Struggling nickel prices in recent years have posed challenges for carbon removal (CDR) project developers trying to break into the mining sector as global mining companies divest their interests in the metal, a CDR technology developer said Tuesday.

The influential Nature Positive Initiative (NPI) on Wednesday launched a pilot of its draft metrics for businesses and financial institutions in a bid to enable the measuring of progress towards nature positive.

The 51^st state – Luxembourg is officially joining the Global Green Growth Institute, becoming its 51^st member state. This follows seven years of collaboration, the intergovernmental organisation said in a press release, including a project in Vanuatu to introduce solar-powered water pumps and develop a national climate funding mechanism. The GGGI and Luxembourg in 2023 formed the SIDS Climate Action Program, to support climate mitigation and adaptation across the Pacific and Caribbean, as well as launched the Global Trust Fund on Sustainable Finance Instruments, which leverages capital markets and builds capacity for sustainable finance. In its first two years, the GTF has mobilised $2.1 bln in climate finance for projects in 18 countries, including climate smart agriculture in Uzbekistan and renewable energy in Namibia.

CORSIA take-off is still stymied by uncertainty about supply, as well as a long haul until the compliance deadline, experts told a webinar on Tuesday.

CCS on ships - Integrating biofuels with onboard carbon capture and storage (CCS) could achieve up to 121% well-to-wake GHG emissions savings, according to a study by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation. The captured CO2 can then be used for purposes such as blending into concrete production. The study analysed five ocean-based CCS technologies and six marine fuels, focused on monoethanolamine-based systems, the most mature carbon capture methane. This is where a chemical solvent absorbs CO2 from ship exhaust, which is then compressed or stored and repurposed. This technology reduced emissions 29% for HFO-fuelled ships, but pairing with bio-LNG or biofuels boosted savings to 69-121%. The hybrid strategy also eases compliance with the IMO's GHG Fuel Intensity targets until 2035, allowing ships to delay transition to costly alternative marine fuels. (shipandbunker.com)

Where to start? - Climate Action Center of Excellence (CACE) has launched 'A6 Assist' — a multilingual, real-time support service to guide government officials in developing countries to set up and manage an Article 6 framework. The framework is free to use and designed to access fast, simple answers in English, French, Spanish, or Arabic, and to navigate Article 6 implementation step-by-step, stated the announcement on LinkedIn.

Moldova has submitted its new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, outlining an economy-wide 75% emissions reduction target by 2035, compared to 1990, while marginally raising the ambition of its 2030 goals.

Countries will once again come under pressure to strengthen and widen the scope of the national pledges to the Paris Agreement, as around 30 ministers and leaders gather for the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial on Wednesday and Thursday.

Pakistan and Azerbaijan are exploring cooperation in environmental conservation, climate resilience, and carbon trading, Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change has said in a statement.

Voluntary carbon standard Verra has unveiled a new methodology that will credit the early retirement of coal plants that are replaced with clean energy sources.

A Chinese tech major has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to offtake at least 1 million verified, high-quality carbon credits within GenZero’s investment portfolio, over a period of 15 years, according to a statement on Tuesday.