Jet fuel crisis - Trade body Airlines for Europe, representing carriers such as Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, and Air France-KLM,  has written to the European Commission urging immediate intervention to avert a looming aviation fuel shortage triggered by the widening Middle East conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to VisaHQ. The letter calls for centrally coordinated fuel allocation, a suspension of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme for aviation, and temporary relief from national ticket taxes. Europe could see strategic jet fuel reserves depleted within three weeks if the strait remains blocked, according to analysts. Airlines fear the combination of costlier detours and constrained supply will lead to widespread cancellations, especially on long-haul sectors. The Commission is preparing a crisis package for Apr. 22, but has not committed to the airlines’ requests.

A senior European Commission official said that the EU will favour a centralised purchasing framework to acquire international carbon credits to help meet its 2040 climate target, rather than rely on individual companies to procure them directly.

The US remains a "disruptor" in upcoming UN talks about cutting emissions from shipping, although the oil crisis has helped to sharpen the business case shifting to clean fuels, experts said on Wednesday.

Hotting up - Global emissions reached a record of 37.2 bln tonnes of CO2 in 2025 and, although the annual growth rate has flattened to 0.7%, there is 50% chance the remaining carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5C will be exhausted by 2029, according to an academic paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.  Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes increased by 0.7% within 2025, the researchers found. However, large-scale deployment of clean electricity sources during the year avoided 10.3 bln tonnes of global CO2 emissions, so that power sector emissions declined by minus 0.9% relative to 2024. China and India entered an emission plateau owing to massive renewable expansion, but the US and EU saw emission rebound following policy reversals and clean energy stagnation.

Seeking feedback - The Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) Secretariat between Mongolia and Japan is seeking feedback on the sustainable development implementation plan for a proposed project. The project aims to cut emissions in Zavkhan province by installing a 5-MW solar PV and 3.6-MWh battery energy storage system. The call for public input is open until May 14.

Carbon pricing policies must be flexibly designed to ensure they can be tweaked to align with political realities, in order to retain electorate support for climate goals, said experts at a conference.

Switzerland-based Gold Standard has launched a public consultation on a new analytical tool designed to tackle the risk of lock-in to high-emission or suboptimal technologies under its carbon crediting framework.

Sri Lanka has no meaningful carbon market today, but has the potential to unlock millions of tonnes of compliance-grade credits if bureaucratic delays and financing gaps are resolved, according to a Colombo-based developer.

Airlines preparing for compliance under the UN's international aviation offsetting scheme are running into a shortage of host country approvals needed to use carbon credits, even as project supply continues to grow.

Technology developers have launched a 12-month pilot of a methane removal system aboard a bulk carrier, marking what the companies say is the first deployment of the technology under normal commercial shipping conditions, with ambitions to generate Gold Standard-certified carbon credits from the mitigation.

Inconsistent methodologies and uneven data for calculating national greenhouse gas inventories are emerging as a constraint for the development of international carbon markets, a UN technical expert warned.