New TREES VVBs - The Secretariat of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) announced on Monday it has provisionally approved two more validation and verification bodies (VVBs) under its TREES carbon credit standard. There are now three such provisionally-approved VVBs, namely: S&A Carbon, TUV Sud, and SCS Global. The only two fully-approved VVBs are Aster Global Environmental Services and Aenor.

Data provider prisoners – Juan Carlos Gonzalez Aybar, founder of French project developer Fronterra, criticised the fees charged by data providers in a post directed at standards body Verra in a LinkedIn post last week. He said developers were facing a “triple squeeze” from “50-90% reduction in credits”, “extremely high fees” charged by the hectare, and “overall anti-climate anti-ESG backlash”. Gonzalez Aybar urged Verra not to become “prisoner of the data providers and their business model”, adding that “if you lose the supply companies, you lose the game”. Verra replied that it “regularly review[s]” its fee structure to ensure fees both cover costs and enable project implementation, while Gonzalez Aybar clarified that “your success is ours” and "we are big supporters of your work".

Jet set Ghent - LanzaTech, a US-headquartered carbon management company, has selected North Sea Port in Ghent, Belgium as the permanent site for what it said will be Europe’s first commercial-scale alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) facility, a €500 mln project targeting annual production of 79,000 tonnes of SAF and 9,000 tonnes of renewable diesel, the company and port said Monday. LanzaTech said it is preparing to submit an environmental impact assessment scoping notification to Belgian authorities as it moves toward a final investment decision. The facility is designed to comply with CORSIA, EU ReFuelEU Aviation, and UK SAF Mandate regulations.

A South Korea-based multilateral climate finance facility last year supported mitigation programmes that could generate over $500 million in Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs), also hitting other milestones, according to its annual report.

The Brazilian COP30 presidency is pushing forward with the development of a roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, with the first consultations starting in New York on Monday on the margins of the 21st Session of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF21).

High-rated mangrove restoration credits surged to record highs last week amid an uptick in demand for quality nature-based units, while the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) said another standard body and another methodology met its Core Carbon Principles (CCP) bar.

A Green European Parliament lawmaker who will help steer the revision of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) says talks could conclude by the first quarter of 2027, provided the European Commission anticipates key issues and EU capitals and the Parliament avoid major changes to the draft.

France is urging the European Union to move beyond a renewables-only framework and adopt a technology‑neutral “Decarbonised Energy Directive” that fully recognises nuclear power’s role in the energy transition, according to French officials who spoke ahead of an informal EU ministerial meeting on Tuesday.

European carbon prices recovered after an initial decline in response to the United States' rejection of Iran's latest peace proposal over the weekend, and made strong gains in the afternoon as positive fundamental sentiment began to spread amongst traders, while UKAs also jumped to a three-month high as hopes for an EU-UK market linkage were boosted ahead of this week's King's Speech.

A clean cookstove developer is expanding into Uganda, beginning with the delivery of 10,000 improved cookers to rural communities, it announced on Monday.

The European Commission is weighing an extension of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) that would extend carbon costs to international flights departing the bloc, not just those travelling within Europe, according to the Financial Times.

Global progress on forest conservation remains uneven, with continued tree cover loss and financing gaps threatening efforts to meet 2030 goals, a UN assessment said.

The UK government will introduce legislation this week enabling it to nationalise one of the country's highest emitting companies, British Steel, if it's in the public interest.

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) projects could overstate their carbon removal (CDR) impact unless they account for a wider range of chemical, physical, and biological processes that can reduce CO2 uptake, according to a report.

Five developing nations have outlined activities they may approve under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 crediting mechanism, with most placing forestry, land use, agriculture, waste methane, and renewables among their main areas of interest.

Campaigners have urged Brussels to resist growing political pressure to dilute the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), warning that weakening the bloc’s flagship carbon market in the name of industrial competitiveness would undermine two decades of decarbonisation efforts just as the system "is finally working somewhat".

A carbon and energy finance outfit has appointed four senior executives to its leadership team as the company looks to accelerate its expansion across global environmental markets.

Companies are setting increasingly unified voluntary climate standards that can drive meaningful progress to net zero emissions, despite the political headwinds and lack of clarity around the use of carbon credits, according to an academic review.

The European Commission is proposing to maintain the highly-contested steep cuts in general 'fallback' categories for the benchmark values used to determine the number of free EU ETS allowances handed to industries, and confirmed that it will provide an extra €4 billion worth, mainly to the chemical sector. 

A blockchain-based removal and reduction registry has appointed a new advisor to head design and build a new framework for nature-based projects, it announced on Monday.

Biochar funding in the US – Edinburgh-based Carbogenics has secured $80,000 from New Mexico’s Job Training Incentive Program to support its US expansion, the company announced last month. The funding will support the hiring and on-the-job training of three local workers at the company’s facility in northern New Mexico. Carbogenics produces engineered biochar products for applications including anaerobic digestion, wastewater treatment, orphan gas well sealing, and DAC.

More than two dozen Angolan landowners have registered to use the NatureOS platform to scan their areas for project potential and monitor risks such as fire, encroachment, deforestation, and climate exposure, according to the platform's developer. 

UK Met Office tender – The UK Met Office is seeking suppliers of UK nature-based carbon removal credits under a contract worth up to £900,000 including VAT, according to a tender notice published on May 5. The five-year contract is expected to run from Oct. 31, 2026 to Oct. 30, 2030, with market engagement open until June 2. The procurement is intended to support the weather agency’s purchase of carbon removals, with the tender listed under Find a Tender notice 041217-2026.

Ensuring that carbon projects demonstrate additionality is critical to preserving market integrity and climate goals, said scientists in response to a recent academic paper that suggested rethinking such requirements.

Echoing A Tale of Two Cities, today’s climate transition is marked by both unprecedented progress and mounting headwinds, and overcoming false binaries will be critical to unlocking the capital and action needed at scale.