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TOP STORY

ANALYSIS: Taking a risky route, UK airline Flybmi crashes into EU ETS Brexit ‘shield’

UK airline Flybmi collapsed over the weekend, blaming in part higher EU ETS costs, though it appears that the bloc’s Brexit-linked carbon market safeguards contributed to its ultimate death knell amid the carrier’s risky practices and despite a slew of warnings.

EMEA

EU adopts rules that secure industry’s free EUAs for a decade

The European Commission has adopted a decision to slightly trim the ETS’s carbon leakage list but keep industry’s free allocation largely intact until 2030.

UK shouldn’t use nearly 400 Mt of surplus emission units, govt advisor says

The UK has undershot its domestically-binding 2013-2017 carbon budget by 14%, but the government should not carry forward any of that surplus to meet its future targets to ensure the country meets its long-term goals cost-effectively, its expert advisers said on Monday.

EU Market: EUAs drop 2% back to €20 as bearish fears persist

European carbon sank back to €20 on Monday, with analysts and traders warning that EUAs could fall further as gas prices continue to decline and investors take profits.

ASIA PACIFIC

Analysts see further upside to Korean CO2 price

South Korean carbon allowances are valued near all-time high levels, but prices could move up further in the short term as a lack of available supply continues in the market, analysts said Monday.

Legal experts deal blow to Australia’s plans for new coal plants

Australia’s plan to build new coal-fired power plants with taxpayer money might fail after legal experts said it would need parliament’s approval.

AMERICAS

CCS projects under California’s LCFS offer significant potential, but still a few years off -experts

Projects aiming to use a new CCS protocol under California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) offer great potential, though are not likely to generate credits until the middle of the next decade, experts told Carbon Pulse.

ICYM

ANALYSIS – What goes up: Bearish headwinds lead more experts to change tune on once irrepressible EUAs

After tripling in price and being hailed the best performing commodity of 2018, the party could be over for once irrepressible European carbon – at least for now – with experts forewarning of a hangover fuelled by falling gas and other bearish factors.

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Job listings this week

• Chief Executive Officer, Carbon Market Institute – Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane
• Associate Analyst, ecoPartners – Berkeley, California
• Programme Developer, Ethical Tea Partnership – UK-based
• Climate & Land Use Expert, UNIQUE – Freiburg, Germany
• Technical Officer, Microenergy Credits – India (flexible)
• Junior Officer, Microenergy Credits – India (Flexible)

Or click here to see all our job adverts

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BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Use the force – Alberta United Conservative Party (UCP) leader Jason Kenney last week said that if his party wins this spring’s provincial election, it would pass a law to force a referendum before any carbon tax is implemented. Kenney, who has consistently led NDP premier Rachel Notley in the polls, reiterated his commitment to eliminating the Canadian province’s C$30/tonne carbon tax. He also said his party would implement a fixed election date, rather than the three-month window used currently. The Alberta election must take place on or before May 31. (660 City News)

Expensive exit – German utility RWE estimates costs of €1.2 billion for each GW of power plant capacity switched off early to meet the country’s emissions goals, reports the news agency dpa. Germany’s coal commission has proposed removing some 3 GW of lignite capacity from the grid by 2022, and the commission recommends the federal government negotiate compensation with plant operators like RWE. Company CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz last week said compensation might reach up to €1.5 billion for every GW taken offline. Germany’s coal commission has proposed exiting coal entirely by 2038 to reduce the nation’s carbon emissions. (Clean Energy Wire)

One more month – A Pennsylvania-based green group will need to wait at least another month until a state environmental agency hears their petition to implement a cap-and-trade programme in the state. The Environmental Quality Board (EQB) had been tentatively scheduled to hear a petition from over 60 groups and individuals, led by the Clean Air Council, arguing that Pennsylvania had a duty to regulate carbon emissions due to language in the state’s constitution that guarantees residents clean air. However, the EQB’s first meeting of the year on Feb. 19 has been cancelled, with the next one scheduled for Mar. 19.

Soy ploy – Six major commodities traders have committed to a common mechanism to monitor their soy supply chains for deforestation in the vast Cerrado savannah covering a quarter of Brazil’s territory. The firms are Cargill, Bunge, ADM, COFCO, Glencore’s agriculture unit and Louis Dreyfus. Roughly half of the Cerrado native forest and other vegetation have been destroyed in the past 50 years, with newly cleared land feeding Brazil’s soy boom. (Reuters)

A regained decade – Replenishing the world’s forests on a grand scale would suck enough CO2 from the atmosphere to cancel out a decade of human emissions, according to an ambitious new study. Scientists have established there is room for an additional 1.2 trillion trees to grow in parks, woods and abandoned land across the planet, according to the Independent. If such a goal were accomplished, ecologist Thomas Crowther said it would outstrip every other method for tackling climate change – from building wind turbines to vegetarian diets. Lack of accurate information meant for years that experts severely underestimated the number of trees on Earth. Combining data from ground-based surveys and satellites, Crowther and his colleagues arrived at a figure of 3 trillion – over seven times more than a previous NASA estimate. That means his plan would require existing tree cover to increase by around 40%.

Under the hood – Volkswagen plans to introduce an internal CO2 levy in a drive to reduce the company’s emissions, Der Spiegel reports. In a letter to VW executives quoted by the news outlet, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess wrote, “The Volkswagen Group will be a climate-neutral company by 2050 at the latest.” The internal levy would be set on the use of electricity, heat and fuel, and the carbon pollution from flights will have to be compensated. It’s a new approach for the company whose reputation has been dented by the ‘Dieselgate’ emissions cheating scandal, Spiegel writes. VW has also announced that its first electric car, the ID, will be “CO2 neutral throughout the entire life cycle,” including all manufacturing. (Clean Energy Wire)

Shipment Zero – Online retail giant Amazon has announced plans to make all of its shipments carbon neutral by 2030. The company, which ships millions of packages a year to shoppers, said that it will achieve that goal by switching to renewable energy sources and by asking suppliers to re-imagine their packaging. The company will also push for more deliveries to be made using electric vans. The new programme is being called Shipment Zero, and the company says that it is planning on publishing its carbon footprint later this year. (The Independent)

And finally… Imperial state of mind – Australia’s former prime minister Kevin Rudd has sparked debate by suggesting his country could take on the residents of three Pacific islands likely to be sunk by climate change, in exchange for maritime and other resources. In an essay published Feb. 4, Rudd proposed that the government offer Australian citizenship to islanders of Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Nauru, totalling around 75,000 people. “If our neighbours requested this,” Rudd wrote, “and their peoples agreed, Australia would become responsible for their territorial seas, their vast Exclusive Economic Zones, including the preservation of their precious fisheries reserves.” The arrangement would entail the three states entering into “formal constitutional condominium” with Australia, of the type that Australia has concluded with Norfolk Island, along with constitutional changes. The comments drew anger from Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga, who described them as “imperial thinking” and said Australia ought to focus on aggressively cutting emissions and end its dependency on coal. (Climate Home)

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