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TOP STORY

Voluntary carbon market braces for ‘ICVCM impact’ after framework release

A “good number” of carbon credit projects will fail to attain the ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles (CCP) integrity label, but some market experts judge there to be still too much wriggle room and ambiguity in the cross-stakeholder body’s newly-released assessment framework.

AMERICAS

WCI Markets: CCAs stretch all-time highs near $38 as potential allowance budget cuts surprise, WCAs rise past Tier 2 reserve price

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices barnstormed as much as 10% over the past two days to new record highs after the state published larger-than-expected scenarios for cutting cap-and-trade allowance supply, while Washington Carbon Allowance (WCA) values climbed ahead of the programme’s permit reserve sale next month.

Emerging technologies, hedging needs playing into California cap-and-trade budget cut decision, official says

California will factor in the viability of nascent low-carbon technology roll out and importance having a permit bank as it weighs steeper cups to cap-and-trade allowance budgets over the remainder of the decade, a senior official with state regulator ARB said Thursday.

Experts advocate New York carbon market design should follow North American model over European approach

Using North American automatic programme adjustments in the design of New York’s cap-and-invest scheme, rather than the supply-responsive approaches that their European counterparts use, would better serve to ensure programme stability, experts said Thursday.

EMEA

European utilities report drop in ETS-covered power generation as another steelmaker signals weak outlook

Multiple Europe-headquartered power generation firms reported a significant drop in EU ETS-covered output in quarterly results published late Wednesday and Thursday, while a large steel producer became the latest to flag a weak demand outlook due to wider macroeconomic uncertainty.

Euro Markets: EUAs make small gain as market stabilises after Wednesday’s decline, while energy weakens again

EUA prices stabilised at lower levels before a late moderate gain on Thursday as the market appeared to find buying support after dropping by as much as €3.20 on Wednesday, while gas extended yesterday’s sizeable losses as August contract expiry neared and over-supply concerns appeared to be easing.

Three Eastern EU nations seek to use REPowerEU funding for fossil fuels -report

Three EU governments are trying to direct public money towards more fossil fuels, rather than steering away as the 27-nation bloc’s overarching climate strategy requires, a report showed on Thursday.

EU court rules against Swedish firm’s bid to stay in the EU ETS

A top EU court has ruled against a Swedish company’s bid to stay in the EU ETS despite its exclusively biomass-fueled operations that had resulted in the facility having almost no reportable CO2 emissions.

ASIA PACIFIC

Malaysian Indigenous groups back controversial forestry deal

Sixteen native NGOs and associations on Thursday came out in favour of a contested carbon offset deal in Malaysia’s Sabah state that officials last year signed with a Singapore-registered shell company.

Rio Tinto makes $800-mln write down on Australian alumina refineries due to Safeguard Mechanism

Miner Rio Tinto has written down the value of its Australian alumina refineries as it factors in the cost of buying Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) under the government’s reformed Safeguard Mechanism, saying it will continue to need to rely on offsets to meet its decarbonisation targets.

Japan’s carbon pricing timeline too slow for its net zero goals -analysts

Japan’s proposed timeline for a domestic carbon pricing mechanism could be too slow for the country to get aligned with its Paris Agreement goals, given the current emissions trajectory, a report has found.

Australian bank joins forces with soil carbon tech developer

An Australian bank has entered into a strategic alliance with a soil carbon project developer, financing a pilot project that will generate Australian Carbon Credit Units by pre paying for the first credits generated under the project, it announced Thursday.

INTERNATIONAL

Climate litigation on the increase worldwide, but legal questions remain -UNEP

Lawsuits are an increasingly important tool for holding governments and corporations accountable on climate, according to a report published Thursday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

BIODIVERSITY (FREE TO READ)

UK government publishes price tiers for ‘net gain’ biodiversity credits

The British government has published provisional price tiers for its statutory biodiversity credits as part of upcoming net gain legislation, with the final values to be set by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and subject to periodic review.

UNDP seeks to de-risk biodiversity credits under its tiger protection bonds

Around 15% of the bonds to be issued by the United Development Programme (UNDP) to help support tiger ecosystem protection in four Asian countries could be monetised through the sale of “high integrity biodiversity credits”, depending upon the ability to de-risk the credits through guarantee provisions.

EU donates €25 mln to FAO biodiversity, food programme

The EU has contributed an additional €25 million to the Food and Agricultural Organization’s Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWP) programme, with the funds set to benefit African biodiversity over the next six years.

Companies call for broader use of Mean Species Abundance metric in TNFD framework

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosure (TNFD) should make greater use of the Mean Species Abundance (MSA) metric in its framework as it is already used by many companies and would offer a number of benefits, according to a position paper issued by a group of European companies this week.

Biodiversity Pulse Weekly: Thursday July 27, 2023

A weekly summary of our biodiversity news plus bite-sized updates from around the world. All articles in this edition are free to read (no subscription required).

ICYM

ICVCM unveils global benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits

(Clarifies original article on how the ICVCM will approach assessing REDD+ activities)

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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

Global boiling – The era of global warming has ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived”, the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has said after WMO scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record. “For vast parts of North America, Asia, Africa and Europe, it is a cruel summer. For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is unequivocal – humans are to blame,” he told a press conference, urging politicians to take swift action. US President Joe Biden called the soaring temperatures from climate change an “existential threat” and pointed out that heat was the “number one weather-related killer” in the US, causing 600 deaths every year, as he announced moves to bolster heat-related safety rules for workers, especially those labouring outdoors. (Al Jazeera)

Gee up the 20 – G20 powers must send stronger signals of their will to transform world energy systems and should lead the way on plans for mitigating global warming at November’s COP28 UN climate summit in the UAE, the event’s incoming president Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber and the UN climate chief Simon Stiell said in a joint statement on Thursday, Reuters reported. This follows limited progress at last week’s G20 energy meeting on setting 2030 goals to phase down fossil fuels and ramp up renewables. Members of the cross-stakeholder Powering Past Coal Alliance, including the UK and Canada, signed an open letter calling for the G20 to act on its commitment to end the construction of unabated coal plants – as per a pledge made at the 2021 COP26 UN summit, Bloomberg reported.

AMERICAS

Canadian caps – Canadian environment minister Steven Guilbeault said that the final regulations of the federal plan to cap and cut GHG emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector will likely be published by mid-2024, Reuters reported Thursday. Draft regulations will be tabled by October, followed by consultations with provinces, indigenous groups, and civil society and industry, Guilbeault said. The oil and gas sector accounts for 27% of the Canada’s emissions, but efforts to curb emissions have been lagging following Prime Minister Trudeau’s promise to introduce such a cap during the 2021 election campaign. The Canadian government released a discussion paper last July that considered a cap-and-trade system for achieving the oil and gas emissions goals, or beefing up the country’s existing CO2 pricing regime.

Transmission accomplished – The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday approved proposals to speed up the connection of new power projects to the electric grid, reforms that could ease a growing backlog of requests from wind and solar energy developers. Long waits for transmission interconnection have hobbled the deployment of big renewable energy projects that President Joe Biden’s administration wants built to move away from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas and help combat climate change. The FERC final rule will enact several changes to the burdensome interconnection process, including shifting it from a “first come, first served” to a “first ready” approach – meaning projects that are prepared with land rights and permits would move ahead of those that are not. It will also impose financial and other conditions to secure a place in the interconnect queue and establish penalties of up to $2,500 per day for grid operators if they fail to complete interconnection studies on time. FERC will also allow projects to be studied in clusters instead of one-by-one in hopes of speeding up the process. (Reuters)

Maine wind – Following passage by the state legislature, Maine Governor Janet Mills (D) this week signed a bill requiring the state to procure 3 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2040, and establishing provisions regarding the construction and siting of future projects. LD-1895 supports the creation of a port facility designed for fabricating and launching the materials needed to establish floating offshore wind farms, as the waters in the Gulf of Maine are too deep to accommodate fixed-bottom wind turbines. The bill received broad-based support from state labour and environmental groups, as well as some fishing industry groups, who supported the bill’s provision to give priority to projects sited outside of a key fishing area known as Lobster Management Area 1, or LMA-1. (Utility Dive)

Zindler in – US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen announced on Thursday the appointment of Ethan Zindler as Treasury’s new Climate Counsellor. Zindler will head the Treasury Climate Hub, advise Yellen on climate issues, and lead Treasury’s efforts to facilitate financing to achieve net zero. Zindler was previously head of BloombergNEF and has written publications with the Climate Investment Fund at the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the UN, and more.

EMEA

Pump the gas – Germany plans to support new gas projects overseas until 2025 in a potential breach of its commitment to end international fossil fuel financing, Climate Home reports. The government’s export credit agency has released its draft policy for the provision of guarantees in the energy sector in what it described as an attempt to tie them to climate protection targets. The guidelines were expected to belatedly align the German agency’s operations with a pledge made at COP26 in Glasgow to end funding for coal, oil and gas projects overseas by the end of last year. Under the proposal, the German government will no longer support coal and oil operations except when needed to decommission infrastructure or reduce methane emissions. But the inclusion of a series of exceptions for fossil gas has come under heavy criticism.

Lightweight law – The German government has agreed on a ‘lightweight construction strategy’ set to reduce raw material consumption and GHGs, Clean Energy Wire reports. The strategy puts forth measures to strengthen lightweight construction technologies and the use of lightweight materials, for example to reduce the weight of airplanes. This could contribute to reducing GHGs  and primary raw material consumption, with the additional benefit of reducing dependencies too, according to the economy ministry.

Brit flit – The UK ETS Authority published a report on the functioning of the UK carbon market for 2021 and 2022, giving a high-level summary of the 2021 and 2022 scheme years of operation, with data showing the performance of the UK ETS for the first two years of the scheme, including information on UK ETS infrastructure, participants, market functioning, free allocation and auctions, the Cost Containment Mechanism, market oversight, and high-level compliance data.

ASIA PACIFIC

Green dreams – Andrew Forrest’s iron ore and green energy company Fortescue Metals is still committed to producing 15 mln tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2030, RenewEconomy reports. The company told analysts Thursday that it has three big green hydrogen projects ready to approve in Australia, and another five green hydrogen projects across the US, Brazil, Europe, and Africa, that it aims to give financial approval on by the end of the year. Fortescue’s most prospective green hydrogen project in Australia is at Gibson Island in Queensland, where the company plans to install a 500 MW hydrogen electrolysis facility to produce green hydrogen. The company first announced the 15 mln target in 2021, when it created green energy offshoot Fortescue Future Industries. It has now since been folded back into the larger organisation.

LNG talks – SK E&S, part of Korean conglomerate SK Group, has asked Australia to support its LNG fields in the country and a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in neighbouring East Timor, as the company is exploring the potential of blue hydrogen, according to the Korea Economic Daily. Earlier this week, SK E&S CEO Choo Hyeongwook and Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen in Seoul discussed the implementation of the Barossa gas field offshore northern Australia and the CCS project at the Bayu-Undan fields in the Timor Sea. The minister said Australia has started revising regulations on carbon transportation to comply with the amendment soon, according to the report.

Cease and de-stink – Woodside Energy has threatened to sue individual activists for financial damages it claims to have suffered after protestors set off a stink bomb inside the company’s headquarters in Perth last month, the ABC reports. The non-toxic, non-flammable stink bomb was part of a campaign against the expansion of Woodside’s gas projects at the Burrup Peninsula. Woodside said it was forced to evacuate its headquarters as a result of the protest. The company’s lawyers have since written to two activists, claiming the company should be compensated by individual activists for financial damages that the stink-bomb protest caused. The letters also demanded that the activists identify all other individuals involved with the protest, which Woodside may want to use in a potential future lawsuit. The activists this week refused to comply with Woodside’s demands. Woodside said it did not comment on matters that were before the courts.

Research capacity – Carmaker Hyundai has partnered with five universities to establish a ‘carbon neutrality centre’ with the aim of supporting research on CO2 utilisation and direct air capture (DAC), the Korea Economic Daily reports. The Korean automotive group, aiming to reach carbon neutrality by 2045, has pledged a research budget of 4.5 bln won ($3.53 mln) to aid in technology development, the report said. As part of the plan, Gyeongsang National University, Kongju National University, and Korea National University of Transportation will investigate relevant technologies that are capable of efficiently collecting CO2.

SCIENCE & TECH

Cement carbon cuts – LaFarge, a leading Canadian construction materials company, has converted to the construction of low-carbon cement at its Richmond facility, reports the Journal of Commerce. This ECOPlanet cement offers a minimum 30% reduction in CO2 emissions per tonne in comparison to ordinary portland cement. LaFarge received funding assistance from the CleanBC Industry Fund, which facilitates decarbonisation projects.

Yarnburner – Walmart is teaming up with a California startup to test technology that removes carbon dioxide from its supply chain, with plans to eventually turn that CO2 into yarn for clothing. As part of a pilot project with San Leandro-based Rubi Laboratories, Walmart will identify factories in its supply chain where carbon dioxide in waste gases can be captured using Rubi’s reactor systems. The majority of the world’s captured CO2 is currently used for oil extraction, according to the Global CCS Institute, but Rubi’s system uses biochemical processes to convert the gas to cellulose, the main substance in the walls of plant cells. That cellulose is used to produce lyocell yarn, which can be made into textiles. After performance testing, Walmart and Rubi plan to develop a prototype apparel collection, according to a joint statement released Thursday. The pilot project runs through the end of 2024. (Bloomberg)

AND FINALLY…

Olympic offsets – The 2024 Paris Olympics aims to slash associated carbon emissions by more than half compared to the previous London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics, which emitted 3.4 mln and 3.6 MtCO2, respectively. Paris’s goal to contain its emissions to under 1.5 MtCO2 would be less than Tokyo 2021, which emitted 1.9 MtCO2 despite being deprived of spectators due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Emissions from spectator travel, at around a quarter of the total, will be offset through the purchase of carbon credits from environmentally and socially beneficial projects on all five continents, including forestry and clean cookstove projects. The organisers intend to maximise existing infrastructure as much as possible, in addition to using renewable energy and serving low-carbon meals.

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