A Texas-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) project developer has filed an application for a permit to inject CO2 in Illinois.

Standard body Verra has launched a consultation on a draft savanna fire management method, it announced Wednesday.

A US-based non-profit and a carbon market platform on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership to expand access to carbon removal (CDR), methane mitigation, and refrigerant destruction projects, while strengthening the operational foundation behind how philanthropic capital is deployed in the carbon markets.

Mission accomplished - Tech giant Microsoft has achieved its goal to match 100% of its annual global electricity consumption with renewable energy by 2025, it announced Wednesday. Since 2020, the company said it has contracted 40 GW of new renewable energy supply across 26 countries, working with more than 95 utilities and developers across more than 400 contracts and counting. In its journey towards becoming carbon negative by 2030, Microsoft said it will continue to push for an expansive focus on adding all forms of carbon-free electricity solutions, complementing and adding to its existing portfolio of renewable energy resources. The tech giant also noted the importance of technologies including carbon capture and nuclear energy in efforts to meet rising electricity demand while maintaining environmental or sustainability goals.

Stewardship secured – Canadian conservation organisation The Nature-Based Solutions Foundation has acquired two clusters of private inholdings totalling more than 55 hectares, it was announced Wednesday. The clusters are located within the Kanaka Bar Band’s proposed Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in British Columbia, securing rare old-growth forests and critical habitat for endangered species. The purchases bring the number of private properties slated for return to the Band under title-registered conservation agreements to three.

The Dominican Republic became the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to register two wind farms under the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), a developer announced on Wednesday.

Afforestation and reforestation projects should assess whether their remote-sensing can detect fine-scale biomass changes, particularly if they plan to issue credits early, attendees of a Wednesday webinar heard.

Washington's February Allowance Price Containment Reserve (APCR) auction sold all of the more than 3 million allowances available amid the strongest bid-to-cover ratio since the initial year of the programme, a notice published Wednesday showed.

US-based tech giant Amazon has announced it is expanding its carbon credit service to offer super pollutant neutralisation and lower-carbon fuel (LCF) inset credits.

A coalition of public health and environmental groups has sued the US EPA over its repeal of the endangerment finding on Wednesday, launching a court challenge against what the Trump administration described as the "largest deregulatory action in American history".

You can learn from us - An article by the World Economic Forum published Wednesday has argued that governing advanced AI should learn from carbon markets. Current AI governance relies heavily on voluntary commitments and ethical principles, which have limited impact because they do not change economic incentives. In climate policy, meaningful progress only emerged when governments priced pollution through cap-and-trade systems. The authors suggested applying a similar approach to AI. Instead of regulating AI capabilities, which are hard to define and politically contested, policymakers should regulate a measurable input: computing power. Training frontier models requires specialised chips, data centres, and large electricity use, all of which can be monitored. Because compute can be metered, regulators could create a permit system where companies must purchase allowances to run large training jobs, the WEF said. Permits would be risk-weighted: safer systems require fewer permits and become cheaper to develop, while riskier systems cost more. This would turn safety from a public-relations issue into a financial incentive. Revenue from permit auctions could fund global oversight and support participation by less wealthy countries, the authors added. Although imperfect - such an approach does not perfectly measure harm and enforcement would take time - the proposal’s central claim is that measurable inputs plus pricing mechanisms create behaviour change.

Export exposure – Environmental groups have sued the US DOE over its authorisation for Venture Global’s CP2 LNG export terminal in Louisiana, E&E News reports. The plaintiffs argued that the approval relied on “insubstantial analysis” of how additional exports affect US energy prices and failed to consider life-cycle GHG emissions. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is serving as co-counsel alongside Earthjustice in representing the Sierra Club, the groups said. The petition was filed with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday.

Partners - The Restoration Seed Capital Facility (RSCF) has entered into a partnership with Natural Investments, an impact-focused investment platform within the Natural Capital group, to mobilise private capital into early-stage forest and landscape restoration projects in Southern Africa. Under the agreement, RSCF will provide co-financing to help Natural Investments expand its pipeline of investable, landscape-scale conservation and restoration projects. The support is intended to absorb early-stage development risk, improve project bankability, and create replicable investment structures capable of attracting private and institutional investors. The initiative aims to safeguard critical wilderness areas while demonstrating that restored landscapes can function as commercially viable natural capital assets. Natural Investments is advancing a diversified portfolio covering more than 1 mln hectares across Africa. Its projects target carbon sequestration and avoidance, biodiversity recovery, and improved local livelihoods, while seeking to generate sustainable long-term financial returns. The initial geographic focus under the partnership will be Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia, selected for their policy environments, intact ecosystems, and potential for diversified revenue streams. RSCF, supported by the governments of Germany and Luxembourg and implemented by UNEP and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, was launched in Oct. 2020 to catalyse investment in forest and landscape restoration during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030). It supports broader international objectives including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Bonn Challenge, and the Rio Conventions.

Canada and Ukraine have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on areas of strategic importance in the energy sector, including on renewables, nuclear, and oil and gas.

Canada cannot meet its climate targets while its financial system continues to bankroll emissions-intensive activities, a Canadian senator told Carbon Pulse, arguing that her bill would facilitate cohesion between the country’s climate commitments and its capital markets.

Fossil fuel interests are perpetuating energy insecurity by standing in the way of an affordable green transition, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in remarks at the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) ministerial meeting on Wednesday, calling for a new global platform to discuss transitioning away from oil, coal, and gas.

A coalition of international organisations has unveiled a new effort to expand access to clean cooking, aiming to transform political commitments into financed infrastructure and nationwide deployment programmes, with several governments and industry voices also backing carbon credits as a key means of financing greater clean energy access in the sector.

US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has called on the International Energy Agency (IEA) to move away from a recent "focus" on fighting climate change and concentrate instead on scaling energy access and security, speaking at a ministerial event in Paris on Wednesday.

Carbon markets should evolve to finance long-term ecological stewardship, not merely insure credits, argues Charles Bedford, Founder of Carbon Growth Partners and Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Demand for carbon removals (CDR) in 2025 roughly doubled year-on-year, largely driven by offtake agreements led by a tech giant, according to a sustainable energy outlook published on Wednesday. 

Traders polled by Carbon Pulse ahead of Wednesday's Q1 WCI auction expected, on average, a settlement in line with recent front-month California Carbon Allowance (CCA) futures prices, while analysts provided predictions between the price floor and above $30.

Wright or wrong - US Energy Secretary Chris Wright threatened to withdraw the country from the International Energy Agency (IEA) if it continues producing net zero scenarios, calling such work "leftist fantasies" at a Paris conference on Tuesday, Politico reported. Wright, speaking ahead of an IEA ministerial meeting, said the agency should focus on energy security rather than behaving like a "climate advocacy organisation". The Paris-based IEA produces scenarios that inform global climate policy and corporate decarbonisation strategies. In a November report, the agency appeared to respond to US pressure by reintroducing a scenario based on current trends and pushing its peak oil demand forecast from the 2030s to mid-century.