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TOP STORY
Connecticut abandons TCI carbon market after legislature omits programme from budget
Connecticut will not participate in the Transportation and Climate Initiative Programme (TCI-P) after the legislature failed to authorise the proposed fuel sector cap-and-trade scheme, leaving the initiative with three jurisdictions.
AMERICAS
ANALYSIS: California offset prices lift, though discount to allowances widens further
California Carbon Offset (CCO) prices have risen recently amid an uptick of buying interest, but continue to lag behind significant price increases in the California Carbon Allowance (CCA) market.
RFS Market: RIN prices log more record highs amid soaring commodity values
US biofuel credit (RIN) values notched yet another all-time record on Monday, with Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) market participants pointing to a continued acceleration in soybean oil and corn prices with no end in sight.
British Columbia launches consultation on methane offset protocol
The British Columbia government last week published a public consultation for its methane management offset protocol (MMOP), with several different project types included under the proposal.
EMEA
Euro Markets: EUAs jump to €52 after ICE resumes trade following migration issues
EUAs rose as much as 4% to touch €52 on Monday, climbing in a disrupted session that saw exchange operator ICE halt trade and cancel early deals following technical issues linked to the migration of contracts to its Endex platform.
ICE resumes EU carbon trade, cancels deals after Endex migration hit by “technical issues”
Exchange operator ICE resumed its EU carbon trading Monday morning after “technical issues” linked to the migration of the contracts to its Endex platform from its London-based hub forced it to temporarily suspend the market and cancel any deals done up to that point.
EU’s heavy industry made €50 bln in windfall profits over 2008-19 -report
The EU’s energy-intensive industries made a total €50 billion in additional profits from the bloc’s carbon market between 2008-19, a report released on Monday found, flagging a “market failure” in the EU ETS ahead of key market reforms due next month.
ASIA PACIFIC
China carbon market to face early test from expected power shortages
Heat waves and booming industrial production are expected to cause power shortages in a number of Chinese provinces this summer, putting the nation’s emissions trading scheme to an early test of whether it is able to control spikes in greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia’s Woodside sets net zero target for major LNG project
Woodside Energy has set a 2050 net zero target and interim goals by 2025 and 2030 for its Pluto LNG project in Western Australia, which it will meet through technology investments and carbon offsets, the company said Tuesday.
VOLUNTARY
VCM Report: CORSIA-eligible offsets match record highs
Voluntary emissions reductions (VERs) eligible for the international aviation offset system CORSIA reached record highs this week, as traders maintained that a months-long trend of demand outpacing supply was providing support in the voluntary carbon market (VCM).
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Job listings this week
- *Manager/Director, ESG & Carbon Solutions, Grassroots Carbon – San Antonio/Remote (within US)
- Economist, World Resources Institute – Beijing
- Analyst, The Carbon Trust – Beijing
- Low Carbon Trading Portfolio Project Manager, BP – Singapore
- Nature Based Solutions Technical Manager, Shell – The Hague
- Policy Coordinator, Climate Alliance – Brussels
- Policy Analyst on Climate and Environment, Foundation for European Progressive Studies – Brussels
- Deputy Director, Thematic Strategy, ECF – Remote
- RFP: Scoping Agroforestry Project Potential in the VCS Program
*Premium listings
Or click here to see all our listings
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BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Carbon Pulse has teamed up with CME Group to provide its clients with regular updates on the global carbon markets. Check out these briefs for the latest insights on pressing trends and events impacting markets, published every other week. Registration required.
INTERNATIONAL
G’s up – G7 finance ministers agreed at a pre-summit meeting in London over the weekend to mandate companies to do climate risk reporting in line with the recommendations of the global Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), edie reports. The agreement does not yet have a timeframe attached, but the wider G20 are also set to discuss the topic, potentially meaning that an international agreement could be achieved prior to the COP26 UN climate negotiations in Glasgow this November. The communique from the G7 finance meeting showed no indication the countries had considered a long-standing IMF call for a global carbon price floor, despite agreeing to push for a 15% minimum global corporation tax.
Cough up or COP out – UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to warn G7 leaders at the June 11-13 meeting he is hosting that a COP26 deal will be possible this year only if the West provides money to help developing countries tackle COVID-19, The Times reported. Johnson hopes to use the G7 meeting in Cornwall as a launchpad for the COP26 summit, in particular by corralling rich nations to contribute more climate finance. Former COP26 president Claire O’Neill said that there is a question mark over whether the Glasgow summit will take place, with parties deciding at the end of a three-week virtual intersessional meeting next week whether they’ve made enough progress to go ahead and also whether the meeting will take place in person, the Herald Scotland reported.
Orderly transition – Cutting GHG emissions to net zero by 2050 could lift growth and employment but would require an inflation-boosting $160/t carbon price by the end of the decade, the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), an umbrella group of the world’s top central banks, said in an update to its economic scenarios. It concluded that only a relatively quick and orderly transition to a low-carbon economy would add to growth while a delayed transition or no action would cut deep into the economy. (Reuters)
GE’s down – Balkan Green Energy News reports that the construction of unit 7 of the China-led Tuzla thermal power plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina probably won’t proceed as US-based General Electric has decided not to supply the required equipment. GE, which was supposed to deliver the 450MW turbine and generator, has reportedly pulled out, according to local media. China’s Gezhouba Group and Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute signed a deal with the country in 2014 for Tuzla 7, valued at $1 billion. Balkan governments have pledged to introduce a price on carbon emissions as a condition to gain access to grants and cheap loans from the EU.
EMEA
More state aid – The European Commission has launched a targeted public consultation inviting comments through Aug. 2 on the proposed revision of state aid guidelines for environmental protection and energy. The Commission is proposing changes including broadening the scope of the guidelines to enable support in new areas and to all technologies that can deliver the bloc’s Green Deal. The revised rules would generally allow for aid amounts covering up to 100% of the funding gap and to introduce new aid instruments, such as Carbon Contracts for Difference, for projects in areas such as renewable energy, clean transport, energy efficiency in buildings, and biodiversity.
Signed and sealed – The Council of EU member states on Monday formally adopted the €17.5 bln Just Transition Fund supporting coal regions in transition, clearing the last hurdle before its entry into force. EU capitals have endorsed the political agreement reached in December by negotiators in the European Parliament, Council, and the European Commission, which will exclude any new fossil fuel investments, including gas.
Green colonialism – The European Green Deal has come under fire by campaigners for excluding racialised people and perpetuating “green colonialism” in the Global South. People of colour-led Equinox Initiative toward Racial Justice are calling on EU leaders to make their environmental framework more inclusive of racial justice. They argue that by excluding race from its policies, the Green Deal fails to account for the impact of its action plan on racialised people. Equinox argues the exploitation of marginalised people underpins many of Europe’s climate solutions as they fail to recognise the expertise and solutions readily available from these communities. “In Europe, racialised communities are overly exposed to and situated in polluted environments that significantly impact their health and wellbeing,” their report said. (Euronews)
The last judgement – More than 200 plaintiffs are suing the Italian State for its insufficient action to fight climate change. The lawsuit, initiated as part of the Giudizio Universale (The Last Judgement) campaign. The objective of the legal initiative is to ask the Civil Court of Rome to declare that the Italian State is responsible for failing to tackle the climate emergency and that the efforts made are insufficient to meet the long-term temperature goal set by the Paris Agreement, and to recognise a violation of human rights. The plaintiffs have also ordered Italy to reduce GHGs by 92% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
Greens slipping – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU conservatives won a surprisingly clear victory in the eastern German coal mining state of Saxony-Anhalt, in a boost for the bloc’s candidate for chancellor Armin Laschet in the last test before September’s general election. The CDU won 37.1% of the vote, with the Greens fifth at 5.9%. On a national level, the Green Party currently polls on a par with Merkel’s conservative bloc, having slipped back in recent weeks. (Clean Energy Wire)
Green procurement – Businesses will have to commit to the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target and publish “credible” all-scope carbon reduction plans before they can bid for major government contracts, according to new rules due in September for contracts above £5 mln, outlined as a ‘world first’ by the British government’s Cabinet Office. (Independent)
ASIA PACIFIC
Trading this, trading that – India’s Punjab has set up an emissions trading scheme for air pollutants, trying to deal with severe pollution levels, reports the Hindustan Times. The market covers 200 dyeing facilities initially, but can be expanded eventually. That comes after Gujarat state launched a local air pollution trading markets in 2019.
One by one – The Asia Investor Group on Climate Change has launched a new engagement programme that will see 13 institutional investors “engage with” five major Asian utilities over a net zero path, it announced Monday. The investors have a total $8.8 trillion in assets under management, and will have a dialogue with 5 major utilities that emitted a combined 285 MtCO2e in 2019. The utilities are China Resources Power Holdings, CLP Holdings, Chubu Electric Power, J-Power, and Indonesia’s Tenaga Nasional Berhad.
AMERICAS
Ask Not(ley) what your province can do for you – Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley this weekend hinted her government would bring back a provincial carbon tax – the object of much derision from many conservatives, and the first NDP policy United Conservative Party Premier Jason Kenney’s government axed. Now that the Supreme Court of Canada has backed the federal government’s right to impose a carbon price on the provinces, it makes little sense for Albertans to hand that money to Ottawa under the federally imposed ‘backstop’ CO2 levy, Notley said at the left-wing party’s virtual convention. Any Alberta-made carbon price would be done with consultation first, Notley added, and she is also eyeing substantial changes to the province’s electricity market, promising to make the power grid net zero by 2035. (CBC)
VOLUNTARY
Good growth – Gresham House, the UK’s largest commercial forestry manager, has launched a scheme that will pay investor distributions in carbon credits that can either be “sold to provide income” or used to “address carbon emissions”. Investors will receive distributions in the form of verified carbon credits that can be retained for ‘insetting’ purposes – to address carbon emissions in their sphere of influence or portfolio – or sold to provide income. These returns provide “potential upside” from an increase in the value of carbon credits. The fund aims to deliver sustainable capital growth through new productive woodland creation and returns will be generated through the sale of timber and the capital growth of land and trees from existing forests. Meanwhile, the creation of more than 10,000 hectares of new productive woodland will enable the sequestration of carbon and generation of carbon credits, in addition to delivering sustainable capital growth. (Investment Week)
SCIENCE & TECH
Ammonia harmony – Global commodities trader Trafigura and Norway’s chemicals and fertiliser firm Yara have signed a memorandum of understanding aiming to supply the marine industry with carbon emissions-free ammonia for fuel. Yara is to supply Trafigura with clean ammonia, and the firms are to jointly conduct research as well as develop marine fuel infrastructure and market opportunities for both “green” and “blue” ammonia. (Reuters)
Not even a dent – Despite a massive reduction in commuting and in many commercial activities during the early months of the pandemic, the amount of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere in May reached its highest level in modern history, a global indicator released on Monday showed. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, said the findings, based on the amount of CO2 in the air at NOAA’s weather station on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, was the highest since measurements began 63 years ago. The measurement, called the Keeling Curve after Charles David Keeling, the scientist who began tracking CO2 there in 1958, is a global benchmark for atmospheric carbon levels. Instruments perched on NOAA’s mountaintop observatory recorded CO2 at about 419 parts per million last month, more than the 417 ppm in May 2020. (Reuters)
AND FINALLY…
Who could have predicted this? – Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), one of Capitol Hill’s most vocal members on climate change, went public on Monday about his fear that chances to enact major legislation on the topic are slipping away. His tweets reflect wider angst on the left that large clean energy and climate investments will be jettisoned in infrastructure negotiations between the White House and Congress. “I’m now officially very anxious about climate legislation,” Whitehouse tweeted. “Climate has fallen out of the infrastructure discussion, as it took its bipartisanship detour. It may not return. So then what?,” he tweeted. “I don’t see the preparatory work for a close Senate climate vote taking place in the administration. Why not marshal business support?,” Whitehouse added. He also expressed concern about “quarreling” among groups and activists, while claiming that corporate American is “AWOL” and “all the major corporate trade associations suck.” President Joe Biden in late March proposed a $2 trillion-plus infrastructure package that included major provisions on electric vehicles, low-carbon power, mass transit, efficient housing, and more. But Republicans oppose both the plan’s price tag and expansive definition of infrastructure beyond traditional areas like roads and bridges. (Axios)
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