Presenting CP Daily, Carbon Pulse’s free newsletter. It’s a daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world. Subscribe here
COP-22: Nations get two years to firm up Paris Agreement rulebook
UN climate negotiations ended in Marrakech in the early hours of Saturday morning with agreement on setting a two-year process to write the rulebook underpinning the Paris Agreement.
*** Find more information on international climate policy relating to carbon pricing in Carbon Pulse’s 69-page dossier, which features a detailed breakdown of the Paris Agreement and concise summaries of all its INDCs, global themes in carbon markets, internal carbon pricing, international climate initiatives and climate finance. Carbon Pulse dossiers are regularly updated databanks on carbon pricing policies and programmes. Each builds into a powerful online research tool with key news, analysis, opinion, data, charts, tables, timelines, supporting documents and links, all in one place. Full access to Carbon Pulse dossiers is available with a subscription. ***
Canada’s Nova Scotia to launch carbon market in 2018
Nova Scotia will launch a cap-and-trade scheme in 2018, the Canadian province’s government announced on Monday, adding that the initiative will target fossil fuel emissions from a number of sectors and will not link to other markets.
Canada to accelerate shift away from coal-fired power
Canada will accelerate its transition away from coal-fired electricity by 2030, the country’s environment and climate change minister announced on Monday.
RGGI states poke around edges after one year of review talks
RGGI states are yet to piece together the collective impact of multiple price-sensitive reform options they are juggling, despite the discussions having entered their second year.
Court sets next date in key lawsuit for California cap-and-trade
A California court has set a January 2017 date for the next stage of a four-year-old lawsuit that many believe is pivotal to the future of cap-and-trade in the US state.
EU Market: EUAs pare losses on oil as CERs plummet
European carbon prices fell by nearly 5% to a seven-week low on Monday afternoon before paring most of their losses on a stronger energy complex, while CERs dropped by 14%.
Beijing tightens ETS cap in new allocation plan
The Beijing municipal government has tightened CO2 limits in its emissions trading scheme, keeping the overall cap at similar levels as before while adding several hundred new companies.
NZ Market: Profit-taking pushes NZUs further down
New Zealand carbon allowances ended in negative territory for a seventh consecutive day on Monday, as profit-trading added to the woes brought on by the recent US election.
BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Carbon cost conundrum – Up to 50% of the production from oil majors could be hit by carbon costs in the next ten years if legislators that currently price carbon extend the policy to the upstream sector, Wood Mackenzie said in a new report on how oil companies would respond to the global energy transition and rising pressure for low-carbon energy. All majors have factored in a price on carbon in their long-term strategies, but the question is how much risk have the companies accounted for in their forecasts, one of the report’s authors said. Timeline, geography and prices vary enormously, with a price on carbon of between US$6 to US$80 a tonne. (oilprice.com)
Out with it – A coal phase-out for Germany is implied in the federal government’s Climate Action Plan 2050, environment minister Barbara Hendricks told klimaretter.info. “If you read the Climate Action Plan carefully, you will find that the exit from coal-fired power generation is the imminent consequence of the energy sector target … By 2030 – that clearly follows from the Plan – half of the coal-fired power production must have ended, compared to 2014,” said Hendricks. (H/T Clean Energy Wire)
Trump staff picks – All three of US President-elect Trump’s recent cabinet appointments are climate change deniers, according to ThinkProgress. In case you missed them, they are soon-to-be Attorney General Jeff Sessions, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Separately, Trump’s transition leader for energy-related agencies stepped down Friday due to the transition team’s lobbying restrictions, The Hill reports. Michael McKenna, who lobbies for numerous energy companies like Southern Co., Competitive Power Ventures and Dow Chemical, said he left “reluctantly” but did not want to comply with the requirements that lobbyists end their federal registrations.
Gold Standard – Chinese CDM project developer Goldchina, which last year decided to pull out of the CDM in a protest against the scheme’s executive board, has cancelled 123,700 CERs from a solar PV power generation project in Qinghai province over the past 10 days, taking the company’s total cancelled CERs to over 1 million tonnes. The latest batches have been converted into Gold Standard voluntary offsets, according to a UNFCCC website.
And finally… Tin foil hat – On the first business day after the Marrakech COP ended, the Australian Senate set aside an hour to debate whether climate change is real, as requested by Senator Malcolm Roberts of the right-wing One Nation party. A number of senators stated their doubts, with one expressing relief that the election of Donald Trump meant the world would not commit global suicide over climate change. Among the highlights of the event was when Greens Senator Nick McKim made a tin foil hat and presented it to Roberts, mocking him for presumably believing that “NASA’s trying to read your thoughts through the fillings in your teeth”. (BuzzFeed)
Got a tip? Email us at news@carbon-pulse.com
