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TOP STORY
Mexico announces 2022 start to its emissions trading scheme
Mexico plans to roll out an emissions trading system (ETS) by 2022, one year later than the country’s most recent thinking and after it will complete a three-year pilot programme starting next year, its environment ministry said in a statement.
EMEA
EU Market: EUAs jump 6% to above €21 after failed auction
European carbon prices climbed 6% on Wednesday, shooting back above €21 after another UK auction failed as the market continued to experience high volatility.
UK auction fails for third time this year on weak demand
The UK’s spot EUA auction failed on Wednesday, marking the third time this year that an ICE-hosted sale has been cancelled due to weak demand.
Business lobby wary of backing a deeper 2030 EU emission goal
EU trade association BusinessEurope said Wednesday it is wary about supporting an increase to the bloc’s overall 2030 emissions target, even though agreed policies put the bloc on track to outpace the current goal.
AMERICAS
NYISO carbon charge would result in few cost increases through 2030, study finds
The New York grid operator’s plan to implement a carbon charge on the state’s wholesale power market would have only a minimal impact on energy prices and customer costs, according to a study by consultancy The Brattle Group.
US moves to throttle methane regulations on public lands
The US Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Tuesday finalised a rule to roll back Obama-era standards on capturing methane emissions from drilling on public lands, the second time in as many weeks that the Trump administration has moved to ease regulations on the potent GHGs.
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BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Best investments – The nine member states of the northeast US RGGI cap-and-trade programme released their 2016 investment report on Wednesday, showing the jurisdictions invested $436.4 mln from auction proceeds into energy and consumer benefit programmes. Energy efficiency initiatives took home 55% of this total, followed by clean and renewable energy with 17% and GHG abatement and direct bill assistance with 11% each. Over the lifetime of the projects, the 2016 investments are expected to result $1.7 billion in lifetime energy bill savings and avoid 6.4 mln short tons of CO2 emissions.
Flirting with $230 – A US carbon fee and dividend system that is designed to prevent global temperatures from rising 2.5 C above pre-industrial levels would require a carbon price of $230 per tonne in 2020, according to a new paper from progressive think-tank People’s Policy Project. In the report, professors Anders Fremstad and Mark Paul wrote that in order to cushion households from the $750 billion increase in goods and services stemming from the carbon tax, distributing the revenue as a dividend would be a “straightforward and egalitarian policy” for protecting consumers. They estimated each person in the US would receive an annual carbon dividend of $2,237. The report also found an average person in the poorest income bracket would take in a net benefit of $1,371 while the average person in the richest bracket would incur a net cost of $2,501. The disparity between the groups is the result of high income households being responsible for higher levels of GHG emissions.
Terawatt terriers – Boston University President Robert Brown on Tuesday announced the university had entered into a power purchase agreement with ENGIE North America to achieve its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2040, reports the school’s paper BU Today. Beginning in 2020, the university will purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs) over a 15 year-period from a South Dakota wind farm that will begin construction next spring. The agreement amounts to purchasing 205,000 megawatt hours of electricity from ENGIE annually through the contract, equivalent to displacing GHG emissions from 33,000 vehicles over the course of a year. BU sustainability director Dennis Carlberg said the university has reduced its emissions by 25% since 2006.
And finally… Not Delmar-velous – The US EPA has denied petitions from Delaware and Maryland to address coal pollution from neighbouring states that the jurisdictions said was hampering their ability to meet clean air regulations. In its decision, the EPA said the two states did not prove that out-of-state coal plants will emit pollutants at a level that breaks the “good neighbour” policy of the Clean Air Act, and the facilities were already reducing these emissions as much as was cost effective. In response, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said his state would file an appeal to the decision. (Utility Dive)
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