Carbon Pulse

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

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices rose to a nearly six-week high this week despite continued expectations that future quarterly sales will go undersubscribed, while RGGI Allowances (RGAs) stagnated above the 2021 Emissions Containment Reserve (ECR) trigger price.

A New York-based hedge fund opened a new CO2 Allowance Tracking System (COATS) account in the Northeast US RGGI market this week amid rising prices in the power sector ETS, data shows.

The County of San Diego's Board of Supervisors voted this week against challenging a court ruling that banned a voluntary offset programme for rural housing developments, leaving the jurisdiction to forge a new plan.

EU carbon traders have found humour in a pair of fake tweets that have been circulating in the market over the past week or so, though some voiced unease at the possibility that they were genuine attempts to influence EUA prices.

The absence of corresponding adjustments on voluntary carbon credit transfers over the next decade risks double counting emission reductions and obscuring climate mitigation progress, environmental organisations argued Thursday.

The European Commission adopted on Thursday rules for the operation of the bloc’s Modernisation Fund, an ETS-funded financing instrument supporting mainly eastern EU nations to upgrade their energy systems.

Free allocation of EUAs for energy-intensive industries has prevented these sectors from enabling the technological innovations needed for their decarbonisation and should be reconsidered, an advisor to a Europe-wide industry trade union said on Thursday.

EUAs fell back below €29 on Thursday, maintaining distance from this week's year-high as news that lawmakers were considering measures to curb the market's volatility or limit speculative activity spooked some traders.

South Korea’s ETS prices collapsed nearly 10% on Thursday to their lowest levels since Jan. 2019, with support disappearing as industrials continued to dump surplus KAUs they normally would have banked.

Rio Tinto is preparing to shut down New Zealand’s only aluminium smelter next year amid high energy costs and a poor industry outlook, putting a stop to the rapid rise of NZ carbon prices as traders digested the prospect of closing the nation’s biggest electricity consumer.

A growing number of European lawmakers are considering measures to curb speculation or cap prices in the EU ETS, Carbon Pulse has learned, as allowances skyrocket towards all-time highs on what some participants say are attempts by hedge funds and other algo-wielding investors to “corner” the market.

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

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) should model its plan to decarbonise the global shipping sector on the CORSIA programme for aviation, but it should go further than its fellow UN body ICAO in setting a more ambitious carbon reduction target for sustainable fuels, according to a report published this week.

EUAs surged late on Wednesday to claw back above €29 following earlier losses, staying within reach of their last year's high in continued volatile trade that participants said was fuelled by speculation and short-covering.

The German government has launched a tender to buy 431,300 CERs to offset the emissions from a series of activities including those associated with its EU Council presidency.

A veteran carbon market journalist has sued Bloomberg over his dismissal, alleging it was based on him ‘whistle-blowing’ over the news agency’s “biased” coverage of climate change and the Paris Agreement.

California regulator ARB sought confirmation earlier this year from Wisconsin officials about whether compliance issues at a dairy farm were waste related, leading the agency to launch an offset investigation in June, according to emails obtained by Carbon Pulse.

Recent alterations to the emission reduction goals and publication schedule of the Canadian Clean Fuel Standard (CFS) will not threaten its environmental performance, but numerous programme design elements warrant further attention and analysis before the policy’s 2022 launch, stakeholders and researchers told Carbon Pulse.

California regulator ARB will classify offsets projects that automatically qualify as providing direct environmental benefits to the state (DEBs) at Wednesday’s issuance and will tag credits in the WCI Compliance Instrument Tracking Service System (CITSS) later this month, officials confirmed.