Early benchmarks for Canada’s vehicle emissions standard (VES) won’t be stringent enough to meet its sales target, according to a Thursday analysis.

Here calls the sun - Mirova, the sustainable investment arm of Natixis Investment Managers, has provided a $15 mln senior secured facility to iSAT Africa Mauritius Limited to support the deployment of solar-powered telecom towers in Liberia and Zambia. The 10-year financing, delivered through the Mirova Gigaton Fund, will help fund part of iSAT’s plan to expand to around 1,000 towers across Sub-Saharan Africa. The investment will support Network as a Service and Energy as a Service solutions using towers that operate entirely off-grid, powered by solar energy and battery storage. iSAT, a rural connectivity provider with more than 15 years of experience, combines renewable-powered telecom infrastructure with satellite backhaul across GEO, MEO, and LEO constellations to deliver mobile data services to remote communities. The solar towers are intended to replace diesel-powered rural telecom infrastructure, potentially lowering CO₂ emissions from mobile network operations while expanding 2G to 5G connectivity and improving coverage in underserved areas. The project aligns with the Gigaton Fund’s objective of financing solutions that deliver measurable emissions reductions while supporting digital access and development in rural regions.

The war in the Middle East is driving a "scarcity premium" for energy prices and highlights the importance of energy independence, with pricing carbon "the single most important thing we can do" to tackle climate change, said John Kerry, former US secretary of state and special presidential envoy for climate, at an event in London.

The UK ETS Authority has opened a consultation on proposals to streamline regulatory requirements for cross-boundary carbon capture and storage (CCS) pipelines within the country's cap-and-trade compliance carbon market.

European carbon looked set to spend Thursday trading in a well-established range as it continued to focus on news headlines and price volatility across energy markets, until news reports that the European Commission is considering relaxing permit supply and free industrial permit handouts as part of EU ETS reforms triggered a drop to the benchmark's lowest price in nearly a year.

The House of Lords voted on Thursday to approve the UK government's plan to extend its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to shipping later this year, with proponents saying it is an important step towards linking the British market with the EU's.

Solar curtailment - Germany is increasingly curtailing solar power in the country's south, reported Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday. The Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) said the curtailment of solar power plants roughly doubled in 2024 and again in 2025, with most of that by far in Bavaria, noted Clean Energy Wire, who reported on the original story. Until now, curtailment had mainly been an issue in Germany's coastal north, where large amounts of wind power struggle to reach industrial centres in the west and south. Bavaria has the largest installed solar PV capacity in Germany. In 2024, solar PV accounted for 1,100 GWh of curtailed electricity across Germany, or around 10% of total curtailments. Bavaria's state economy ministry told Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the eight major Bavarian network operators will invest billions in the coming years to increase distribution capacity; distribution as well as transmission grids pose a bottleneck.

Energy market intelligence provider Energy Aspects has agreed to acquire Paris-based satellite data analytics firm Kayrros, in a move aimed at expanding the group’s geospatial monitoring capabilities and accelerating the deployment of earth observation data across energy and financial markets.

The European Commission has started a legal case against 19 EU countries for failing to submit their plans to decarbonise their building stock in time, the executive said this week. 

Spanish hydrogen - The European Commission approved a €440 million Spanish state aid scheme to support the production of renewable hydrogen. This will be done through the European Hydrogen Bank's Auctions-as-a-Service tool for the auction that closed in Feb. 2026. Spain estimates that the scheme will support the construction of up to 243,800 tonnes of renewable hydrogen, resulting in almost 2 mln tonnes of CO2 avoided. The scheme will help Spain achieve its national objective to install 12 GW of electrolyser capacity by 2030, as well as the targets for the share of renewable fuels of non-biological origin in transport and industry. The aid will take the form of a direct grant per kilogram of renewable hydrogen produced. Spain can grant the aid in the next 12 months. Once the aid is granted, companies will be eligible for payments over a 10-year period.

European motorists are set to pay an extra €150 million a day in fuel costs as oil prices again touch $100 a barrel, according to research published by a clean transport campaign group on Thursday.

A California-based startup has secured an additional $60 million to expand grassland restoration and carbon removal (CDR) activities, bringing the total value of a previously-announced partnership to $100 mln.

France should move quickly to adopt its draft third National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC 3), but it still needs to address unresolved issues around land use, aviation, biomass, and implementation, the country’s independent climate advisory body said in a report published Thursday.

Russian arrival - A new climate project has been registered on the Russian Carbon Units Registry, PJSC Tatneft NA VA Shashin, the registry announced on Wednesday. The project is expected to issue 614 carbon units during the crediting period, which runs from Jan. 1, 2023-Dec. 12, 2032. It has not yet released any.

Steady Shell - Shell's emission held stead in 2025 at about 1.1 bln tonnes CO2e, Reuters calculated, based on the oil major's annual report. Most of Shell's emissions are Scope 3, and mainly from the combustion of its fuels. The UK, by comparison, emitted 480 MtCO2e in 2024. Shell's net carbon intensity was also unchanged YoY, around 71 grams of CO2e per megajoule in 2025.

The European Commission is considering an easing of EU ETS allowance supply rules and loosening free carbon permit handouts for industry in a near-term bid to ease carbon costs, Bloomberg reported Thursday afternoon.

Eight EU countries have warned against suspending or making fundamental changes to the bloc's Emissions Trading System (ETS), calling it the cornerstone of the EU's climate policy, according to a joint paper seen by Carbon Pulse.

Europe is more susceptible to electricity price shocks after shutting down most of its coal-fired production and boosting renewable power, analysts noted amid a spike in gas prices and an escalating war in the Middle East.

Offshore wind - Area-specific and lower-density development can optimise the costs of offshore wind expansion in the North Sea - which remains key to the energy transition and industrial development in Germany, said the German trade association for energy and water industries (BDEW) on Thursday. The optimal balance between grid and generation costs and revenues needs to be analysed per area, it said on the back of a study carried out by Frontier Economics on behalf of BDEW and German offshore wind association BWO. The trade bodies billed it as the first comprehensive scientific analysis of the offshore sector that considers both grid and generation aspects. The study concluded that, depending on the area, the economically optimal expansion is about 5-10% above grid connection capacity; curtailment is then only about 3-4%. The BDEW and BWO call upon the German government to use an upcoming reform of the Offshore Wind Energy Act to adjust tenders and planning to enable area-specific development. (BDEW press release and study)  

A London-headquartered tropical restoration company has closed a Series A funding round for scaling an ecosystem recovery project in Ghana, it announced on Thursday.

No to Tata - Around 100 economists have written to the Dutch government advising it to pull the plug on a €2 bln subsidy for Tata Steel Nederland to green its operations (and reduce Dutch emissions by up to 5%). They say the money would be better spent on other urgent problems like grid congestion, sustainable energy, and the Dutch nitrogen crisis. There is no business case for steel production in the Netherlands, they write, and Tata risks falling back on further subsidies. Electricity costs are structurally higher in the Netherlands than elsewhere in Europe, they argue, and Dutch steel production will remain more expensive than in Spain, Sweden, or outside Europe. The economists suggest that European support for a European green steel industry makes more sense. The previous Dutch government signed a draft climate agreement with Tata Steel Nederland in Sep. 2025, which the new government has in principle agreed to respect, although it is also recommitting to EU leadership. The deal was already criticised last December in the same economics journal (ESB) where the letter now appears. (Open letter)

Over 30 civil society organisations have called on EU leaders to "safeguard the integrity and predictability" of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) ahead of next week's European Council meeting.

Ethiopia could address greenhouse gases, poverty, and income inequality with a $20 per tonne CO2 tax on fossil fuels by simultaneously reducing sales taxes, according to a working paper published by a research partnership between European Commission and African Union institutions.

Two major German energy companies have reported a rise in EU ETS coal-fired power generation in 2025, with gas output also increasing year-on-year.

Members of the European Parliament voted on Thursday in favour of loosening up rules to help heavy-duty vehicles manufacturers meet the EU's existing CO2 target for 2030.

PPAs to the rescue - European policymakers should look to corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) and Contracts for Difference public support auctions for renewables as a tool for EU energy security and competitiveness, SolarPower Europe said on Wednesday. In a new report, it calculated that these tools accounted for 92 GW of solar installations in the EU from 2022-25. That's equivalent to the power capacity for 28 million homes, or 10% of European households, the trade association said. It's also more than three times the solar power Spain installed in the same timeframe (27.6 GW), it added. "The analysis demonstrates how long-term contracts offered a clear lifeline to EU businesses and citizens in the wake of the 2022 energy crisis, even as these contracts have started to face headwinds," it said. As the latest fossil energy crisis unfolds, SolarPower Europe urges European policymakers to bolster industrial electrification, access to PPAs, and well-designed auctions, including the integration of energy storage. (SolarPower Europe report)

Two development investors have committed a combined $50 million to an African fund designed to support new developers of clean energy, transport, and fuels in the region, they announced on Thursday.

Lift-off at Schiphol - The highest Dutch court has scrapped a government-imposed cap on the number of flights at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, one of Europe's busiest. In a ruling on Wednesday, the Council of State concluded that the decision by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management last year was "not carefully considered and not properly justified". In May 2025, the government amended the Schiphol Airport Traffic Decree to limit noise pollution. This amendment capped the number of flights at 478,000 per year, effective Nov. 1, 2025, with a maximum of 27,000 flights between 11pm and 7am. Previously there had been no overall cap and night flights were restricted to 32,000. Airlines, local residents, municipalities, and various associations all appealed the decision - for different reasons. Airlines found the cap unacceptable, while local stakeholders wanted further restrictions. In the court's opinion, the Minister was wrong on several counts. He should not have equated a maximum number of flights with a maximum level of noise (not every aircraft emits the same amount of noise). In addition, with the cap, the minister appeared to treat as legally-binding a non-binding agreement to limit flights to 500,000 a year, the court said. The ruling means that the previous decree from 2008 remains in force, without a cap on the total number of flights - although the court did uphold the new limit on night flights, which no one objected to - until a new Airport Traffic Decree, which the government is currently working on, comes into force.  (Council of State)  

Free pass - Austria is reportedly considering assigning a zero valuation to biomethane in its CO2 pricing system if certain conditions are met. The Austrian Compost & Biogas Association stated that the Federal Ministry of Finance has confirmed that biomethane will not be included in the upcoming EU ETS2 for buildings or transport or the national Emissions Trading Act (NEHG 2022). The applicable criteria will now be based on the European Monitoring and Reporting Regulation (MRR) 2018/2066. (theia)

Ghana and Switzerland have authorised another Ghanaian project under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, a private-sector carbon credit procurer for the Swiss government announced Thursday.

Climate attitudes - Concerns about climate change among the UK public slipped to 77% at the end of 2025, compared to 79% that summer and 85% in the autumn of 2021, according to DESNZ's winter 2025 public attitudes tracker. The government's efforts to reduce climate change had support from 68% of respondents, of which 45% expressed strong support. Some 12% instead opposed the government's actions. Nearly two-thirds of people said the biggest responsibility lay with businesses and industry (35%) and the government (31%). Renewable energy maintained support from 78% of respondents, similar to the summer 2025 survey, although support has declined from 87% in the autumn of 2021. Opposition remains at around 5%.

Electricity exports pushed up power sector emissions in the Netherlands in 2025, meaning the sector now needs to halve its emissions over the next five years to meet its 2030 climate target.

The war in the Middle East is likely to lower demand for credits under the international aviation sector’s CORSIA scheme in the short term, analysts told Carbon Pulse, with one estimating the past two weeks alone have seen around 3 million tonnes of fewer emissions due to lost jet fuel.

Angola eyes REDD+ – The UN Development Programme is seeking a consortium to develop a national REDD+ strategy and action plan for Angola, as the country takes its first steps toward participating in international forest carbon markets. The tender, with a Mar. 19 deadline, calls for a feasibility assessment, strategic framework, and action plan aligned with Verra's VCS and ART TREES standards, as well as Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Angola's REDD+ readiness is described as still in its early stages, held back by limited institutional capacity and the absence of legal frameworks. The project will also design measurement, reporting, and verification systems and identify priority areas for REDD+ implementation.