought to cut output of the climate-warming pollutant.

Dominion Energy argued its auction-centric RGGI procurement strategy is a prudent approach to meet compliance obligations at a electricity rate hearing Wednesday, while adding the Virginia-based utility is also working on a multi-year secondary market purchase to cover CO2 output.

Utility RWE reported a 33.5% year-on-year rise in its EU ETS-covered thermal generation in Q1, the company said on Wednesday, boosting the carbon demand of one of the market’s biggest buyers.

The British government on Wednesday set out the eligibility criteria for participation in its carbon allowance auctions, which are scheduled to kick off next month.

The EU’s objective to go beyond net zero emissions after 2050 highlights the need for a policy on carbon removals, as the European Commission prepares two key legislative proposals to compensate for and certify carbon sinks.