CBAM farm costs – Bulgarian fertiliser producer Agropolychim has warned that the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), combined with the gradual phase-out of free allowances, will drive up the cost of fertiliser. The company's commercial director Georgi Borisov said by 2030, the production cost for one tonne of ammonium nitrate could include a carbon levy of €150, based on an assumed EUA price of €120-200/tCO2e. This will lead to higher prices for customers, with Borisov noting that export-oriented farmers in Bulgaria and Romania, which primarily export grain to northern Africa and the Middle East, may struggle to pass on the cost as their buyers would not be able to absorb it. He also said there is a lack of transparency on how CBAM revenues will be used, calling for them to support farmers and sustainable manufacturing.

Low-carbon banks – London School of Economics’ TPI Global Climate Transition Centre opened a public consultation last week on proposed design updates to its banking assessment tool, seeking feedback from investors, banks, multilaterals, and IFIs on methodological changes to the Net Zero Banking Assessment Framework and its Carbon Performance for Banks metrics. The centre, which independently evaluates institutions using publicly disclosed data, said the consultation runs until Jan. 31, 2026.

The harmonisation of emissions reporting will be a key theme of 2026 as consensus grows over the need for product-level carbon accounting in global trade and climate policy, according to an end-of-year outlook report.

The European Commission’s forthcoming Industrial Decarbonisation Bank (IDB), set to be unveiled next year, will allocate funding to projects based on the volume of CO2 emissions reduced per euro invested, a senior EU official has said.

Voluntary carbon credit retirements were down by 30% month-on-month in November, and at 50% of the levels seen over the same period last year, as issuance also fell away, while CORSIA supply started to filter in as new credits were tagged as eligible for the UN's international aviation offsetting scheme.

The agency has issued a slew of recommendations, including use of a shadow carbon price, hydrogen power plants, CCS for waste incinerators, CO2 pricing for agriculture, and protecting forests and peatlands, to get Germany on track to climate neutrality.

DAC-ilitator - Climeworks has facilitated over 450,000 tons of certified nature based and engineered carbon removals CDR), it said in a statement today. The Swiss direct air capture (DAC) company said that, alongside developing removals projects itself, it also aggregates CDR supply from a network of third‑party providers before delivering these certified removals to buyers. The company clarified that Climeworks alone did not directly remove 450,ooo tonnes, but had acted as middleman on a number of deals. It said credits had been  delivered across multiple pathways, including biochar, BECCS, enhanced rock weathering (ERW), and DAC.

dMRV for CDR - CDR standard Puro.earth has launched a new dMRV Connect platform, which connects digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (dMRV) platforms directly into Puro’s certification platform, MyPuro 2.0. The new API allows dMRV providers to send audit data, documentation, and evidence directly to Puro.earth through secure, automated channels. By reducing manual uploads and exchanges, Puro dMRV Connect improves data accuracy and shortens time to issuance for CO2 Removal Certificates (CORCs) and future credit types issued under the Puro.earth certification platform.

Progress for Article 6.4 - The expert panel (MEP) working on Article 6.4 methodologies, have tentatively agreed to recommend a tool for assessing the risk of reversals across activity types, such as biochar, forestry, and subsurface CO2 storage, at the end of its 10th meeting. Major work was also undertaken on revising CDM methodologies for grid-connected electricity and the associated emission factor tools. A merged and updated tool for calculating grid emission factors was also finalised and is due for public consultation. The MEP also worked on revisions to the clean cooking energy transition methodology, and a consolidated framework will include updated sampling guidelines, efficiency methodologies, and renewable biomass considerations. Details of the meeting will be published on the UNFCCC website shortly, and the next meeting will be Jan. 26-30.

EU carbon allowance prices ended Tuesday above a resistance level that had capped rallies over the previous week as the market continued to fluctuate in an increasingly narrow range in the last few hours before the expiry of December 2025 options, while energy markets were firmer across the board.

Namibian green hydrogen - The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $10 mln loan for Namibian green hydrogen developer Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, to support a green ammonia project valued at over $10 bln. The project is expected to position Namibia as a pioneer in the global economy for low-carbon hydrogen, the AfDB said. The loan comes from the bank's Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa, and will support FEED studies for solar and wind power generation, battery storage systems, electrolyser capacity, and desalination infrastructure. This will help to de-risk the project, and attract the finance needed to realise it. The first phase of Hyphen's project includes 3.75 GW of renewable energy generation, and 1.5 GW of electrolyser capacity, plus battery storage, desalination, pipelines, transmission lines, and other infrastructure. Once complete, the plant is expected to produce 2 Mt of green ammonia per year for export, and to avert 5 Mt CO2e per year. Its 7.5 GW of renewable energy capacity would be more than 10 times Namibia's current installed capacity.

Sierra Leone will rely on carbon finance, REDD+ mechanisms, and results-based finance to bring in 11% of the funds needed to implement its latest Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), of which it expects around half will come from voluntary carbon market (VCM) buyers.

Carbon-storing roads - Carbon Crusher has launched the 'Carbon Rover' - a road refurbishment machine that sequesters hundreds of tonnes of CO2 per mile, it said in a release Tuesday. The American and Norwegian startup claims the AI-guided machine also delivers roads up to three times stronger and longer-lasting. The Carbon Rover's capabilities have been proven on road projects in five countries, from Arctic conditions to the desert. The startup claims a fleet of six machines - each able to sequester up to 940 tonnes of CO2e per day - could, even at 50% capacity, remove 1 mln tonnes of CO2 within two years as the concept scales globally. Carbon Crusher is backed by investors including Y Combinator and Lowercarbon Capital.

EU ETS and CBAM advice - The European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition (ERCST) has suggested a number of actions should be considered when it comes to the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and ETS, in a paper published on  Tuesday. This includes: speeding up decarbonisation, backloading CBAM and free allocation phaseout in the EU ETS, addressing exports in CBAM, pausing plans to include Scope 2 emissions in CBAM.

€1.5 Italian state aid scheme - The European Commission approved a €1.5 bln Italian State aid scheme to support strategic investments that add clean technologies manufacturing capacity on Tuesday. The aid will take the form of grants, subsidised loans, or a combination of both. The measure will be open to companies in the whole territory of Italy, and may be granted until Dec. 31, 2030.

The European Commission has approved a €42 billion Polish state aid scheme for the construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant, which is scheduled to start generating electricity in the second half of 2030.

Peatland purchase - Sucden Financial, a global multi-asset execution, clearing, and liquidity provider, is purchasing UK Peatland Code credits to offset its unavoidable emissions in 2024. The company has achieved a 74.5% reduction in GHG emissions from its London operations between 2020 and 2024 thanks to initiatives including IT upgrades, installation of lighting controls, and fine-tuning of heating and air-con systems. It's also using data centres that are almost entirely renewably powered. The peatland carbon credits were purchased via Climate Impact Partners, and will support the Scaliscro Peatland Restoration Project, on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland. This aims to restore nearly 250 ha of peatland while increasing carbon storage and delivering additional environmental benefits.

Step by step - Progress on a carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) project developed by Heidelberg Materials in Eastern Europe is progressing, following the company's signing of a term sheet with Energean subsidiary, EnEarth. The term sheet is to allow EnEarth to negotiate on an exclusive basis definitive agreements for an expansion of its operations into Bulgaria as storage operator for Heidelberg Materials’ Devnya CO2 development. Devnya CO2 is part of the wider ANRAV CCUS project launched by Heidelberg Materials, aiming to be the first full-chain CCUS project in Eastern Europe. It includes capture of 800,000 t/year of CO2 from Heidelberg’s cement plant in Devnya followed by transport and permanent onshore storage nearby. The project has received EU Innovation Fund financing and is expected operational before 2030, stated the press release Tuesday.  

Five countries are leading the way in developing legal frameworks to support blue carbon, which are urgently needed to tackle the persistent barriers thwarting market growth, found a non-profit in a new report.

Gold Standard has tagged its first Core Carbon Principles (CCP) labels to credits generated from clean cooking projects, the registry announced Tuesday.

The Republic of the Congo and Costa Rica have submitted their host party participation requirements documents to the UNFCCC as a prerequisite to engage the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), prioritising forestry, transport, and energy.

German heat transition – Renewables account for 18.1% of heat supply in Germany, but the national average masks big differences across regions, reported a new study by the German Agency for Renewable Energies (AEE) on Tuesday. Baden-Wuerttemberg is a pioneer in municipal heat planning: heat plans have been mandatory since 2020 and 26% of municipalities have one. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the next largest state by area, that figure is 12%. And in Rhineland-Palatinate, which has the higher number of municipalities required to draw up heat plans, it’s just 7% – which is also the national average. Overall, three-quarters of municipalities are aiming for climate neutrality by 2040, five years ahead of a federal target of 2045; 7% are even aiming for 2035. District heating networks currently cover 9% of heating demand. Biomass accounts for the largest share of renewable district heating, although states like Bavaria are also supported by geothermal. Heat pumps were the most popular heating system in new buildings in 2024. (AEE study)

Reaching net zero emissions globally by 2050, which will conserve and restore biodiversity, will cost about $8 trillion per year over the next 25 years – which is much lower than the escalating costs of climate change for health, nature, productivity, agriculture, infrastructure, and more, the UN warned on Tuesday.

A rating agency has teamed up with a satellite-based biomass measurement company to advance the accuracy and transparency of forest carbon assessments worldwide.

EU lawmakers and national governments have agreed to scrap mandatory climate transition plans for large companies as part of a political deal to streamline the bloc’s sustainability reporting rules and ease red tape on business.

A coalition of industry and civil society groups has called on the European Commission to keep options open in its upcoming Action Plan on Geothermal Energy, by including advanced geothermal systems that can produce clean electricity 24/7, and allow deep decarbonisation across the bloc’s economy.

The UK has launched its second CO2 storage licensing round, making 14 offshore locations available as the country seeks to push ahead carbon capture technologies in support of large-scale decarbonisation.

A new modelling tool could help middle-income countries come up with policies capable of cutting global greenhouse gases by about 5% by 2040, by tackling emissions from cooling and refrigeration, according to the researchers who announced it on Tuesday.