A US NGO is arguing for bipartisan cooperation in forest management policy in the face of increasing climate-related risks and market pressures threatening forest health.

Integrity measures - Most projects offering credits on the voluntary carbon market are just passing "investment grade", with only two of more than 11,500 projects earning an AA rating and none earning the top grade. The State of Carbon-Credit Integrity, published in July 2026, produced ratings from AAA-D based on public registry data and CCP-aligned dimensions, finding that only Deep Sky's DAC and 1PointFive's CCUS met AA grade requirements.

Carbon market training - The Dominican Republic's National Council for Climate Change and Carbon Market (CNCCMC) has signed an institutional collaboration and cooperation agreement with the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors (Codia) for initiatives aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate change, strengthening territorial resilience, and promoting sustainable development, the state agency announced on Friday. Among other actions, the agreement will promote the continuing education of professionals in areas related to carbon markets.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) could use its anti-fraud powers and case law from virtual currency markets to police voluntary carbon market (VCM) credits beyond derivatives, according to new legal analysis.

The European Commission has proposed extending the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to cover some international flights from 2029, as well as all business jet travel to and from the bloc, after concluding that ICAO’s global carbon offsetting scheme CORSIA had failed to deliver.

The UK has reaffirmed its vision to build demand for engineered removals through its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and voluntary carbon markets, but delayed decisions on specifics, in its official response to an independent review.

Conservation renewal – Carbon developer African Parks has renewed a partnership agreement for the collaborative management of Zambia’s Liuwa Plain National Park, it announced this week. Under the new mandate, the developer will continue to work with Zambia’s Ministry for Tourism and the Barotse Royal Establishment to conserve the area for local communities and wildlife. The renewed agreement aims to secure migratory routes for key species beyond the park’s boundaries, while looking to boost conservation financing. The new mandate also covers a section of the Upper West Zambezi Game Management Area, according to a statement from African Parks. African Parks first signed a partnership agreement for Liuwa Plain with Zambia’s Ministry for Tourism and the Barotse Royal Establishment in 2004.

BioCCS blueprint- Climate tech company and carbon credit registry Rainbow Standard, in a LinkedIn post, said that Frontier has approved its biogenic carbon capture and storage (BioCCS) methodology for use by its suppliers. Following the approval, Frontier developers building BioCCS projects can certify their removals via Rainbow. The move comes after Rainbow finalised the methodology, making it one of the first voluntary carbon market standards explicitly aligned with the EU’s emerging carbon removal certification framework.

African clean cooking - A $25 mln World Bank-backed facility has opened its first call for proposals from clean cooking and distributed renewable energy companies operating across 16 African countries. The ASCENT Project Preparation Facility, hosted by the COMESA Secretariat and managed by London-based Cygnum Capital, will provide technical assistance and grants of $50,000-200,000 for project preparation linked to prospective financing transactions. Applications for the first submission cycle close on Aug. 31.

Municipal credits - Indian city Pune's municipal corporation has approved a proposal to examine a carbon credit policy that could generate around INR 200 mln ($2.1 mln) a year by selling credits from eligible green projects, including waste management, solar, biogas, sewage treatment, and electric buses. The proposal calls for establishing a dedicated carbon credit cell to identify eligible projects and oversee certification, with revenues earmarked for environmental protection and civic development, according to The Indian Express.

A South Korean maker of electronics plans to generate carbon credits from refrigerant recovery projects while using offsets meeting "internationally credible standards" for residual emissions, according to its latest sustainability report.

Carbon frontier- The northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh has designated the state-owned firm Hydro Power Development Corporation as the agency to execute carbon credit projects in the state, according to Arunachal Times. Under its jurisdiction, it will identify, formulate, develop, and implement carbon credit initiatives across various sectors and coordinate with departments, institutions, and developers to facilitate project registration, validation, verification, certification, monitoring, and issuance of carbon credits in line with national and international standards.

A widely cited benchmark calling for around 10 billion tonnes of durable CO2 removal (CDR) annually by 2050 has become detached from the scientific evidence on which it is purportedly based, according to a new study that argues climate policy should place greater emphasis on emissions reductions and present CDR requirements alongside the mitigation pathways that generate them.

Accurate nitrogen data lags behind carbon and methane research, leaving the vital fertiliser compound and polluter under-researched, and the potential profitability of its emissions reduction unreached, according to two US nonprofits. 

CORSIA coverage checklist - Verra has published a checklist for project proponents seeking CORSIA-eligible labels through the insurance route, requiring them to show that Verified Carbon Units are backed by an approved insurance product when evidence of a completed corresponding adjustment is not yet available. A completed checklist must accompany each label request, with a separate submission required for every insurance policy included.

LATAM CDR accelerator opens - Carbon removal (CDR) accelerator Remove has opened applications for an eight-month programme for early-stage startup CDR projects in Latin America. Supported by Milkywire’s Climate Transformation Fund, the two-stage programme will provide technical and business training, one-on-one coaching, access to buyers, investors and policymakers, and connections to Remove’s network of more than 200 startups and 800 CDR community members. Selected teams may also access a €15,000 pre-purchase agreement, with Remove taking no equity, while participants will remain eligible for fundraising tools, peer groups, and expert support after the programme ends. Applications close 2359 CEST (2159 GMT) on Aug. 30, 2026.

US-based registry Climate Action Reserve (CAR) launched a modular framework on Thursday and opened a core protocol and India-specific rules for crediting nitrous oxide (N2O) reductions from nitric acid plants for public comment, while approving a corresponding US module.

India's government on Thursday proposed a compliance credit trading system for passenger vehicle manufacturers under draft third-phase Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE-III) rules that would progressively tighten fleet-wide fuel efficiency standards from 2027 while giving automakers greater flexibility in how they comply.

Conservation funding risks – African conservation projects face risks due to an over reliance on single income streams, an article published by the World Economic Forum on Thursday suggested. Yet the continent is seeing a rising move towards diversified funding from innovative sources including ecotourism, carbon credits, and biodiversity markets according to authors Steve Cunliffe, Founder and CEO of Natural Capital, and Dorothy Abade-Maseke from FSD Africa. Although the value of Africa’s natural capital is increasingly recognised through emerging financial mechanisms, a challenge remains to attract sufficient private finance and institutional capital to restore degraded ecosystems, they said.

US ranchers' willingness to participate in voluntary soil carbon markets is driven more by trust, social acceptance, and previous conservation experience than by income or management objectives, according to new research that found widespread scepticism continues to constrain uptake despite growing interest in carbon farming.

Environmental groups have called on policymakers to reject the European Commission’s proposed methodologies to certify removals from carbon farming activities, saying they will consider legal action if the rules go through unchanged.

The Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) has published the TREES Concept for the Central African Republic's jurisdictional REDD+ programme on its registry, marking the first formal step towards potential issuance of jurisdictional forest carbon credits.

A European environmental commodities trading firm has refinanced and increased its syndicated borrowing base facility to €310 million to support its global trading activities and working capital needs.

The French government announced Wednesday it has adopted its third National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC 3), setting out sectoral pathways to halve territorial greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from 1990 levels and reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

Indonesia's Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling that had reinstated the operating licence of PT Rimba Raya Conservation (RRC), the concession holder of one of the world's largest REDD+ forest carbon projects, according to a case record published on the court's website.

Exploring - Indonesian companies ESGIN Global Partners, a climate technology firm, and Agraus Resources, a project developer, signed an agreement to jointly develop carbon projects in the Southeast Asian country, according to Jakarta Daily. The partnership will target sectors including renewable energy, waste management, industrial decarbonisation, sustainable agriculture, and nature-based solutions.

An environmental markets brokerage is joining forces with an advisory service to expand their European carbon market offering, they announced on Wednesday.

A Singapore-based agri-tech startup has raised $31 million in a Series B financing round to scale low-emission rice production across Southeast Asia.

Production increases at existing biochar facilities could become eligible under Verra’s proposed overhaul of its biochar methodology, which would also introduce project-level additionality tests, uncertainty deductions, and expanded monitoring requirements.

Peru has recognised four additional carbon crediting standards and seven methodologies under its National Registry of Mitigation Measures (RENAMI), broadening the range of eligible mitigation activities under the Paris Agreement's Article 6 mechanisms.

A Chicago-headquartered carbon project developer has acquired a Colorado-based well-plugging company, expanding its pipeline of methane abatement projects into Colorado and Wyoming.

A developer of nature-based carbon removals is teaming up with a Japanese power company to develop projects in Tanzania under the Japan's Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), it announced on Wednesday.

A Vienna-headquartered carbon asset manager has delivered its first credits tagged as eligible under the first compliance phase of CORSIA under a $1 million offtake agreement, it announced on Wednesday.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has opened a second consultation on its net zero standard for the power sector, which lines up with the initiative's new corporate standard and provides more clarity on the emissions and activities it would cover.

AI spots methane - UNEP’s Methane Alert and Response System has contributed to more than 40 methane mitigation actions worldwide since becoming fully operational in 2024, using AI to process satellite data and flag major emissions for expert review. AI-assisted workflows identified 80-85% of confirmed detections and helped address sources estimated to have emitted 1.2 mln tonnes of methane, equivalent to the annual emissions of almost 24 mln gasoline-powered passenger cars, the agency said.

Ruling - India's Delhi Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has ruled that money earned from selling carbon credits cannot be taxed for periods before the 2017-18 financial year, according to LiveLawBiz. The tribunal said a law specifically taxing income from carbon credit sales only came into force from the 2017 Finance Act, meaning it cannot be applied retrospectively. The ruling came in a case involving steel pipe maker Jindal Saw Ltd.

A coalition of 24 industry, research, and civil society organisations has urged Helsinki Convention parties to remove barriers to carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the Baltic Sea, saying they are slowing industrial decarbonisation and the development of a European CO2 market.

Carbon removal registry and certification body Isometric on Wednesday announced a new improved soil management protocol, with three project developers already registered to generate carbon removal certificates under the framework.

Trading activity on Indonesia's carbon exchange ticked up from a 10-month low in June, but remained subdued even as volumes tripled from a low base.

A Middle Eastern airline has taken down advertisements promoting its offsetting programme after a UK authority Wednesday judged they were misleading consumers.

Out to sea - Users of the En-ROADS Climate Solutions Simulator, created by Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan, now have access to an ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) feature, organisations responsible for development announced Tuesday. The new feature allows users to explore how OAE could contribute to global carbon removal needed to meet climate change goals, while examining constraints, costs, and uncertainties, said Ocean Visions, a non-profit ocean conservation group.

Around 850,000 tonnes worth of verified carbon removal (CDR) credits have been issued in the US through to the first half of 2026, a sector data platform said Tuesday.

Carbon removal (CDR) should be treated as essential public infrastructure rather than primarily as a tradable commodity, with compliance markets, public mandates, and public investment used to support community ownership, according to a new study.

Corporate carbon credit buyers are applying more detailed quality and risk criteria to their purchases, but many remain reluctant to move beyond spot transactions into long-term offtakes that carry delivery, counterparty, and balance-sheet exposure, experts said during a Tuesday panel.

Verra revision - Voluntary carbon standard Verra has released a revised version (v1.1) of its VM0051 methodology (Improved Management in Rice Production Systems), it announced on Tuesday. Verra said the updated contained "minor revisions" intended to clarify methodology requirements, align the methodology with current VCS Program rules and requirements following the launch of the latest version of the programme in Dec. 2025, and refine guidance for project area stratification and quantification procedures. The previous version of VM0051, v1.0, will be inactivated under the VCS Program on Aug. 1, after which any projects requesting registration or crediting period renewal must use v1.1. VM0051 was approved for the first two compliance phases of UN aviation offsetting scheme CORSIA in April and has been submitted for evaluation under the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market's (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label.

Demand across the voluntary carbon market (VCM) remained steady in the first half of 2026 after a large retirement from a US oil and gas company helped to keep pace with 2025's record level, according to data from an analytics firm.

The European Commission is set to drop proposals to impose strict additional eligibility criteria for carbon credits used by EU airlines for Phase 1 of the UN's CORSIA international aviation offsetting scheme, according to a recent presentation from the EU's executive.

Conservation finance – Brazilian conglomerate Votorantim said its private Atlantic Forest reserve, Legado das Aguas, reached financial break-even in 2025 after revenue from carbon credit sales completed the business model underpinning its conservation efforts, Capital Reset reported. The project spans nearly 22,000 ha in Sao Paulo state and is the largest private reserve in the Atlantic Forest. It has generated around 120,000 carbon credits, with sales accounting for 12% of the revenue of Reservas Votorantim, the group's environmental asset management company.

Two methane offset developers are scaling up a collaboration to accelerate the plugging of orphan oil and gas wells across the US, with the expanded partnership set to begin on a project in Oklahoma and include collaboration on credit generation.

SBTi Services, the commercial subsidiary of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), has launched an assessment service to help companies determine what changes they would need to make to seek validation under its updated Corporate Net-Zero Standard.

A crop input supplier has struck a partnership to market biological products alongside a soil carbon programme that will allow farmers to generate carbon credits in Latin America and Europe, the companies announced Tuesday.

A standard-setter for nature projects is seeking feedback on a fundamental shift in its methodology for soil carbon projects, recognising that they need to be tailored to local conditions, it announced on Tuesday.

Power hungry – Google has agreed to buy all initial output from the 1.6 GW Steel River Energy Centre solar project in Arkansas under a virtual power purchase agreement, underscoring continued corporate demand for renewables despite US policy headwinds. The project, due online in 2029, will include 2 GWh of battery storage and later expand to 2.5 GW solar capacity. Financial terms were undisclosed. Data centre power demand is rising, with Google’s electricity use up 37% in 2025, even as grid emissions and reliance on fossil fuels remain significant. (Financial Times)

A London-based direct air capture (DAC) company has acquired its Dutch rival, which will see the creation of one of Europe's largest integrated producers in the sector.

Carbon credit issuances across major registries in the voluntary market fell 31% year-on-year between January and June as retirements dropped 2%, while prices generally remained stable or gained strength.

A New Zealand initiative aiming to encourage native reforestation is pivoting to broader carbon and nature markets for funding, following a lack of commitment from the government for an earlier iteration which would have leveraged the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).

Voluntary carbon methodologies for orphan well methane leaks are conservative enough to avoid over-crediting, but timing, or estimating when the plugged well would have emitted methane, remains a weak point, a paper has argued.

An intergovernmental organisation dedicated to private and commercial law is launching a 10-week public consultation on draft principles that would provide legislative guidance regarding verified carbon credits (VCCs), it announced on Monday.

Carbon removal (CDR) buyers’ club Frontier said suppliers in its portfolio delivered about 30,600 tonnes of CO2 to its members in the first half of 2026, surpassing the total delivered through the initiative in all of 2025 and putting its portfolio on track to pass 50,000 tonnes this year.

A Kenyan Court of Appeal has given new life to a legal dispute over Kenya Electricity Generating Company's tender for international carbon credits, ruling that it should not have changed the rules of procurement mid-process. 

A financial services provider has partnered with National Parks Partnerships (NPP) and the South Downs National Park to finance one of the UK's largest woodland creation projects through carbon markets, in a move designed to accelerate nature restoration while generating credits.

Benchmark ICE CORSIA Phase 1 futures rebounded above $10 per tonne last week as sources noted the slump down from nearly $20/t since the end of last year may not be as bad as some fear.

Singapore is building an integrated carbon market ecosystem that fills financing, innovation, and demand gaps, positioning itself as Asia's hub for scaling high-integrity carbon projects and Article 6 markets.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) environment minister has pledged to maintain the country's 23-year-old moratorium on new industrial logging concessions, marking a significant reversal after weeks of concern that the government was preparing to reopen vast areas of the Congo Basin to commercial timber operations.

CoolRice launch - Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and Japanese research partners have launched CoolRice, a one-year initiative to advance heat-tolerant rice breeding and low-emission cultivation practices across Asia. The project aims to strengthen the scientific and technical foundations for climate-resilient rice production by combining crop breeding, climate analytics, agronomy, and greenhouse gas mitigation research, with partners agreeing a roadmap for future collaboration during a workshop held at IRRI headquarters in the Philippines.

Cookstove consultations – Burn Manufacturing's carbon project arm, ECOA Climate Capital, has invited stakeholders to consultations in Mozambique later this month and early August for planned project activities under its Gold Standard electric cooking programme. Meetings will be held in Maputo, Nampula, and Beira, with online participation also available.

Verra has opened a consultation on a major revision to its methodology for projects that use captured waste CO2 in concrete production.

A North American forestry standards organisation and a US-based non-profit have partnered on a pilot forest analytics tool for carbon reporting, wildfire mitigation, and resilience planning across timber sourcing areas, the two announced.

Seed round - Swiss carbon removal developer Arrhenius has closed a seed funding round to scale its microalgae-based CO2 removal and biomass storage technology, it announced last week on LinkedIn. The undisclosed funding will support construction of a 500-square-metre pilot plant combining carbon removal with wastewater treatment, as well as preparations for the company’s first commercial facility abroad. Investors included CTA, Young Ventures, and angel investors Thomas Krumbeck and Ralf Wildenhues. The pilot will test the technology under real-world conditions ahead of commercial deployment.

A multi-company partnership for sustainability and a London-based bank have jointly launched a programme to coach high-potential initiatives in the nature-based solutions (NbS) space across the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkiye (MENAT), and Southeast Asia.

A London‑based financial services platform has taken a “bold” long‑term position on aviation compliance credits, with senior executives saying the firm is structurally long on CORSIA‑eligible units and is leaving most of its exposure to future prices unhedged.

An Icelandic carbon crediting standard has launched a public consultation on proposed revisions to rules governing project development, methodologies, validation, and verification across its programme.

ETS cap plea - Brussels-based industry association Ammonia Europe on Thursday called for the EU to slow the reduction of the EU ETS cap and phase out free allowances more gradually to protect European ammonia production. In its position on the upcoming ETS review, the group also proposed a crisis mechanism to release additional EUAs during sharp price spikes, greater use of ETS revenues for industrial decarbonisation, and stronger support for CCS and CCU. It further backed extending the maritime ETS to vessels of 400-5,000 gross tonnes and directing shipping-related ETS revenues towards alternative fuel infrastructure and projects.