Independent due diligence on jurisdictional claims will be increasingly necessary for generating buyer-facing confidence in jurisdictional REDD+ (J-REDD+) programmes, speakers said during an online event on Thursday.

Carbon standard Verra has reinstated the Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project after a community formally reaffirmed its participation through a process conducted in line with Kenyan law.

A small batch of an anticipated 5 million European soil carbon credits from one developer have traded at an average of just over €50 a credit.

A Dutch nature-based (NbS) project developer has completed a two-year assessment of soil carbon opportunities across Eastern Europe and launched a full feasibility study in Ukraine that could lead to carbon credit issuance before 2030, it announced Thursday.

Ukraine has adopted a two-year framework on Wednesday to test procedures for authorising, issuing, and transferring mitigation outcomes under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, alongside rules for a national carbon registry.

UK forest project – A UK-based afforestation, reforestation and restoration (ARR) project has received a BeZero Carbon ex ante rating of AApre with low execution risk, its developer announced on Thursday. The project, based in Scotland, is the first AA-level rating awarded to a UK Woodland Carbon Code scheme, according to developer Oxygen Conservation. The Invergeldie Estate Woodland Creation seeks to generate over 350,000 carbon removal credits over an 100-year commitment period, based on its native woodland work in Perthshire.

Blue carbon – A blue carbon accelerator, managed by Fair Carbon and Finance Earth, announced its first cohort on Thursday, backing two mangrove projects in West Africa. The Blue Catalyst Fund will provide early-stage finance to projects in The Gambia and Guinea, offering technical expertise to help them develop “investment-ready” blue carbon initiative, Fair Carbon said in a statement. The Gambia-based North Bank Ecosystem Restoration Trust will use the accelerator’s funding to conserve and restore 16,950 ha of mangroves while Guinea-based West Africa Blue will scale its mangrove initiative across 34,000 ha of the country’s Forecariah and Boffa prefectures. The Blue Catalyst Fund, endorsed as an Action of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, aims to support the conservation and restoration of 150,000 ha of coastal ecosystems.

The carbon industry still faces a critical financing bottleneck as traditional lenders remain sidelined by a lack of bankable offtake agreements, despite growing support for early-stage projects, a conference heard Thursday.

The EU’s 27 member states agreed their position on Wednesday on emergency measures to help farmers cope with rising fertiliser prices, as part of the bloc’s response to mounting pressure on farm incomes linked to the Middle East crisis.

Divergent rules for managing carbon reversal risks could weaken market integrity and encourage project developers to choose less demanding standards, according to a report released Thursday.

A German-headquartered foundation opened a call for proposals this week, offering a total $17 million of funding to projects focused on establishing blue carbon schemes in marine protected areas, and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) across four Asian countries.

The CEO of a legacy REDD+ project in Indonesia has said overseas buyers and investors are looking for stability in the country’s carbon regulatory landscape to instil confidence that credits will resume and remain flowing.

A major certification body for jurisdictional carbon programmes issued just under 1.1 million credits to Costa Rica, a share of which are the first removals certified by the standard, it announced Wednesday.