EU carbon allowances gave up all Monday's price gains from Tuesday and more, as sellers came to the fore despite the approaching reduction in EU auction volumes as the REPowerEU programme is expected to end on Thursday, while energy markets rallied after an LNG tanker was attacked overnight.

Teresa Ribera, the EU’s clean technology chief, is at odds with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over how steeply carbon allowances under the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) should decline each year, according to multiple sources.

Fusion race - Proxima Fusion, which is looking to build Europe’s first commercial fusion power plant, has raised €411 mln ($468 mln) in a financing round, with RWE and Google as strategic investors, it announced Tuesday. The financing provides the backing needed to build Alpha, Proxima’s net-energy stellarator demonstrator near Munich, Germany. In less than three years, Proxima has secured more than €650 mln ($740 mln), including €95 mln in public grants.

The European Commission on Tuesday unveiled a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the bloc’s livestock sector, saying technology and targeted farm support could cut emissions by at least 16% by 2040, while stopping short of proposing a dedicated emissions target for the industry.

Ratings rollout - The European Commission plans to unveil a regulation later this month requiring electronic labels for new and existing data centres to incentivise new designs and efficiency improvements. The proposal aims to reduce water and energy consumption, promote the use of renewables, and encourage the reuse of nearby waste heat. Electricity demand from data centres is projected to exceed 3% of the bloc's total power consumption by 2030, putting increasing strain on the grid. (Bloomberg)

Billions of euros in EU funding to improve the energy efficiency of homes are falling short of the bloc’s climate and energy objectives, the European Court of Auditors has warned in a new report published on Monday.

Koko Networks, the Kenyan-based bioethanol and clean cooking developer that folded in February after failing to secure an agreement to sell credits internationally under the Paris Agreement, is selling its technology platform and factory.

Underfunding of the Loss and Damage fund risks bleeding into broader UN climate negotiations, hardening developing countries' reluctance to raise mitigation ambition without matching finance, experts warned ahead of a critical meeting this week.

Global gas demand will only slip marginally this year despite the US and Israel war with Iran, and the impact on LNG supply will be offset by the end of the year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Europe’s chemical industry has effectively paid no carbon price under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) over the past decade, contradicting claims that high carbon costs are undermining the sector, according to a new investigation by a watchdog group.

Market, policy, and emissions data at your fingertips as the European Commission prepares to issue legislative proposals to reform the world’s largest compliance carbon market by traded value.

A Mozambique-based clean cooking company has secured around €1.1 million from a European clean cooking fund to expand access to biomass-fuelled cookstoves and fuel production in the country.

Cookstoves online - The IEA has moved its high-level Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa to an online event this Thursday from 1400 CET, after cancelling a planned meeting in Nairobi on Thursday and Friday due to what it called persistent uncertainties around attendance. The IEA is hosting its second summit on clean cooking in Africa along with the governments of Kenya, Norway, and the US, plus the African Union and the AfDB. Thursday's meeting will take stock of developments since the 2024 event in Paris, including implementation of the $2.2 bln of announced commitments.

The EU should use its quota for international carbon credits to help build domestic carbon pricing systems in partner countries, rather than treating them as a cheaper route to fulfilling its 2040 emission targets, according to a recent policy brief.

Producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from waste plastics could act as a “bridging fuel” in decarbonising aviation before the scale-up of other fuels with a stronger emissions saving profile, say experts.

A broad coalition of industrial carbon management stakeholders has urged the European Union to use the forthcoming review of the bloc’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) to preserve the market’s core architecture while directing a larger share of its revenues into industrial decarbonisation.

ARR issuance - Verra has issued 25,408 verified carbon units (VCUs) from  Estonian-based forestry carbon developer Ecobase's European afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) project, said a press release by Ecobase on Tuesday. It marks the second verification and credit issuance for the project, and covers two vintages, with 12,140 VCUs issued for 2023 and 13,268 VCUs issued for 2024. The credits form part of Ecobase’s wider 5,853-hectare ARR project. But while the full project spans 10 countries, these specific credits were generated from eligible project areas across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.

EU steelmakers are set to benefit from the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in the coming years, despite industry concerns over the phaseout of free allowances, according to a brief by a Brussels-based climate policy think-tank.

Acquired - Abu Dhabi's state-run oil firm ADNOC's distribution arm has agreed to acquire Shell’s downstream business in South Africa for an implied enterprise value of about $1 bln, expanding its fuel retail footprint in Africa. The deal covers 580 fuel stations as well as wholesale fuel, aviation and lubricants operations, and is expected to close in 2027 subject to regulatory approvals. ADNOC in a press release said the acquisition would boost earnings per share by 6% in the first full year after completion.

Gold Standard (GS) has added another insurance policy to the list of approved covers for CORSIA, the international aviation offsetting scheme, the registry announced Tuesday.

A coalition of more than 70 environmental, Indigenous rights, and human rights organisations has urged the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to abandon plans to lift its 23-year-old moratorium on allocating new industrial logging concessions, warning that the move would jeopardise climate commitments, undermine recent forest governance reforms, and expose vast areas of the Congo Basin to unsustainable exploitation.

A coalition of NGOs, industry groups, and CCS stakeholders has urged EU governments to rapidly implement penalty regimes for oil and gas producers that fail to meet their CO2 storage obligations under the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), after an end-June deadline has passed.