Carbon Pulse

China is expected to overcome coronavirus impacts and impose CO2 curbs on coal power stations as planned this year under its national emissions trading scheme, although observers say the market launch itself may well only happen in the very last days of the year.

The upcoming trio of presidencies of the Council of EU member states has pledged to ensure the 27-nation bloc submits an updated NDC by end-2020, reaffirming efforts to raise climate ambition despite the coronavirus pandemic’s effects.

South Korea’s monthly KAU auction failed to sell out for the second consecutive time as demand dwindles in line with the coronavirus-driven economic downturn.

E3G is looking for an experienced practitioner to lead E3G's European work within its political economy and governance cluster, a central to shaping E3G's engagement across the EU institutions and key Member States.

New Zealand carbon allowances continued their journey into uncharted territory on Wednesday, climbing another 2.1% as buyers continued to pick up any available supply.

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

Alberta offset values under the province's large emitter programme will keep steady despite the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, with bullish expectations of a rising CO2 price likely to counteract minor contractions in demand in the short-term, project developers and market participants said.  

California’s ETS linkage with Quebec represents a direct conflict with the US Constitution’s Foreign Affairs Doctrine and subverts the Trump administration’s ability to negotiate an equitable international climate agreement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued in a new brief.

Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is aiming to send a completed RGGI regulation for final approval next month, a department spokesperson told Carbon Pulse.

The cement and steel industries need a mix of transition policies and a revision of free allocation of EUAs to reach the EU’s 2050 net zero emission objective, researchers and consultants stated at a webinar on Tuesday, noting that the bloc's carbon market is not enough to get there. 

EUAs ended near €22.50 on Tuesday, continuing to ease back from Monday's three-month high as previously bullish technical signals grew more mixed.

China’s Tianjin has set the price floor at the market’s annual CO2 allowance auction on Wednesday, offering emitters and investors a shot at securing permits as much as 25% below current secondary market value.

EU nations on Tuesday decided to back a plan to modify the emissions baseline for the UN’s CORSIA international flight offsetting mechanism, teeing up a global decision this month that is expected to eliminate airlines’ carbon credit demand until the mid-2020s.

New Zealand carbon allowances traded up to an all-time high of NZ$30.75 ($20.13) on Tuesday, smashing the previous record as the market continued to move north on the back of last week’s government announcement on adjusting the fixed price option level.

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

Energy sector companies and trade associations from eight mostly Eastern EU nations warn that adopting a tougher 2030 bloc-wide emissions target could triple carbon prices, and as a result are seeking more compensation to help them cope as Europe’s top polluting plant heads for closure.

California electricity sector emissions collapsed to a new monthly low in April as a result of the statewide ‘shelter-in-place’ order that caused businesses, industrial sites, and schools to close to stem the spread of the coronavirus, data from the state's main power grid showed.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will continue to purchase green bonds and maintain the euro as the main currency for sustainable assets, but bank President Christine Lagarde requested on Monday for EU nations to scale up their ambitions for a more robust green finance regulation.

WRI’s Carbon Management Team is an interdisciplinary and cross-programmatic team that works to scale up U.S. investment in carbon removal—including terrestrial carbon capture (e.g., tree restoration and agricultural soil carbon management), technological carbon removal (e.g., direct air capture and carbon mineralization), and emerging ocean-based carbon removal approaches.

RGGI allowance (RGA) prices rose Monday after the June auction settled at a discount to the secondary market, with traders seeing near-term fundamentals and the entrance of a Virginia-based utility in the quarterly sale as bullish drivers for the Northeast US power sector ETS.