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A British man has been cleared after spending 3.5 years in jail for his alleged involvement in a 2011 EU carbon allowance cyberheist.

Countries made marginal progress over the past fortnight towards handing out this year’s free carbon permit allocations under the EU ETS, with two governments still yet to start the annual process.

Regulated entities’ California Carbon Allowance (CCA) net length reached a year-high this week before the May 18 WCI auction, while speculators’ allowance holdings dove to a year-low, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

More than half of the entities regulated under Massachusetts’ Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) hold excess V22 allowances than their annual average 2020-21 emissions, according to a quarterly market report published this week.

A pair of finished fuel providers will need to meet their 2021 Oregon Clean Fuels Program (OCFP) compliance shortfalls through the clean fuel standard’s Credit Clearance Market (CCM) this summer, a state agency announced Friday.

What to the rest of us has been an aberrant few years has to this new generation been their whole life

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The car was packed lightly as we drove to the ocean. Just towels, water bottles and a couple of buckets and spades. In the back seat, our two girls were fighting over the solitary pair of goggles we had remembered to bring. But we were happy. It was school holidays. We were going to the beach.

We arrived and the sky above us was so thick with blue it was as though we could wrap ourselves in it. It had been a long, wet summer. The wettest start to a year ever in Sydney. The children had barely made it to the water all season, but in the lingering afterglow of summer we hoped to grasp a last chance at a swim. The girls ran through the sandy path cutting the bush scrub towards the ocean. Blue water, white water and golden yellow sand.

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A major European reinsurer has committed to invest A$354.1 million (€234 mln) in Australian forestry assets, aiming to derive incoming from logging and carbon credits.

Norway is lining up a deal to bury London's waste emissions at its massive offshore CCS initiative in what it hopes will be one of many European contracts, while advancing plans to bury a lot of its own output.

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) prices marched to a one-month high this week on optimism that regulator ARB will propose more stringent GHG goals from the programme, but fell over the latter half of the week after the agency’s draft Scoping Plan provided few new details on this ambition.

Nature-based carbon credit futures have largely withstood a wider voluntary carbon market (VCM) shakedown in recent months, with robust demand expectations and near-term economic woes blowing out spreads along the curve.

A loophole in EU policy that means CO2 emissions from burning biomass for energy not currently included in the ETS could add an additional 15% to the scheme's total emissions, according to a report from an environmental group.

Brazil’s national cap-and-trade system will go beyond the industrial and power sectors to include agriculture, and also allow voluntary market projects to generate credits eligible for compliance use, according to a draft of the presidential decree seen by Carbon Pulse.

Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan on late Thursday signed off on the first reading of the island’s revised climate bill that would put the government’s 2050 net zero target into law, but the document remains vague on the level of a planned carbon levy as well as potential use of international offsets.

Poseidon Water sought to turn seawater into drinking water but activists said plan would devastate ecosystem on Pacific coast

A California coastal panel on Wednesday rejected a longstanding proposal to build a $1.4b seawater desalination plant to turn Pacific Ocean water into drinking water as the state grapples with persistent drought that is expected to worsen in coming years with climate change.

The state’s Coastal Commission voted unanimously to deny a permit for Poseidon Water to build a plant to produce 50m gallons of water a day in Huntington Beach, south-east of Los Angeles.

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EUAs posted robust gains on Friday morning as the market interpreted as bullish the 2021 market supply data published late on Thursday, while energy prices weakened as gas flows from Russia showed no sign of shrinking after sanctions were imposed on German-controlled former units of Gazprom.

Group commissioned by mayor Sadiq Khan in early stages of move to bring nature back to capital

London will be “rewilded” with new nature reserves, pocket parks and a mass community movement to bring nature back to the capital, the Guardian can reveal.

A group of rewilding experts commissioned by the mayor, Sadiq Khan, are in the early stages of drawing up the proposal. The idea came from Ben Goldsmith, a financier and environment campaigner who is on the board of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

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Just a handful of mink breeders in Denmark express an interest in re-entering fur industry, even if the current ban is lifted next year

Danish mink breeders have turned their backs on the industry en masse after being forced to cull their animals over fears a Covid-19 mutation could pose a risk to human health.

In November 2020, Denmark, at that point the world’s largest mink producer, controversially announced it would cull approximately 15 million animals due to fears a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines.

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Environment agency says initial investigation into all 10 water firms suggests possible ‘serious non-compliance’ with law

A criminal investigation into water companies in England has uncovered suspected widespread illegal sewage discharges from treatment plants, the Environment Agency has revealed.

The investigation into more than 2,200 water treatment plants run by all 10 water companies is examining whether the firms breached legal regulations about when and how frequently they are allowed to release raw sewage into waterways.

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Brutal heatwave in India and Pakistan also certain to have been exacerbated by global heating, scientists say

The massive and deadly floods that struck South Africa in April were made twice as likely and more intense by global heating, scientists have calculated. The research demonstrates that the climate emergency is resulting in devastation.

Catastrophic floods and landslides hit the South African provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape on 11 April following exceptionally heavy rainfall.

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Hi-tech UK laboratory launched to save trees from threats including oak processionary moth, emerald ash borer and citrus longhorn beetle

The public are being urged to keep an eye out for any signs of disease in local trees, as the UK launches a hi-tech, £5.8m tree laboratory to fight the spread of pests and diseases.

The UK is especially vulnerable to the growing spread of plant pathogens because of warmer, wetter winters, and because it is a hub for global trade. The new research laboratory is set to address these threats by clamping down on pests in the UK and abroad, including the oak processionary moth, emerald ash borer and citrus longhorn beetle.

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