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
Optimism abounds amid unknowns of Ontario’s first carbon auction
Analysts are expecting Ontario’s inaugural cap-and-trade auction to be well subscribed, with participants eager to snap up allowances before the coming decade of constrained supply.
OECD proposes New Zealand ETS reforms to boost carbon price
New Zealand should bring agriculture into its emissions trading scheme and reform the market to make it more efficient in halting the country’s rising greenhouse gas output, the OECD said Tuesday.
NZ Market: New Zealand carbon falls 4% to extend losses as buyers wait
New Zealand carbon allowances have continued their decline over the past week and are threatening to drop into the NZ$16s as well-stocked emitters see little reason to push up prices with significant policy changes potentially around the corner.
Analysts predict Australia must pay higher prices for offsets as interest wanes
The low interest in signing up for next month’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) auction means the Australian government is likely to have to pay higher prices for emission reduction contracts, analysts Reputex said.
EU Market: EUAs dip to 1-month low despite rangebound trade
European carbon prices slid to a one-month low on Tuesday despite a rangebound trading day.
CEZ maintains hedging levels amid anticipated drop in coal output
Utility CEZ largely maintained its hedging ratios over the past year though its outright forward buying of EUAs is likely to have dipped amid an expected drop in coal-fired generation this year.
———————————
**Navigating the American Carbon World (NACW) 2017: San Francisco, Apr. 19-21 – NACW brings together the most active and influential players in North American climate policy and carbon markets to address the most pressing topics in domestic and international policy, subnational leadership, carbon markets, climate finance, and carbon management initiatives. Visit the website**
———————————
BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Stay of execution – The White House has pushed back the release of an executive order related to federal climate change policies, sources confirmed on Monday. President Trump was expected to sign an order as early as Monday beginning the process of ending several climate initiatives advanced by the Obama Administration, but the White House has delayed that timetable until potentially next week, two sources told The Hill.
Republican temper – US Conservative green groups such as ConservAmerica and republicEn, along with politically neutral religious groups such as Catholic Climate Covenant and bipartisan groups such as the Citizens Climate Lobby, have ramped up efforts to recruit more congressional Republicans to work on addressing climate change since Trump’s election. They promote “free enterprise” solutions like a carbon tax, but have not swayed anywhere near a majority yet on Capitol Hill. Only 20 or so of the 237 Republicans in the US House of Representatives have spoken out on climate change this year. But they hope to build a big enough bloc in Congress, or enough influence at the White House, to temper Trump’s agenda. (Reuters)
Scrap-and-tax – On the eve of Ontario’s first carbon auction, Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown has vowed to scrap the cap-and-trade scheme and withdraw the province from the WCI programme should he be elected in 2018. According to the Toronto Star, Brown said his party’s policy advisory committee is examining the legal implications, but has previously pledged to replace it with a carbon tax, which the ruling Liberal government claims would be a more expensive option.
EU ETxit? – Energy experts appearing in front of a government committee on Tuesday warned it was crucial that UK remains part of EU ETS, BusinessGreen reports. MPs today heard stark warnings of the risks associated with withdrawing the UK from the market, with one expert arguing continued membership of the scheme post-Brexit is crucial to global efforts to tackle climate change.
Clean peak – Lawmakers in the California Assembly and Senate have introduced legislation to encourage more clean energy resources in the state in order to address peak load, reliability and to avoid the need for new fossil fuel generation, Utility Dive reports. The bills would require utilities to deploy clean energy during peak demand in order to meet California’s aggressive greenhouse gas and renewable energy goals, while mandating the California Public Utilities Commission determine a percentage of kWh each peak-load time period to be served with clean energy.
The Art of 6 – Shell’s David Hone blogs on what could be seen as linkages within Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, suggesting that the carbon market-based provision could be applied widely to include activities such as channelling funds from green investment banks or even more holistic cooperative approaches like those under the Kigali Agreement of the Montreal Protocol (The Energy Collective)
And finally… But what will it smell like? – One of the UK’s trickiest waste problems is being tackled by turning the damp undesirable into the combustible – tampons, nappies/diapers and incontinence pads are being converted into dry, burnable bales. The new initiative, from a major waste company, compresses the waste into fuel for power stations, The Guardian reports. The process is being analysed by experts from the University of Birmingham, who will report on how environmentally friendly the new process is in practice, compared to landfill or wet incineration.
Got a tip? Email us at news@carbon-pulse.com
