Colombia's former environment minister says she will use the next presidential term to push forward a previously leaked draft decree that aims to give the government rights over forestry emissions reductions and make it a "big player" in the carbon market. 

Emissions trading schemes (ETS) often limit the role of carbon removals to 10% or less of compliance obligations, a survey reported Wednesday. 

A number of countries are contributing to Brazil’s Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), including Norway with $3 billion and Indonesia with $1 bln, they announced in Belem on Thursday.

World leaders agreed Thursday to commit to collectively recognising 160 million hectares of land by 2030 in tropical forest countries as belonging to Indigenous Peoples and local communities. 

Pre-rating for carbon projects – A carbon credit fund is pre-screening the viability of projects by incorporating a rating agencies' methodologies into its analysis. Brazilian investment manager Bridge Asset Management has teamed up with rating agency BeZero Carbon to discover the indicative carbon scores across its portfolio of projects. Bridge, which is launching Brazil Climate, Carbon & Community Fund, will submit projects through BeZero’s Pre-rating Scorecard to assess risks such as additionality, carbon accounting and permanence, the two companies announced. Bridge directs its analysis toward Brazilian projects, diversified across Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and technology-based initiatives.

COP30 should help to both accelerate the energy transition and protect nature in order to effectively tackle global warming, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the opening of the two-day Leaders' Summit on Thursday.

Austria suggested - and a majority of intervening countries supported - a stop-the-clock mechanism for the EU’s much-debated anti-deforestation regulation during a meeting of the bloc’s Environment Council this week.

Brazil's Federal Police (PF) has indicted several dozen individuals following a probe launched in June 2024 against an allegedly criminal carbon offsetting operation on illegally authorised land, according to local media reports.

Peru has committed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and anticipates generating at least 9 million tonnes' worth of credits under Article 6, according to its latest contribution to the Paris Agreement.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has proposed significant changes to how companies may use carbon removals and Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) as part of their climate goals, in a new, revised draft of the Corporate Net-Zero Standard (Version 2), now open for consultation.

Guinea aims to nearly halve its emissions by 2035, as long as it receives international support, and to host Article 6 projects that can help achieve its goal, according to the country's new Paris Agreement commitment. 

More forestry projects under the UN-backed REDD framework have issued credits under a now deactivated methodology and may need to reimburse credits because of an earlier over-estimation of how much carbon they saved, standard body Verra said.

October saw voluntary carbon credit issuances fall by around 40% compared to September's bumper month, with retirements rising by nearly 1.4 million over the same period, as data from an analytics firm shows that the oil majors have returned as a major demand source in the VCM. 

The EU cut its emissions by 2.5% last year and remains on track to hit its 55% goal by 2030, although reductions outside of the EU ETS are lagging, according to a progress report published on Thursday. 

Google has signed its largest carbon removal deal to date, agreeing to buy 200,000 tonnes of forest carbon credits from Brazilian startup Mombak, the companies said Thursday.

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) will use the COP30 summit next week to showcase a new Indigenous-led strategy aimed at reshaping how carbon projects engage with local communities, sources told Carbon Pulse.

From complicated and pricey travel logistics, to hostile and unwieldy geopolitics, to a bleak reality that emissions just keep rising – Brazil's COP30 summit is already promising to be a distinctly challenging summit. 

More green for more grass - Two corporates are supporting and investing in grassland restoration projects. Accounting firm Deloitte has purchased 18,000 carbon removal credits from Boomitra’s Northern Mexico Grassland Restoration Project, (VCS 2887), which supports 158 ranchers across the biodiverse yet severely degraded Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts. The project is verified under Verra’s latest soil carbon methodology VM0042 and Deloitte also conducted an independent assessment and on-the-ground diligence of the project, helping validate its climate and community impact. Meanwhile, mining giant Rio Tinto is supporting Boomitra’s Argentina grassland carbon project (VCS 3291) through a combination of investment in conservation research and a committed offtake of carbon credits. The investment was agreed in 2024, and the offtake agreement was finalised in May 2025. The project currently covers over 30,000 hectares of endangered grasslands and has removed an estimated 100,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. Rio Tinto’s investment will help to expand the project expand to 200,000 hectares over the next two years and exceed 500,000 tonnes of annual CO2 removal.  Commercial terms for the two transactions were not released.

For good - Vietnam’s northern province of Lai Chau has launched a Canada-backed project to generate forest carbon credits, local media reported. The Carbon for Good initiative, implemented by CARE, CIFOR-ICRAF, and the University of British Columbia, will run until Mar. 2028 and cover four provinces. The programme seeks to build technical capacity, assess forest carbon sequestration potential, and prepare market-ready project dossiers ahead of Vietnam’s planned national carbon market.

The volume of applications to submit land in to New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has crashed in October as the farm-to-forestry conversion bill takes hold.

Rocky mountain high - The Colorado State Land Board has acquired the 800-acre Lake Fork Ranch, targeting multiple lines of business including a biodiversity voluntary market project, soil carbon sequestration, and ecosystem services projects. It will be implemented in a phased approach through 2028, targeting annual yields of 2% or greater, with the potential for outsized one-time returns, the state government said in a press release.