Gulf crisis, carbon cost - Pakistan is considering asking the IMF to suspend a carbon levy on furnace oil imposed under its Resilience and Sustainability Facility, as Gulf tensions threaten the country's energy supply and drive up crude import costs, Pakistan's Energy Update Magazine reported. Federal Minister for Petroleum Ali Pervaiz Malik said the prime minister had directed the finance ministry to engage the IMF on the matter, with the aim of keeping furnace oil for domestic use rather than exporting it. Crude prices at $100 per barrel could add $250 mln per month to Pakistan's external account burden, rising to $500 mln at $120/barrel, Malik said. Petrol import premiums have surged from $5 to $17 per barrel, pushing domestic prices up. The levy was introduced in 2025 as part of an IMF backed broader economic package.

Researchers have proposed a market-based framework to help the chemicals industry decarbonise complex global supply chains, arguing that verified emissions reductions within value chains could become a scalable complement to existing carbon markets.

Adding biochar to soil could significantly reduce the climate impact of farming in dryland regions compared with compost-based treatments, according to a new study that highlights implications for offsets and agricultural mitigation strategies.

Canada-Japan CCUS - Canada has announced a new comprehensive strategic partnership with Japan aimed at expanding trade ties and energy security. The bilateral agreement said the pair would look to increase efforts to support Japanese automotive manufacturers in advancing their decarbonisation efforts in Canada, and increase cooperation on clean energy technologies, including nuclear technologies, hydrogen, energy-efficient industrial processes, as well as carbon capture, utilisation, and storage. Japan was the third stop on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trade expansion tour amid uncertainty over the Canada-US relationship. He signed similar pledges with Australia earlier in the week.

The past month in climate litigation saw the US’ highest court take up a major lawsuit led by local governments against the oil industry, a landmark corporate climate case move into trial phase in Europe, and courts across multiple jurisdictions weigh greenwashing claims and statutory climate duties.

Voluntary carbon registries may have to reveal the company or entity retiring credits to meet the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Market’s (ICVCM) threshold for Core Carbon Principles (CCP) eligibility, in a move under consideration to ratchet up transparency, a spokesperson for the organisation told Carbon Pulse Friday.

Soaring oil prices – Crude oil prices could surge to $150 per barrel within two to three weeks if the critical Strait of Hormuz remains closed to tankers, Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi told the Financial Times in an interview published on Friday. His comments came just hours before reports that Kuwait – one of OPEC’s founding members – had begun shutting production at some oilfields as storage capacity fills up with shipments blocked at the strait. Kuwait is also considering deeper production cuts, including at refineries, to align output with domestic demand. All major Middle Eastern oil and gas exporters are set to declare force majeure on exports within days if the key shipping lane remains effectively closed to tanker traffic, said al-Kaabi, who is also president and CEO of QatarEnergy. Qatar’s state energy firm earlier this week halted LNG production at its Ras Laffan hub, the world’s largest LNG complex. Front-month Brent crude futures were trading above $90 a barrel on Friday.

Sea level jump – Actual sea levels in coastal areas are up to 24-27 cm higher than previously thought, meaning the impacts of sea level rise have been underestimated, according to a new study published in the journal Nature this week. Researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands analysed 385 scientific studies and found that 90% of them  assume the sea is at exactly the same height as the land, when in actual fact it often rises above that due to wind and waves, for example. Predominantly in the Global South, measured mean sea level can be more than 1 m above the assumed level, with the largest differences in the Indo-Pacific. This means climate change-induced sea level rise could affect 31-37% more land and 48-68% more people (increasing estimates to 77-132 mln) than previously thought.  (Nature study)

Middle East angst – A lengthy war in the Middle East may drive up demand for carbon credits in the compliance market, if utilities switch to coal as a result of LNG disruptions, according to BloombergNEF. Taiwan is already considering boosting production at coal-fired plants, while Italy is keeping its plants in reserve as a precaution. The ultimate impact on compliance markets will depend on how long the energy disruption lasts and whether regulators step in to adjust compliance caps, said AirCarbon Exchange. Meanwhile, the voluntary market could see a drop in buying activity as corporate discretionary spending gets constrained due to higher operating costs from an energy crisis - firms may reconsider buying timelines, emissions forecasts, and hedging strategies as a result, according to AirCarbon. (Bloomberg News)

The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) should build on the governance systems developed for jurisdictional REDD+ (J-REDD+), as the two mechanisms share objectives and draw on complementary sources of finance, a board member of standard body ART told Carbon Pulse.

Allowance prices in China's national emissions market remained above the RMB 80 ($11.60) level after the week-long Lunar New Year holidays, amid sustained momentum in the policy-driven market.

Carbon insurance to manage political risk, and a dual-layered registry approach to support carbon accounting, are two valuable tools for the UN’s CORSIA international aviation offsetting market – but there are big caveats, according to experts.

Getting closer - A feasibility study is being commissioned under a UNDP-led project to assess the creation of a national carbon registry in Mongolia, aimed at enabling the country to participate in international carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, according to a request for proposal published Friday. The study will examine institutional governance, legal frameworks, and technical requirements, and propose a digital registry system interoperable with international platforms such as Verra, Gold Standard, and the UNFCCC reporting infrastructure. It will also recommend safeguards to prevent double counting and ensure alignment with Mongolia’s nationally determined contribution targets. The six-month assignment will produce a technical design, cost estimates, and an implementation roadmap, including a prototype registry to be tested with government agencies, financial institutions, and private sector stakeholders.

Growing scrutiny over the credibility of international carbon credits is raising the bar for rice carbon projects, with compliance buyers demanding increasingly sophisticated monitoring systems to verify emission reductions.

Asia is accelerating electrification initiatives, with the next major frontier likely to lie in industrial and building sectors, particularly in heating, according to a recent report.

Blue carbon atlas - Scientists in India’s Tamil Nadu are planning a high-resolution mapping of coastal blue carbon ecosystems – including mangroves, seagrass meadows, and tidal marshlands – using drones, AI, and cloud computing to better quantify the carbon stored in these habitats. The project, led by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in collaboration with the state forest department and supported by Microsoft, aims to generate pixel-level carbon data and produce a Blue Carbon Atlas for the state. Army-grade drones equipped with multispectral sensors and LiDAR will capture detailed imagery to measure vegetation and biomass, enabling scientists to assign carbon values to each mapped pixel and estimate both above-ground and below-ground carbon stocks, the Times of India reported.

Redirecting revenues from the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to producers of specific industrial product categories rather than allocating them by country could both reduce global emissions and offset some of the policy’s welfare losses for trading partners, researchers argue.

Renewed - Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry has renewed a strategic partnership with the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) to expand agroforestry as part of sustainable forest and landscape management, the government said in a press release. The agreement, signed in Jakarta, will focus on areas including agroforestry model development, watershed restoration, innovative financing, and digital knowledge systems. Integrating trees with agricultural crops can boost vegetation cover, improve soil fertility, and increase national carbon stocks. ICRAF said the collaboration could strengthen management of around 8 mln ha of community-managed forest land and potentially expand to 12 mln ha.

Sabah forests - Malaysia is looking to expand its carbon market by leveraging Sabah’s vast forest reserves, a federal minister said, highlighting the state’s role as a source of credits, New Straits Times reported. Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Arthur Kurup said Sabah hosts one of Malaysia’s recognised carbon projects, the 83,000 ha Kuamut Rainforest initiative, which has generated more than 80,000 credits traded on the Bursa Carbon Exchange. He added that the federal government is finalising a National Carbon Market Policy and a National Climate Change Bill to strengthen the country’s climate governance and support its 2050 carbon neutrality target.

Countries could seize a "golden opportunity" by establishing a government-backed strategic reserve to guarantee long-term demand for CO2 removal credits and unlock financing for large-scale projects in the "massive industry of the future".

Cloud creating - Sydney company Cloud Carrier is proposing to build a 700 MW gas-fired power station to support three data centres near the rural town of Moss Vale, ABC News reported. The project's lead engineer Greg Jackson said the plant would transition to use renewable fuels when they become available and treat its emissions and reduce the plant's pollutants to well-below the NSW EPA's limits for the area. Ty Christopher, director of Energy Futures at the University of Wollongong, told the broadcaster directly burning gas to generate electricity to power new data centres would slow down Australia's journey to net zero emissions. A recent report from consulting firm Baringa predicted data centres would use 11% of the country's energy by 2035 and could drive up emissions nationwide by 14% in the same timeframe.

A decade-long field trial in Germany has found that regenerative organic farming practices can increase soil carbon stocks, but mainly in surface soils and with limited evidence of long-term carbon storage at depth – raising questions about how related offsets methodologies account for permanence and monitoring.

Funding unlocked - Australian biomethane project developer Delorean Corporation announced it has received a A$1.1 mln ($772,000) milestone payment from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency under a A$6.08 mln grant agreement supporting development of its SA1 Salisbury bioenergy facility in South Australia. The payment funds infrastructure upgrades that enable the plant to convert biogas into mains-grade biomethane for supply to industrial users via the Adelaide gas network under a long-term offtake agreement with Origin Energy. The company also reported construction progress at the site, including installation of anaerobic digestion tanks, delivery of key equipment, and ongoing grid connection works as it moves toward first renewable gas production.

Biochar collaboration - Pakistan’s University of Agriculture Faisalabad and carmaker Pak Suzuki have last week signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on research, development, and commercialisation of biochar technologies aimed at converting agricultural waste into value-added products. The partnership will explore applications including soil fertility improvement, water retention, and carbon sequestration, while supporting climate-smart agriculture and waste-to-energy solutions. The two sides said they are already cooperating on biogas, biofuel, and biofertiliser consultancy projects, with the addition of biochar technology intended to advance a circular bio-economy approach and expand biochar-based fertiliser deployment for farmers.