Carbon Pulse

Poland may not hand out free EU carbon permits for 2022 to heavy industry before April - a month later than expected, the government announced Thursday.

Both California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and RGGI Allowance (RGA) values fell this week in tandem with the geopolitical-fuelled plunge in EU carbon and global equity values, with the losses negating early week gains in the WCI programme and coming just ahead of RGGI’s quarterly auction next week.

Calls to put a full embargo on Russian oil and gas exports are growing louder in the EU as Moscow’s brutality against Ukraine intensifies, pushing what is still a minority of stakeholders to ask for a halt to what they see as unacceptable funding of war via the bloc's energy purchases.

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Opposition against a proposed second EU carbon market for buildings and transport has spread to the biggest political group in the bloc's parliament, with centre-right members rebelling against their senior spokesperson and joining progressive MEPs in seeking to limit the measure or kill if off entirely.

Offset projects under contract to deliver carbon credits to the Australian government will be allowed to exit those obligations and sell their units on the voluntary market at three times the price.

The director of business development at ClimateCare/Natural Capital Partners has left to join a Toronto-headquartered carbon credit investment vehicle, while another Canadian-based offset investor will see its shares start to trade publicly on Thursday.

Finnish energy firm Fortum will halt all new investments in Russia and cut its ownership of thermal assets there, it said in results Thursday, vowing to maintain operations in Russia for the time being. 

The EU should delay planned closures of nuclear power plants, incentivise greater use of wood-burning generators, and encourage citizens to turn down their heating, the IEA said on Thursday in a 10-point proposal to cut the bloc’s dependence on Russian gas.

EUAs endured another volatile trading session on Thursday morning, with prices moving sharply amid bursts of activity as energy markets gave up early gains amid reports that Russia was open to renewed ceasefire talks with Ukraine.

The Swiss-based group that has bridged the vast majority of carbon credits onto blockchain so far is planning to shut the door on older vintage offsets in a bid to increase the quality of the units available on-chain.

The Beijing municipal government aims to kick off China’s national carbon offset trading platform before the end of the year, but doubts linger as to whether federal regulators will be able to finalise the market framework by then.

Global forestry investment manager New Forests has announced the first close of a new $120 million fund, the Tropical Asia Forest Fund 2 (TAFF2), with a host of sovereign, development finance, private, and philanthropic investors with the aim to capitalise on long-term investments in sustainable plantation forestry in Southeast Asia, the company announced on Thursday.

New Zealand on Thursday proposed to exclude exotic forests such as radiata pine from generating credits in its emissions trading scheme, a move that would close the door on the vast majority of new plantings driven by the nation’s high carbon price.

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

A San Francisco-based climate tech company on Wednesday announced a $50 mln fundraise that will grow its forestry-based voluntary emissions reduction (VER) marketplace, though the firm has drawn criticism from researchers over its alternative approach for measuring temporary CO2 storage.

Papua New Guinea will impose a moratorium on all new REDD+ projects for the voluntary carbon market, its climate change minister said Wednesday, potentially scuppering investor plans to launch projects that may have created millions of credits each year for decades.

A biomass-fired power facility in New York did not surrender any allowances for the RGGI programme’s 2021 interim compliance deadline, marking the fifth straight year in which it has failed to comply, according to CO2 Allowance Tracking System (COATS) data published Wednesday.

ESG commodity marketplace operator Xpansiv has agreed to acquire US-based carbon offset registry administrator APX, the companies announced Wednesday.