European companies are more likely to see the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) as a competitive advantage than a burden, and largely oppose efforts to scale back its scope under the Omnibus reform, a survey released Monday has found.

Naughty - Freedom of Information (FOI) responses obtained by OPIS indicate that the European Commission has made minimal effort to enforce EU ETS rules against two major operators that failed to pay for millions of tonnes of carbon emissions. The cases involve Hungary’s ISD Power coal plant and Czechia’s Liberty Ostrava steelworks, which together did not surrender allowances covering 5.45 million tonnes of CO2e - worth more than €750 mln at 2023 prices. The Commission admitted it had not contacted the Czech government after Liberty Ostrava failed to surrender 1.28 mln EUAs for 2023, despite having received over 3.3 mln free allowances that year. Selling those could have yielded around €281.5 mln, OPIS calculated. The Commission said it would soon request an explanation from Czech authorities, noting that national regulators are responsible for imposing fines. In Hungary, communication over ISD Power’s non-compliance was limited to three letters exchanged between Nov. 2023 and July 2025, with no contact for 16 months in between. The plant, controlled by Russia’s state development bank VEB, failed to surrender allowances covering 4.15 Mt of emissions between 2019 and 2023, accruing roughly €655 mln in missed payments and fines. The Commission declined to disclose the letters’ contents, citing an ongoing EU Pilot procedure with Hungary.

The carbon and nature standard BioCarbon unveiled seven dedicated workstreams under its digital monitoring, reporting and verification (dMRV) Working Group, marking the next step in its plan to digitise key processes across the carbon credit value chain, it announced this week.

Global fossil fuel emissions reached an all-time high of 40.8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024, while fire-related losses in tropical primary forest surged 370%, according to a climate report published a week before the start of the UN climate summit in Brazil.

Exchange operator ICE will launch eight new carbon credit auction futures contracts on Dec. 8, promoting a new primary market mechanism for the voluntary carbon market (VCM) and the UN aviation offsetting scheme CORSIA.

Spooktacular surge - Halloween candy costs are set to jump 10.8% this year, with chocolate-based treats rising by as much as 20%, according to a recent analysis. The spike stems from US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on major cocoa exporters and ongoing climate-driven crop damage in West Africa, where heavy rains have pushed cocoa prices to historically high levels. Imports from the Ivory Coast now face a 21% tariff, while Ecuador faces 15%. Chocolate giant Hershey’s warned earlier this year that tariffs and soaring cocoa prices could cost it more than $100 mln, though it later said its price hikes were unrelated to trade policies. Economists say strong demand has allowed producers to pass higher costs to consumers through price increases or “shrinkflation” tactics, such as reformulating products with less cocoa. (The Guardian)

Remaining rules for the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)'s implementation will be voted by EU member states in mid-November, a European Commission official said this week, while an anti-circumvention and extension proposal will be proposed in early December.

Governments should jointly design and develop a global advance market commitment (AMC) to accelerate carbon removal (CDR) funding and deployment, according to a new paper.  

EUAs posted their fourth successive monthly increase as the October trading month came to a close on Friday, even as Dec-25  prices edged lower for a second day, while monthly trading activity in the benchmark European contract rose to the most since April, and UKA front-December trading volume for October set a record.

Paris has called for an 'emergency brake' to be included in the EU’s proposed 2040 climate target plan, citing doubts over the reliability of forests to absorb CO2 in the future and uncertainties about the potential of technical carbon sinks.

The South African Treasury this week released a wide-ranging consultation paper proposing legal, financial, and institutional reforms to establish a robust domestic carbon market, with the aim of aligning the country’s compliance and voluntary systems and strengthening links to international trading under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.

Cleaner industry call - On Friday, 48 organisations from across Europe published an open letter to the European Commission, calling for market measures to create a strong business case for investment in clean industrial projects, to be included in the upcoming Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA). The letter was initiated by the Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP) and Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) and was signed by organisations including Shell and Yara. It called on the Commission to ensure the IAA includes provisions including EU-wide, harmonised and performance-based product standards, mandatory green public procurement, and the creation of durable and predictable private demand.

The global construction sector's carbon footprint has ballooned to account for 33% of all global emissions and is on a trajectory to exhaust the world's entire remaining 1.5C carbon budget by 2030, a new analysis has found.

Seagrass meadows and salt marshes along Germany’s coasts hold significant underground carbon stores that can help avoid future emissions but have little potential to contribute to new CO2 removal, according to research published this week.

The UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA) has urged policymakers to integrate CO2 removals into compliance carbon markets and establish harmonised global standards, arguing that voluntary efforts alone cannot deliver the scale of removals required to meet mid-century climate targets.

More countries have embedded nature-based solutions within their national climate policies but human rights provisions are lacking, a report published this week said.

When reviewing its Emissions Trading System (ETS) next year, the EU must ensure sufficient room for industries that cannot fully decarbonise, a German official has said, signalling potential “space” to relax the EU ETS cap and Linear Reduction Factor (LRF) after 2035.

New financing - The World Bank has approved a $18.34 mln grant to Sierra Leone under the second phase of the West Africa Food System Resilience Program (FSRP), aimed at boosting biodiversity protection, environmental sustainability, and climate resilience through nature-based solutions and climate-smart agriculture. The grant will back projects in integrated landscape management and biodiversity efforts, investing in research, innovation, and community training to boost food security and promote climate-smart as well as nature-based practices. With this additional grant, total FSRP financing for Sierra Leone now stands at $153.34 mln.

Amsterdam-based environmental commodities trader STX Group is closing the Vertis Global Carbon Fund, a short-lived vehicle launched in 2023 to give institutional investors exposure to emerging compliance carbon markets worldwide.

The national policies and measures planned or implemented for 2030 would hardly make a dent in global emissions – with some sectors expected to see slight increases, and land sinks to shrink, according to the UN's first synthesis of transparency reports under the Paris Agreement.

One of the largest exchange-traded futures (ETF) fund dealing in EU carbon allowances has adjusted its portfolio strategy in an effort to mitigate foreign exchange risks, Carbon Pulse has learned.

The world’s biggest industrial gas makers are “hiding in plain sight” as major emitters of greenhouse gases, despite being lauded as leaders in sustainability, according to a report published this week that found their electricity needs rival that of small nations, while much of their carbon footprint remains unreported.

The ongoing political turmoil in Madagascar following a military takeover earlier this month, is not expected to disrupt carbon market-related activities or forest-based project implementation, government and private sector actors told Carbon Pulse.

The centrist D66 party that looks likely to lead the formation of a new coalition government in the Netherlands is the one proposing the biggest increase in climate and environment spend – though it is likely to export a substantial share of GHG emissions.