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TOP STORY
EU Market: EUAs close above €17 for new 7-year high and 6% weekly gain
EU carbon prices extended their seven-year high on Friday to end above €17 for a 6.3% weekly rise, as tighter auction supply nears and despite a weaker energy complex.
EMEA
UK court blocks path to full trial of citizen effort to deepen GHG goal
The UK High Court on Friday blocked the path to a full hearing for a charity group seeking to deepen the country’s 2050 emission reduction goals, in one of the world’s first legal tests of the Paris Agreement.
Czechia cleared to issue first batch of 2018 free derogation EUAs to utilities
Czechia has once again been the first country to receive the annual greenlight from the European Commission to hand free EUAs to its utilities.
AMERICAS
Record batch of Colombian CERs cancelled by emitters against country’s carbon tax
A record batch of Colombian CERs were voluntarily cancelled this week for use by local emitters against the country’s carbon tax.
Canada should favour carbon price over clean fuel standard -report
Adopting a federal clean fuel standard (CFS) is a costlier and less effective way for Canada to reduce GHGs than an economy-wide carbon price, according to a new study published on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Australia’s weak NEG target to push up power prices -report
Australia’s main argument to stick to a modest emissions target under the proposed National Energy Guarantee (NEG) is to avoid electricity price hikes, but wholesale power prices could be 25% cheaper by 2030 with a more ambitious goal, analysts said on Friday.
NZ Market: Price ceiling in sight as NZUs keep pushing higher
New Zealand emissions permits extended record high levels again on Friday, with some market participants questioning whether the rally might take prices up to the NZ$25 de-facto price ceiling or even beyond.
Philippines government looking into introducing a carbon tax
The Philippines government is looking at whether to introduce a carbon tax in the country, holding an “exploratory” workshop on the subject this week.
BHP Billiton coal mine earns 239k carbon credits
A subsidiary of Australian mining major BHP Billiton this week received nearly 240,000 carbon credits for capturing and combusting methane emissions from one of its coal mines in New South Wales.
CN Markets: Pilot market data for week ending Jul. 20, 2018
Below is a table of the closing prices, ranges and volumes for China’s regional pilot carbon markets this week. All prices are in RMB, and volumes in tonnes of CO2e. Data sourced from local exchanges.
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CARBON FORWARD 2018
SAVE THE DATE: Carbon Forward 2018 – Survive and thrive in the global carbon markets
Don’t miss the 3rd annual Carbon Forward conference and training day – Oct. 16-18, 2018 in London.
Spend two days with top experts, players, and decision-makers from the global carbon markets as they address today’s most attractive opportunities and pressing challenges. And join us for the EU ETS pre-conference training day organised by carbon market experts Redshaw Advisors, where you will learn how to effectively manage your carbon risk ahead of the looming overhaul of the bloc’s emissions trading scheme.
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BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Bovine culprits – The world’s biggest meat and dairy operations combined pump more greenhouse gas into Earth’s warming atmosphere than any one of the largest fossil-fuel giants. A report published this week by the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) shows the top five animal agriculture companies emit more greenhouse gases than Exxon-Mobil, Shell, or BP. (Quartz)
Past first post – South Korea’s presidential Green Growth Committee has approved the draft 2018-2020 allocation plan for nation’s emissions trading scheme, leaving only an approval from the National Assembly on July 24 before the plan can enter into force. If approved, industrials would receive some 30 million additional allowances per year as the government expects short-term profits for manufacturing to jump.
New deadline – In China, Hubei province’s pilot ETS has delayed the 2017 compliance deadline by three months to Aug. 31, local officials said. Emitters with a surplus will have to trade those by Sep. 10 or see them cancelled, according to a statement from the provincial government. Hubei has also decided that v2017 allowances issued to emitters that later get shut down for breaking environmental regulations will be cancelled instead of allowing the emitters to sell them into the market.
Double trouble – A US District judge threw out New York City’s climate liability lawsuit against five major oil companies on Thursday, marking the second defeat in a month for US municipalities seeking damages against fossil fuel producers. Similar to the rationale used in dismissing lawsuits from San Francisco and Oakland in June, Judge John Keenan ruled that the courts are not the appropriate venue to address the harms stemming from climate change, instead directing the plaintiffs to channel their efforts towards the executive and legislative branches. Additionally, Keenan said since the city has benefited from the use of fossil fuels, it is also culpable for climate change. While industry groups including the National Association of Manufacturers welcomed the decision, a New York City official said that the city intends to appeal the ruling. Meanwhile, Baltimore on Friday said it would launch a similar lawsuit. (Climate Liability News)
German struggle – The German government will introduce a climate protection law to ensure the country reaches its domestic 2030 climate targets, but achieving these goals will be “very, very challenging”, said Chancellor Angela Merkel during her annual summer press conference. The federal government is struggling to implement an effective carbon pricing mechanism despite a consensus among climate experts about the need for such a scheme. However, the recent call by Green ministers from nine federal states for a minimum CO2 price may push economy minister Peter Altmaier, who is sceptical of a CO2 tax, to advocate the importance of carbon pricing at this December’s COP24 climate talks in Poland. (Frankfurter Rundschau, Clean Energy Wire)
Squeezed – Higher prices for emissions allowances and rising gas and coal prices squeezed Vattenfall’s profits in the second quarter of 2018, Reuters reports. The company reported a drop in its core business’s operating profit by about €366 million. The Swedish-owned company sold its German lignite assets to Czechia-based EPH, leaving Vattenfall with a significantly smaller EU ETS footprint.
They would say that – A German coal phase-out is unnecessary and threatens energy security, the Coal Importer Association said in a press release. Coal-fired power plants are needed to supply electricity to the grid during times when renewable energies cannot meet total power demand, according to the release. Instead of scheduling a coal-exit date, policymakers should focus on other sectors of the economy where emission reductions are needed, such as industry and transport, it added. (Clean Energy Wire)
Act now or forever hold your CCUS – A government-backed Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) Taskforce has urged the government to act now to ensure the technology can be deployed at scale in the most cost effective manner, BusinessGreen reports. “Time is limited if we are to deliver CCUS on the scale which may be necessary by 2050,” the taskforce said in its concluding report yesterday. The report says at least two CCUS clusters should be up and running by the mid-2020s and calls on government to publish a policy framework and criteria in the first half of 2019. (Carbon Brief)
Do no harm – Safeguards preventing potential harm that Article 6 mitigation activities may cause on the ground could constitute a minimal standard that project activities would have to fulfil. A paper from JIKO unit of the German environment ministry analyses and makes recommendations on what such a minimal standard for Article 6 could look like.
And finally… To everything there may no longer be a season – Human activities are altering Earth’s seasons in a way that is creating a greater contrast between summer and winter in much of North America, Europe and Eurasia, a new study finds. The research, published Thursday in Science, is the first to find a human “fingerprint” on the seasonal cycle of temperatures, adding another global trend that is formally attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases. (Axios)
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