European carbon prices eased back on Tuesday morning after the momentum that drove prices to five-month highs on Monday fizzled, while front-month gas prices again broke beyond €60/MWh as concerns over ongoing fighting in the Middle East, and lower than average storage levels across the continent, have kept prices elevated.

The European Commission’s proposal to extend the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to municipal waste incineration risks delaying meaningful carbon pricing because of extensive exemptions, campaigners say.

EU countries are splitting into two camps for the looming battle over how far to strengthen, or weaken, the bloc's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).

High-integrity stamped credits now cover at least 13% of the new issued volume, the chief executive of the Integrity Council of the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) said on Tuesday.

On the mark - Agreena's soil carbon programme (VCS4022) has received a 'BBB' ex-post BeZero Carbon rating following the issuance of credits in Sep. 2025 under Verra's standard. The ex-post rating is unchanged from the project's 'BBB' ex-ante rating assigned in Feb. 2025, indicating that the project's performance has been broadly consistent with earlier expectations, the developer said.

New recommendations on how EU governments can implement the bloc's Methane Regulation should clear the way for oil and gas producers to comply with incoming reporting rules, even though the industry would still prefer to see them written in law, according to experts. 

Alternative bill - Ukraine's parliament has registered an alternative bill to establish the country's national ETS, introducing a competing proposal to the government's draft legislation. The alternative bill, No. 15386-1, was submitted by four members of parliament on July 21 and is at the earliest stage of the legislative process, having been received by the Verkhovna Rada and referred to parliamentary leadership. The document is not yet publicly available and has not yet been assigned to a committee or scheduled for debate. Under Ukrainian parliamentary procedure, the original and alternative drafts are expected to be considered together at first reading before lawmakers decide which version will form the basis of the legislation.

Germany’s energy regulator on Tuesday launched the first tender for long-term electricity generation capacity from gas plants designed to maintain security of supply during prolonged periods of low renewable output or limited electricity imports.

The European Commission's proposed reforms to the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS), which include provisions linked to the procurement of up to 260 million international credits, should mean the total demand for Article 6 units from the bloc reaches as high as 650 mln, experts have noted.

The EU should allow biochar carbon removal (BCR) into the EU ETS alongside other EU-certified permanent carbon removal pathways, an industry association has said, warning that a CCS-only approach would undermine competition and raise costs.

Marine carbon removal (mCDR) will struggle to reach commercial scale without stronger government action to create reliable long-term demand beyond voluntary carbon markets, researchers argue.

The new British prime minister, Andy Burnham, will cut the UK's value-added tax (VAT) from electricity bills from October, saving households an average £45 a year, he said Tuesday.

Trading and open interest has continued to pick up in CORSIA futures after the European Commission proposed a compromise to extend the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to some international flights.

Silver lining – Investors have responded positively to EU plans to tie free carbon permits to decarbonisation investments. Last week, the European Commission proposed extending free allowances to 2038 while requiring companies to submit investment plans to qualify for free permits as part of its post-2030 EU ETS review. Emine Isciel, of Storebrand, called it "a powerful tool for investors" as failure to meet decarbonisation plans could see permits withdrawn. Investors said the impact will hinge on whether stricter accountability offsets weaker carbon constraints in the revised system. (Reuters)

New gas pipeline – West African leaders have approved a long-planned Nigeria-Morocco Atlantic Gas Pipeline, a $25 billion project set to start construction in 2028 and span 6,000 km along the Atlantic coast of 14 countries. The pipeline will carry Nigerian gas to Morocco and into Europe via Spain, with a planned capacity of 30 billion cubic metres a year to serve about 400 million consumers. Backers say the scheme could reshape West Africa’s industrialisation and enhance the region’s leverage in global energy markets, though major financing, security and demand risks remain. (BBC)

Ethiopia has become the first country to issue carbon credits under a World Bank-managed programme supporting jurisdictional forest activities, with 12.4 million units available for carbon market transactions.

A left-of-centre coalition is emerging in the European Parliament to oppose plans to integrate international carbon credits and removals into the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) unless strict environmental conditions are met.

Concrete buildings and infrastructure in the UK absorbed 1.5 Mt of CO2 in 2024, as the UK became the first country to report an estimate of the concrete carbon sink in its National Inventory Document submitted to the UN.

A draft reversal-risk tool under Paris Article 6.4 is cementing permanence requirements to clean cooking credits for the first time. But before debating the numbers, the market should ask whether this category belongs in a permanence framework at all.

A carbon ratings agency is funding an initiative to analyse the causes and impacts of extreme wildfires, which represent a growing risk for nature-based projects, it announced on Tuesday.

UK's Green Deal champion - New UK PM Andy Burnham has appointed Miatta Fahnbulleh as secretary of state for energy security and net zero, who has a history of string views in favour of rapid decarbonisation. Fahnbulleh, a former economist who was elected to parliament in July 2024, published an essay in 2019 for the think tank Common Wealth titled “Anchoring the Green New Deal: Building Transformational Institutions”. There, she called for rapid mobilisation of public resources to decarbonise economies over a 10-15-year period while creating millions of well-paying green jobs. Fahnbulleh replaces Ed Miliband who has become foreign secretary.

A Norwegian bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) project has become the world’s first to generate verified carbon removal credits from biogas production, the certifier, Finnish registry Puro.earth, announced Tuesday.

This year’s COP31 climate summit in Turkiye is not expected to produce any “big-ticket” negotiated outcomes, with the UN process instead shifting its focus towards implementing existing commitments and examining reforms to strengthen the three decade old system, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said.

Carbon credit pricing is significantly influenced by who the buyer is more than what the credit actually does for the climate, a recent study has argued.