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Diplomats tasked to return with shortened UN climate text
The co-chairs of negotiations on a new UN climate accord have been tasked by countries to prepare a shorter draft text by October after a week of slow-paced talks in Bonn.
EU nation officials set to start talks on post-2020 ETS reform
EU member state officials will next week hold their first talks on the post-2020 ETS reform proposal, kicking off lawmakers’ debate in a process expected to take at least a year.
EU carbon slips on wider market weakness to post small weekly loss
EU carbon prices slipped on Friday along with wider energy and financial markets, with the benchmark EU Allowance contract posting a meagre 0.2% loss for the week.
Australian government shakes up voluntary offset features to encourage use
Australia will reform its National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) and the Carbon Neutral Program, it announced Friday, in a bid to boost participation in the scheme, which has only attracted 31 companies since it launched five years ago.
COMMENT: Getting to the root of the problem with Kyoto Emission Reduction Units: Low mitigation ambition
Some commentators have used SEI’s recent JI study to call into question the use of international emission trading. In this context, it’s important to recognise the fundamental role that weak national mitigation targets played in producing this outcome, writes MOTU’s Catherine Leining.
NZUs climb 1.5% but eyes on policy-makers
Spot NZUs rose 1.5% over the week to close Friday at NZ$6.85, 10 NZ cents above last Friday’s two-month low, but the market is still suffering from uncertainty over what the upcoming ETS review and Paris climate talks might bring.
Voluntary market data from CTX as of September 4, 2015
Herein is a table of Verified Emission Reduction (VER) prices and offered volumes, based on voluntary market data from Carbon Trade Exchange.
Bite-sized updates from around the world:
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has dismissed concerns that his plan to pay companies to shift power capacity to a coal-fired reserve from 2017 would breach EU rules on state aid. “I think that it is compatible with EU law,” Gabriel was quoted saying in an interview with the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung on Thursday. (Reuters)
Algeria submitted its INDC on Friday, offering to cut its BAU emissions by 7% by 2030 using domestic measures, and by 22% with international assistance. The strategy involves ramping up renewables to account for a 27% share of national energy production by 2030, reforesting 1.25 million hectares, and reducing gas flaring by at least 1%. Check out Carbon Pulse’s INDC Tracker for a comprehensive list of all the pledges made to date.
Push renewables to spur carbon pricing – Putting a price on CO2 “must be the centrepiece of any comprehensive climate change policy”, yet the current price of carbon remains much too low relative to the hidden environmental, health and societal costs of burning a tonne of coal or a barrel of oil. The global average price is below zero, once half a trillion dollars of fossil fuel subsidies are factored in. The best hope rests with tuning policies to drive down the cost of renewable power sources even further and faster than in the past five years. (Nature)
And finally… Is the path to US climate action through the Republican Party? An economics professor from Harvard University takes a look at the key role of conservatives in pricing carbon in this New York Times column.
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