California Carbon Allowance (CCA) futures continued to dip ahead of next week's Q1 auction amid a relatively quiet market and heightened spread activity, traders said.

Authority amplified - California Assembly Member Robert Garcia (D) reintroduced on Monday AB 1777, a bill to clarify that the California Air Resources Board (ARB) may adopt regulations to reduce or mitigate emissions from indirect sources if needed to meet federal Clean Air Act air quality standards, a move advocates say could broaden ARB’s regulatory reach. The measure says this authority reflects existing law rather than a substantive change, and specifies that no state reimbursement would be required for local agencies because any costs would stem from the creation or modification of a crime.

Forward into the past - Environmental and labour groups opposed Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee's (D) proposals to impose fees on renewable projects, delay the state's renewable energy standard, and slash energy efficiency funding by 48%. Speaking at a state House of Representatives press conference, Emily Koo, senior policy advocate and Rhode Island programme director at clean energy non-profit the Acadia Center, said cutting clean energy protects an outdated system and keeps the state dependent on expensive fossil fuels. The proposals would cap efficiency programmes at $75 mln annually and retroactively change net metering compensation for large renewable projects.

Alberta has committed C$28 million ($20.6 mln) from its Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) fund to support six projects aimed at cutting emissions and improving the energy sector’s environmental performance, Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) announced Thursday.

New England's largest battery storage facility came online this week, providing capacity that could help reduce fossil fuel use and support renewable energy integration in the RGGI region.

Cash concerns - A newly-published US Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit said the US DOE does not have a plan to oversee about $21.5 bln in clean energy demonstration funding after the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations lost 85% of its staff in 2025. As of Nov. 2025, the office had committed more than $18 bln to around 100 projects, with 35 identified for termination. GAO said the DOE risks failing to meet statutory project management and oversight requirements under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act without a clear plan.

Pushing back on coal funding - Top Senate Democrats wrote Energy Secretary Chris Wright that the US DOE’s plan to support aging coal plants by repurposing funds ear marked for carbon capture technologies and energy resiliency undermines the law. The DOE directed money earmarked in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to support coal projects, prompting the Senate Democrats to investigate. Senate Appropriation Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-NM) signed the letter, shared with E&E News, echoing other arguments from former DOE officials and lawmakers that repurposing the funds undermined the law. Murray, Heinrich, and 35 other senators have asked Sec. Wright in October to restore funding for energy projects that they claim were unlawfully cancelled. Funding was initially appropriated by Congress under the Inflation Reduction Act, the IIJA, and annual appropriations bills.

Deadline extension – Brazil’s national development bank BNDES has extended the deadline for its R$10 mln public call for a study on carbon credit certification. Organisations will now have until March 2 to submit proposals. The notice aims to analyse the national carbon credit certification ecosystem and identify opportunities to strengthen and expand the certification capacity of projects in Brazil.

Tilting at wind turbines? – The Trump administration will appeal the court rulings that allowed five offshore wind projects to resume construction, according to various media reports. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said offshore wind farms posed a national security risk on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday, calling it a high-cost, intermittent source that is “blowing up” local businesses like fisheries and is interfering with sonar. The Department of the Interior had issued work-stop orders on the large offshore projects in Dec. 2025, citing national security risks identified in “recently completed classified reports” by the Department of War, formerly the Department of Defense.

Forestry loss - California air regulator ARB released its 2025 update on measuring organic carbon storage in the state’s landscapes based on 2022 conditions. The Natural and Working Lands (NWL) Carbon Inventory captures climate, wildlife, land-use change, and carbon stock management, including in biomass, soils, and harvested wood products. According to the report, California NWL stored 4.9 bln tCO2 in 2022, more than half of which was contained in forests. The state targets that for its 2045 NWL carbon stock losses should not exceed 4% compared to 2014 levels. However, carbon stocks have already declined about 4% in 2022 since 2014, or by about 214 MtCO2.

CCS in the lobby - The Carbon Capture Coalition launched a separate advocacy arm on Tuesday that would support federal policy efforts to advance carbon management technologies, while the Carbon Capture Coalition remains a non-profit. Jessie Stolark, the executive director of the coalition, will also serve as executive director of Carbon Capture Impact, which will be allowed to lobby to influence legislation. Impact will engage with bipartisan lawmakers on a portfolio of nationwide policies regarding taxes, permitting, federal investments in research and development, and other market development incentives. The group is currently tracking 10 House and Senate bills, opposing bills that seek to repeal 45Q tax credits for carbon capture or other federal carbon capture and storage assistance.

The Trump administration announced Thursday that the US EPA has officially repealed its 2009 endangerment finding, which formed the legal foundation for federal regulation of GHG emissions for nearly two decades, while also revealing additional support for coal power.

CO2 control – Halliburton on Thursday launched a new wireline-retrievable safety valve system designed for CO2 injection in carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) wells, the company announced. The Houston-based company said its XTR CS injection system can serve as a primary or contingency safety valve or as a deep-set reservoir fluid-flowback prevention device in CCUS projects . Halliburton said the design reduces potential leak paths and removes the need for hydraulic control systems, enabling steady performance at any setting depth and simplifying operations in harsh environments.

A new paper from researchers at the University of Oxford set out eight strategic challenges that define what it calls the "fossil fuel endgame", arguing that targeted policy, financial, and regulatory interventions could still restart a transition that has stalled despite international commitments.

Clean hydrogen is still more of a hope than a hype, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said this week, after comparing the green energy to the development of other nascent technologies.

A durable carbon removals (CDR) project developer on Thursday announced an offtake agreement with a carbon credit procurement company that involves 105,000 tonnes of CO2, destined for the aviation sector.

Climate action is "mission critical" to global security, the UN's climate chief said in a speech looking ahead to a particularly complicated annual climate summit in November, in the face of evermore hostile geopolitics and led by a first-of-its-kind shared presidency between Turkiye and Australia.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s long-awaited Land Sector and Removals Standard (LSRS) has been broadly welcomed as a major step forward for corporate carbon accounting of agriculture- and land-related emissions, though questions remain over implementation details, traceability rules, and the exclusion of forest carbon.

The international emissions trading body IETA has pushed back against proposed changes to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Scope 2 guidance that would require hourly matching and physical deliverability for renewable energy procurement.

Gaining momentum - US-based fusion energy startup Inertia Enterprises said it had raised $450 mln in a Series A round, as it seeks to commercialise laser-based fusion technology proven at the National Ignition Facility. Founded in 2024 in California, the company plans to build a pilot plant centred on a high-power laser system dubbed “Thunderwall” and to mass manufacture fusion fuel targets, with the aim of delivering grid-scale power within a decade.

Utah lawmakers are considering a carbon credit framework to tax emissions offset projects in the state, creating a levy that could fund defence against the implementation of federal environmental markets.

Voluntary carbon market standard operator Verra has opened a consultation into a proposed “major revision” of its methodology to reduce emissions via improved agricultural land management.

California has issued almost 90,000 offset credits with direct environmental benefits (DEBs) to the state to local dairies, according to data published on Wednesday.

Dog ate homework - Massachusetts's climate chief missed her deadline to deliver an economic analysis of the state's net-zero commitment by over a year, Commonwealth Beacon reported. Melissa Hoffer, appointed in Jan. 2023 as the country's first state climate chief, made the analysis her top priority in Oct. 2023, with a target completion date of end-2024. It was meant to price reaching net zero by 2050 and identify funding options. A spokesperson for Governor Maura Healey (D) confirmed the report has not been filed but declined to explain the delay. The missing analysis has drawn criticism from environmental advocates and Republican lawmakers.