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- Sat 23:05Gulf 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.
- Sat 06:01
TGI+XGC - TGI Solar Power Group has signed a letter of intent to acquire Ontario-based XGC Corp for $1.8 mln, aiming to deploy national carbon registry infrastructure for governments participating in international carbon markets under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement. The deal would be executed through a new Wyoming subsidiary focused on offering “sovereign carbon infrastructure-as-a-Service”, enabling countries to issue, track, and manage carbon credits through a digital registry platform. XGC’s system combines satellite-based GeoAI verification, blockchain-based credit tracking, and enterprise financial governance tools designed to support transparent carbon credit issuance, prevent double counting, and manage revenue flows. TGI expects the platform to generate recurring revenues through registry licensing and transaction fees tied to national carbon credit activity. The companies plan to target initial deployments in Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America following a 90-day due diligence period, while XGC is also pursuing international patents covering its integrated registry and verification technologies.
- Fri 16:12Soaring 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.
- Fri 15:02Global warming acceleration – Global warming has accelerated since 2015, with an estimated warming rate of 0.35C since then, compared with just under 0.2C per decade on average from 1970 to 2015. This is according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), which found 2023 and 2024 to be the two warmest years since the start of instrumental records, even when correcting for the effects of El Niño and the solar maximum. In all datasets, the acceleration begins to become apparent in 2013 or 2014. The rate since 2015 is higher than in any previous decade since the start of instrumental records in 1880. If the last decade's warming rate continues, it would lead to long-term exceedance of the 1.5C Paris Agreement limit before 2030, said PIK.
- Fri 12:42Colombia's fossil fuel phase-out conference – The First International Conference for the Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels – to be hosted by Colombia and co-organised by the Netherlands in April – now has a rough agenda, Colombian Environment Minister Irene Velez Torres said on a webinar Thursday. A meeting of academics will be held from Apr. 24-26 ahead of a high-level summit on Apr. 28-29 with participants from 40-80 countries, including civil society and academic delegates. The conference itself will unfold in four stages: collection of written submissions focused on concrete solutions; online dialogue on the basis of these contributions; decentralised, self-directed dialogues organised by local communities and other actors; and the high-level segment, which will have capacity limits. For the final stage, accreditation will be based on three criteria meant to ensure balance: regional representation, sectoral representation, and relevant work on the conference's main themes. The conference is designed to contribute to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's call to develop a global roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels, announced at COP30 in Belem last November. Colombia will host national elections in May.
- Fri 12:38Weakening the EU carbon market “would be a mistake”, according to economists at a Paris-based climate think tank who have called instead for reinforcing the system to secure the long-term competitiveness of European industry.
- Fri 11:54Carbon 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.
- 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.
- Fri 04:36Redirecting 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.
- Fri 00:48Biogas to jet fuel - Houston-based Syzygy Plasmonics has signed a memorandum of understanding with Brazilian developer Geo bio gas&carbon to explore commercial-scale SAF production using biogas from sugarcane residues, the companies announced Tuesday. The collaboration aims to deploy projects capable of producing up to 100,000 tonnes of SAF per year initially, with a longer-term vision of building a portfolio of facilities exceeding 525k tonnes annually across Brazil. The initiative forms part of Syzygy’s broader NovaSAF expansion strategy, which seeks to convert biogas into low-carbon fuels using its light-driven reactor technology. The firm has recently signed similar feedstock agreements in several regions, including the US, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, targeting a combined pipeline intended to support up to 1 mln tonnes of annual SAF output globally by 2035.
