Joint carbon accounting - Global business, finance, and climate leaders coordinated by London-based Systemiq issued Friday a joint statement calling for stronger and more unified carbon accounting standards to accelerate decarbonisation, warning against fragmentation into parallel frameworks. The signatories said globally consistent, decision-useful GHG accounting across full corporate value chains, including Scope 3 emissions, is critical for risk management, investor decision-making, and credible transition planning. The statement urged policymakers to strengthen and evolve existing global frameworks such as the GHG Protocol and ISO standards, rather than prioritising product-level approaches that could undermine corporate accountability. It said reinforcing current systems would improve comparability, reduce costs, and support faster progress toward net zero.

SAF study started - Jamaica has launched a Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) feasibility study to assess the country’s potential to cut aviation emissions and strengthen climate resilience, with the work managed by UK International Climate Finance. Announced on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority in Kingston, the study will examine feedstock availability, fuel and energy infrastructure, aviation demand, export potential, and the policy and investment landscape, alongside cost and competitiveness challenges. Energy, Transport and Telecommunications Minister Daryl Vaz said the initiative aligns with national development and climate priorities, citing Jamaica’s vulnerability to climate impacts, with findings expected to inform policy and investment decisions.

European carbon prices posted a 4% weekly drop, the first weekly decline since early December, and ended the day marginally lower despite spending most of Friday in positive territory, as activity diminished and traders reduced risk ahead of the weekend amid growing concerns around the potential for military action in the Middle East.

EU-Ecuador green investment deal – The European Union and Ecuador on Friday concluded negotiations on a Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreement (SIFA), the EU’s first such deal with a Latin American country, the European Commission announced. The accord seeks to make Ecuador’s business environment more transparent and efficient by cutting regulatory uncertainty and bureaucratic hurdles, while upholding environmental and labour commitments and supporting the Paris Agreement. It features a dedicated annex on sustainable energy and raw materials and is backed by an €8 million EU project to improve Ecuador’s investment climate and energy transition.

Natural gas demand stagnated in 2025, growing by less than 1% globally, while production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) increased by almost 7%, with around three-quarters of the growth concentrated in the second half of the year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

€70 bln per year needed for adaptation – The European Union must collectively invest about €70 billion a year in climate adaptation through 2050 to curb mounting climate risks and boost resilience, a new study for the European Commission has found. The study estimates annual needs of €30 bln for infrastructure, €21 bln for ecosystems and €12 bln for food security. France, Italy, Germany and Spain face the largest investment needs, while overall adaptation finance remains insufficient, the study warns. It urges better data and integration of climate risks into national budget planning.

Green bonds can materially cut funding costs for “virtuous high‑emitters” investing in credible decarbonisation projects, even if they are far from being green champions, according to new research by the European Central Bank.

The rising “shadow fleet” in global shipping lanes threatens to torpedo the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) already precarious plans for reaching net zero, an analyst group has warned.

Consumers can be a pillar of the electric transition, including through electric vehicle (EV) batteries supporting the grid and overall acceptance of the shift, said experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced a new direction for its Trillion Trees (1t.org) project this week, transforming it into a broader alliance aimed at encouraging the private sector to invest in forests.

The European Court of Justice has rejected Poland's appeal against fines imposed for failing to shutter its Turow lignite mine, located on the border with Czechia.

The European Commission has signed off on its first set of EU-wide carbon farming certification methodologies with almost no substantive changes compared to a draft that leaked last week, locking in proposed accounting rules and a generous transitional regime for early projects.

Low-cost, short-haul European airlines are shifting their position away from supporting a possible extension of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) to international flights, analysis of lobbying activity reveals.

Upcoming webinar - Verra will host a webinar on Feb. 24 at 1000 ET/1500 GMT to provide an overview of its ABACUS label, a designation launched in 2024 with an Amazon-led working group that identifies carbon credits generated under Verra’s Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation methodology (VM0047) that exceed baseline methodological requirements. The session will cover label eligibility criteria, validation and verification requirements, insights from applying the label, and next steps for its further development, alongside responses to frequently asked questions. A representative from Amazon will join the discussion to share perspectives on market demand and pricing dynamics for labelled credits. Register here.

Frontier lime-aid - Frontier has awarded $2 mln in R&D grants to UK-based Leilac and Sweden-based SaltX to support the production of zero carbon lime on behalf of Stripe, Shopify, and Google. Frontier said zero carbon lime could be a low-cost feedstock for several carbon removal applications and its goal is to accelerate the lowest‑cost, most commercially ready processes for producing zero‑carbon lime, starting with these two companies.