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EU Parliament musters for Brexit aftermath, ETS reform reshuffle

MEPs will convene this week to decide how to move forward following the UK’s ‘Brexit’ vote, but may take at least another two weeks to resolve how to continue work on post-2020 EU ETS reforms.

EU Market: EUAs drop as Brexit fears spread, but analysts see upside

EU carbon dropped on Monday as financial markets globally continued to be roiled by last week’s Brexit vote, though several observers predicted EUA prices could rapidly recover.

European steelmakers see surplus free EUA awards shrink in 2015 -data

The surplus of free carbon allowances awarded to Europe’s three largest steel companies grew by a smaller amount in 2015, according to figures published on Monday.

Australia’s Macquarie Bank to fund ERF projects

Macquarie Bank will provide greater financing for land-based projects under Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund through a deal with specialist firm Corporate Carbon.

Korean chemical firm offers early offset forward deal

South Korea’s Hu-Chems Fine Chemical Corp. on Monday offered 1.5 million offsets in a five-year forward deal, what could be one of the first structured trades in the spot-focused Korean carbon market.

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Job listings this week:

Project Manager, Atmosfair – Berlin
Fall Intern, RGGI, Inc. – New York
Policy Specialist, Climate Policy and Finance, UNICEF – New York
Program Officer, International Climate Policy, WWF – Washington DC
Associate Director of Forest Carbon Development, Finite Carbon – Philadelphia/Tallahassee
Communications Specialist, South Pole Group – Bangkok/Jakarta/Sydney

Or click here to see all our job adverts

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BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Full-steam ahead – The UK government is poised to adopt this week new targets for reining in GHGs by 2032, a move that could assure investors in clean energy that the nation will leave environmental goals intact despite voting to exit the EU.  Amber Rudd, who leads the DECC, is set to propose, via the country’s fifth carbon budget, a goal to cut emissions by 57% below 1990 levels by 2032, Bloomberg reports, citing an anonymous source.

Paris on track – The Paris Agreement is edging ever closer to coming into force say analysts, despite the UK’s Brexit vote last week plunging EU plans to ratify the deal into chaos.  Under a scenario published by Climate Analytics, a global network of policy specialists, 50 countries covering 53.28% of global emissions are likely to sign off the UN pact by the end of 2016. Read more on this from Climate Home.

Dems’ da platform – The US Democratic National Committee’s 2016 platform committee has approved a series of pledges that the party will make in the upcoming election, including provision calling for a goal of producing 100% of electricity from renewable sources by 2050, and another to investigate fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil for potential misrepresentation of its own knowledge of climate science.  However, a number of proposals pushed by Bernie Sanders were rejected including calls for a national carbon tax and a ban on fracking.

Catch-all climate bill – India’s environment ministry is considering pushing through umbrella climate legislation that would encompass a number of climate initiatives including the ratification of the Paris Agreement. The alternative would be a string of individual bills pushed by many different ministries, which would be more time-consuming. (Economic Times)

China coal cuts – China says it’s reining in coal production as the country tries to curb the pollution choking the nation’s cities and eliminate so-called “zombie” companies in the struggling industry, Bloomberg reports.  Coal output capacity will fall by 280 million tonnes this year, National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Xu Shaoshi said at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin on Sunday. That’s equal to about 7.5% of the 3.75 billion tonnes that BP says the country produced in 2015. The coal reduction is part of the country’s plans to eliminate as much as 500 million tonnes of output by 2020 and to consolidate a further 500 million tonnes among fewer miners.

China-Korea cooperation – China and South Korea has held bilateral talks on climate change, pledging to deepen their cooperation, according to China’s NDRC. The talks included a round-table on carbon trading, although nothing specific was announced on the possibility of the two nations linking emissions markets.

Up investment with EU ETS price lift and import tax – The EU’s 80-95% cut in carbon emissions by 2050 implies that investments must accelerate by a factor 5 to up to 2% of GDP, according to think-tank CE Delft in a study commissioned by the European Climate Foundation. This requires an initial carbon price of €40 and a further increase to around €100 in 2030, rising subsequently to €250 euro in 2050. For certain segments of the energy-intensive industry, a carbon tax would have to be levied on products from outside the EU that evens out the competitiveness of companies operating inside and outside the EU-ETS. (Energy Post)

IEA zeros in on air pollution – Early deaths due to air pollution will continue to rise to 2040 unless changes are made to energy production and use, the IEA said in its first ever in-depth analysis on air pollution. Around 6.5 million deaths globally are attributed each year to poor air quality inside and outside, making it the world’s fourth-largest threat to human health, behind high blood pressure, dietary risks and smoking. Asia will account for almost 90% of the rise in deaths. (IEA)

And finally… Carbon-free Olympics – South Korea is gearing up to host the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and in a bid to make the event carbon neutral, chemical firm Solvay has cancelled 400,000 CERs from its N2O-reducing adipic acid CDM project in Onsan, according to the UNFCCC. The government has likely agreed a price for the offsets from the project, which is one of the biggest credit earners in the CDM, but the measure will no doubt aggravate some green groups because these so-called “grey” CERs are considered to have questionable environmental integrity and have been banned by many governments worldwide.  CORRECTION – Solvay donated the cancelled credits under a programme aimed at making the event carbon neutral.

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