A sustainable land-use project in the Republic of the Congo has secured catalytic technical-assistance funding to support environmental and social studies aimed at advancing the project towards investment readiness.

A Sydney-based investment manager and forestry firm launched its first global natural capital strategy fund, which will invest across forestry, agriculture, carbon, and biodiversity markets.

Ukraine’s cabinet has approved a package of 11 environmental measures, including a long-term, low-carbon development strategy to 2050, an updated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) through 2030, and a new biodiversity conservation strategy.

EU member states agreed on Friday to extend the bloc’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to downstream goods from Jan. 2028, while tightening the conditions for temporarily exempting products and broadening the list of goods covered.

European carbon prices gave up early momentum on Friday, generated by an overnight US government statement that an agreement had nearly been reached with Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, which pressured gas prices around 6% lower, though the supportive sentiment faded as the session went on for EUAs which ended the week flat, with several market players doubtful that the deal would be signed in the next few days.

The 2026 UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) auction calendar will be updated to reflect the inclusion of domestic maritime emissions once the regulation enabling the scope expansion comes into force in July, the government confirmed late on Friday.

Europe’s food and drink industry could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 85% from 2020 levels by 2050, exceeding the reductions required under science-based guidance, but only if policymakers channel more carbon pricing revenues and targeted support into low-carbon technologies, according to a sectoral net zero roadmap presented in Brussels on Thursday.

Investors react sharply when an asset's carbon footprint becomes a prominent public issue, but do not systematically price changes in underlying emissions, according to new research using cryptocurrency markets as a natural experiment.

The Dutch government has retired nearly 7,000 tonnes of durable carbon removal credits to compensate for emissions generated by official government flights, marking what is believed to be the largest retirement of durable carbon removal credits by a government entity to date.

The EU is hopeful that the UN’s CORSIA offsetting scheme for airlines will look at the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism’s (PACM) direction of travel and explore potential revisions, a policy advisor to the European Commission said Friday, as aviation stakeholders await a decision on whether the bloc will expand its ETS to cover extra-European flights.

Guidance underpinning the rapidly expanding blue carbon sector frequently overlooks key tenure rights and international obligations to Indigenous peoples, coastal communities, and small-scale fishers, potentially exposing local groups to dispossession and exclusion from project benefits, researchers have warned.

Oil demand in China may have fallen faster than expected as the US-Israeli war against Iran passed the 100-day mark, Reuters reported Friday, in an indication that demand destruction may be advancing rapidly across some global regions, which would see a reduction in emissions across key carbon pricing schemes.

Nature-based solutions deserve stronger support in the newly released Science Based Targets initiative's (SBTi) Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0, though they still have a clear pathway to scale, according to some carbon market stakeholders, who pointed to the standard's prioritisation of engineered removals to help companies tackle hard-to-abate emissions later down the line.

A coalition of civil society organisations from Turkiye, Australia, and the Pacific has urged the incoming COP31 presidency team to use this year’s UN climate summit to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

Armed conflict and policy uncertainty are making parts of the international carbon market harder to insure just as the EU looks to lean more on overseas credits, according to Bilal Hussain, co-founder and CEO of carbon credit insurer Artio.

Climate policies are overlooking up to 15% of global warming because they focus on a decades-old "basket" of greenhouse gases while ignoring other pollutants that indirectly heat the planet, according to a new paper.

Fertiliser support - The European Commission is helping farmers face sharply rising fertiliser costs through financial relief and proposing adjustments to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Some €540 mln will be mobilised in coming weeks as relief to help farmers who need to buy fertilisers to guarantee their next crops, and the Commission has proposed boosting the agricultural reserve with an extra €300 mln from the EU budget 2026 on top of the remaining funds, with Member States able to top it up by up to 200% of national funds, bringing total available financial support to a potential total of €1.5 bln. Secondly, targeted adjustments to the CAP will allow EU countries to offer farmers faster and more flexible support to access fertilisers, including a new liquidity scheme under rural development for crisis support, the option for countries to directly pay farmers earlier, and the possibility for countries to adjust their direct payment budget for calendar year 2027. The proposed targeted CAP legislative amendments will now be sent to the European Parliament and Council for approval. More details here.

EU Arctic drilling ban rethink – Norway’s prime minister has urged the EU to rethink its moratorium on new Arctic oil and gas drilling, arguing it makes little sense given Europe’s rising reliance on Norwegian LNG from the High North since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Jonas Gahr Store told the Financial Times that Brussels’ stance was “not informed” and challenged EU capitals to say whether gas from the US or Gulf is “safer” than supplies from a close ally. He said all of Norway’s wartime increase in exports to the EU came from Arctic LNG at Hammerfest and warned that if Europe does not want this gas “it goes somewhere else”. Norway, already advancing Barents Sea projects, argues its strict standards and Arctic expertise bolster both EU energy security and monitoring of Russian activity, while EU diplomats cite “huge environmental concerns” around lifting the moratorium. (Financial Times)

A digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) provider has partnered with a Danish biogas operator to provide data infrastructure for a five-site bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) project in Denmark, the firms said last week.

Verra has issued a number of corrections and clarification for version 2.2 of its VM0042 methodology for Improved Land Management that was released in October.

Industry groups have welcomed the European Commission’s draft move to ease penalties on fossil fuel importers that breach the EU Methane Regulation (EUMR), but warn the soft-law approach falls short of the legal overhaul they say is needed to avoid widespread non-compliance and energy supply risks.

Observers have praised the relationship between Australian and Turkiye as they lead the Bonn intersessional in their novel role-sharing arrangement, however the real challenge will come when they assume full responsibilities in November.

The UK’s first commercial direct air capture (DAC) project has launched with plans to remove up to 60,000 tonnes of CO2 per year by 2032, the project developers announced Thursday.

The EU may need to integrate CO2 removals into its emissions trading system as a "safety valve" to prevent allowance prices from spiralling if deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and green hydrogen infrastructure continues to lag expectations, according to a new report.

Europe’s forests are on course to miss a carbon sink target consistent with the EU’s 2030 climate goals by more than a quarter, as rising natural disturbances and continued harvesting erode their capacity to absorb emissions, according to a study published this week.

UK farm soil carbon stocks may be significantly underestimated by current accounting methodologies, with early findings from a major British environmental baselining project indicating that at least 30% of soil organic carbon lies below the depth commonly measured in carbon assessments.