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TOP STORY
VCM Report: CORSIA credit prices press higher, analyst predicts 2 bln-tonne annual VER demand
CORSIA-grade offset values on the voluntary carbon market (VCM) stretched all-time highs this week, while an analyst said yearly demand for voluntary emissions reductions (VERs) could eventually top out near the 2 billion-tonne mark.
EMEA
European Commission launches consultations on ‘Fit for 55’ legislative proposals
The European Commission is launching consultations on its ‘Fit for 55’ legislative proposals, in another feedback round that could influence the co-decision process among EU decision-makers.
Euro Markets: Early EUA gains give way as macro worries mount
EUAs reversed early gains on Monday as prices tracked a general sell-off in oil and other asset classes, where investors fled markets exposed to rising COVID infection rates.
Severe floods shut hydro, coal plants across Germany -RWE
Severe floods have impacted German hydropower stations and a lignite mine and power plant, utility RWE announced Saturday.
Energy bourse EEX reports significant rise in European emissions trading volumes
German-based energy bourse EEX reported a significant year-on-year rise in its European emissions trading volumes during the first half of 2021.
AMERICAS
Canada doles out funds to develop grasslands carbon offset system
The Canadian government on Monday announced an investment to develop a carbon offset system for grasslands, with several thousand tonnes of credits expected from these projects.
BC First Nation, LNG companies offer net zero LNG export facility
A British Columbia First Nations group and two liquefied natural gas (LNG) firms on Monday announced a proposal to build a 12 million-tonne-per-year export facility, and are aiming to use carbon offsets as one of several strategies to counteract its emissions.
ASIA PACIFIC
Chevron in negotiations with Western Australia govt on missed CCS target
Chevron is in discussions with the WA government on how to make up for having missed the carbon capture and storage target at its Gorgon LNG facility, it said Monday, potentially having to buy several million carbon credits in compensation.
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Job listings this week
- *Sales Manager, Green Energy, ClimatePartner – Munich
- *Carbon Offset Procurement and Portfolio Manager, ClimatePartner – Munich
- *Carbon Project Developer, ClimatePartner – Munich
- *Carbon Project Developer, Nature-Based Solutions, ClimatePartner – Munich
- Senior Analysts/Kaitohutohu Matua, Climate Change Commission, Aotearoa/New Zealand – Wellington
- Carbon Analyst – The Nature Conservancy – Various Locations
- Associate, Project Development, Nature-Based Solutions – London
- Senior Counsel, Low Carbon Trading, BP – London
- Senior Sourcing Specialist Australia, South Pole – Sydney
- Senior Project Coordinator, Soil Carbon, South Pole – Sydney
- Program Manager, Technological and Industrial Solutions, Verra – Washington DC/Remote
- Program Manager, Natural Climate Solutions, Verra – Washington DC/Remote
- Account Manager (Carbon Forestry), CarbonCo – Nelson, NZ
*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
G20 struggles – Italy is struggling to reach agreement on a joint statement over climate commitments among G20 countries days before a summit it will chair this week, the Italian energy transition minister said on Friday. Roberto Cingolani, picked as minister by PM Mario Draghi earlier this year, said different levels of economic development around the world made it hard to find common ground on climate commitments. “We currently have all teams at work and I can assure you we are finding it hard to come up with a shared document… and we’re talking about 20 countries, not 160,” the minister said in a webinar. The G20 countries make up around 80% of world GDP, Cingolani said, “and already these 20 are finding it hard to accept 55% decarbonisation by 2030.” (Reuters)
EMEA
Still committed – Norway’s PM Erna Solberg insisted that the Scandinavian country will continue drilling for oil and gas, ahead of a re-election campaign in which the future of the fossil fuel industry will be intensively debated. Solberg, in power since 2013 and running for an unprecedented third term for a Conservative PM in Norway, told the FT that oil production in the country was slowing, but refused to back calls by the IEA to stop all new oil projects to keep climate change under control.
Brexit Barney – The European Commission’s proposed Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism won’t apply in Northern Ireland, after an earlier leaked version showed the mechanism would apply to the border between the UK and the province. “The leak from earlier [last] week said that the CBAM regulation falls within the scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol,” Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, wrote on Twitter last week. “The official proposal … does not mention the Northern Ireland protocol.” Media sources reported Monday that the UK’s Brexit representative Lord Frost may threaten to deviate from the post-Brexit agreement in a speech to be made on Wednesday. The UK wants the EU to adopt less stringent checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to minimise economic and political disruption.
Batman returns – A judge on Monday ordered the extradition of a British property investor and Tory party donor charged with running a criminal gang that stole €125 mln through VAT fraud using the EU ETS. District Judge Michael Snow rejected claims forward by Peter Singh Virdee that he is the victim of abusive prosecution by a dishonest prosecutor as “utterly without merit”, Law360 reports. Virdee denies being the ringleader – nicknamed Batman – of massive emissions trading carousel fraud that took place over 10 years ago. German prosecutors last year reissued an arrest warrant for Virdee after he was apprehended in 2017 at Heathrow Airport and later released. They want him to face charges in Germany, where they said several of the suspect’s associates have already been sentenced to jail terms ranging from 27 months to eight years.
ASIA PACIFIC
Never too much – China will add 250 mln tonnes to its coal production capacity this year, the nation’s top economic planning agency said Monday. Despite launching an emissions trading scheme to control carbon output from coal-fired electricity generation, China opened mines in the first half of the year able to extract 140 Mt of coal, and is expected to add another 110 Mt before the end of 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission said.
Work to do – Australia must increase its annual electric vehicle sales from just 7,000 to more than a million by 2035, according to new research by the Grattan Institute, the New Daily reports. Failing to hit that target would lead to insufficient reductions in transport emissions and force the nation to adopt costly solutions like mass car buybacks in order to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
AMERICAS
Tariff time – Two US Democratic lawmakers on Monday introduced legislation establishing a carbon tariff on certain imports like steel as a means to fight climate change, a week after Europe launched the world’s first carbon border tax. Delaware Senator Chris Coons and California Congressman Scott Peters said the bill would level the competitive playing field for domestic manufacturers by imposing a fee on carbon-intensive products from countries that lack adequate emissions controls. Senate Democrats have said they want to include a carbon border tariff as part of a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which could be passed with a simple majority vote. (Reuters)
SCIENCE & TECH
Just a few cities are responsible for the majority of urban carbon emissions. That’s according to a new study that evaluated the greenhouse gas emissions for 167 cities around the world and found over half of emissions from the entire group came from just 25, mostly in China. For each city, researchers tallied inventories of carbon emissions from various sources including transportation, energy use, and industry. The concentration of emissions were from cities in China, driven by its industrial sector. Some of the largest overall emitters were places like Dalian, a logistics hub, and Handan, a longtime producer of steel. As a whole, the massive emissions output of these Chinese cities can be traced to the country’s rapid urbanization and reliance on coal energy, researchers said. On a per-person basis however, the places with the highest emissions were mostly in richer economies in North America and Europe. Among this group, transportation, and residential energy consumption made up a much higher portion of emissions. (Quartz)
AND FINALLY…
New wave – The rapid succession of precedent-shattering extreme weather events in North America and Europe this summer is prompting some scientists to question whether climate extremes are worsening faster than expected. Axios spoke to nine leading scientists involved in extreme event research, finding that the recent Pacific Northwest heat wave is being viewed with more suspicion than last week’s European floods as a possible indicator of something new and more dangerous that researchers have missed: a climate science blind spot. For example, Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, says he is no longer sure if climate models are accurately capturing how global warming is playing out when it comes to regional extremes specifically. Some scientists, such as Penn State’s Michael Mann and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, have shown that even the most up-to-date climate models fail to capture one of the main mechanisms that’s contributing to some of these extremes – a phenomenon known as “planetary wave resonance”. Such weather patterns feature stuck, sharply undulating jet stream patterns, like a meandering river of air at high altitudes, which can lock weather systems in place for long periods. This type of weather pattern existed across the Northern Hemisphere in the run-up to and during the Pacific Northwest heat wave.
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