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TOP STORY

EXCLUSIVE: California issued offsets to livestock project after discovering prior regulatory violations

California regulator ARB knew of alleged regulatory compliance offences at a Michigan-based WCI livestock project for five months before launching an investigation last month, but still chose to issue offsets after uncovering those problems, documents show.

COP25

UN climate conference hosts snub Article 6 in push for ambition

This year’s UN climate summit hosts declined to reference Article 6 as COP25 got under way on Monday, instead launching a push on governmental ambition that observers say could give them cover should carbon trade talks flounder.

AMERICAS

WCI auction supply sinks in 2020 as floor price rises to $16.68

California’s 2020 cap-and-trade auction floor price will be set at $16.68, as the total auction supply in the linked WCI market will dip by 14% due to true-up allocations, the state regulator ARB confirmed Monday.

ASIA PACIFIC

China coal merger plan increases risk of ETS overallocation, experts say

China plans to merge major power companies and shut down outdated coal power capacity over two years, documents published over the weekend showed, a move experts say would cut emissions but increase the likelihood of overallocation when the government launches its ETS next year.

EMEA

EU Market: Falling gas, technicals zap carbon for 4% loss

EU carbon prices fell on Monday, sinking on a mix of technical and fundamental factors.

ICYM

COP25 PREVIEW: UN carbon market talks to take centre stage in Madrid

Officials from nearly 200 governments arrive at COP25 in Madrid next week to hammer out the rules for international emissions trade under the Paris Agreement, with several testing issues remaining from last year when disagreements nearly threw off a wider deal on the 2015 pact.

Featuring key insights on:

• Why a Madrid deal on Article 6 matters for Australia and South Korea’s Paris pledges in particular, and for Brazil and other major CDM host nations seeking to transfer credits into the Paris era.
• Why it also matters for concurrent negotiations on the CORSIA aviation offset mechanism, as well as oil majors and other corporates seeking to make use of the voluntary carbon market.
• What happens next for international emissions trade if no Article 6 deal is reached in Madrid.

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Job listings this week

• Senior Manager, Corporate Relations, SustainCERT – Amsterdam
• Head of Operations, Plan Vivo – Edinburgh
• Senior Consultant, Climate Policy, Perspectives – Hamburg or Freiburg
• Climate Policy Analysts, Union of BC Indian Chiefs – Vancouver & Lower Mainland
• Programme and Communication Associate (Internship), Climate Strategies – London

Or click here to see all our job adverts

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BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

COP25: Carney-val – Bank of England Governor Mark Carney was announced by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday as the supranational organisation’s special envoy on climate action and climate finance starting next year. The 54-year old native of Canada has spent nearly seven years at the helm of the British bank, and previously led the Bank of Canada and worked for Goldman Sachs. Carney replaces former New York City mayor and current US Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, who stepped down from the UN role in November. (Reuters)

COP25: Ironclad commitment – While US President Donald Trump’s administration last month began the process to withdraw from the Paris Agreement next November, a 15-person congressional delegation on Monday reaffirmed that Democratic members of the national government remain committed to the goals of the 2015 pact. “By coming here we want to say to everyone, we’re still in,” said US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D). “Congress’ commitment to take action on the climate crisis is ironclad.” The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has authored several pieces of climate-centred legislation since retaking the chamber in the Nov. 2018 elections, including a resolution to prevent the Trump administration from withdrawing from Paris. However, the Republican-controlled Senate and White House have repeatedly refuse to take up those efforts.  

COP25: No escuro – Brazil’s negotiators already face a tough job in Madrid, given anger at President Jair Bolsonaro’s stance on the Amazon, but it has become doubly difficult as they are in the dark on their own government’s aims. Brazil’s technical negotiators at the UN talks are disconnected from political leaders and unclear on their goals, two people familiar with the matter said. That means the negotiators could reach a deal that would be disavowed by government leaders. “Really what Brazil will do at the conference is anybody’s guess,” one of the sources told Reuters. Adding to the confusion, Bolsonaro loyalist and Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has turned up in Madrid a week early to attend the full, two-week conference rather than just the second stage with fellow ministers from other nations. “Only he knows what he’s doing there,” another source said.

Blowing ahead – Power production from renewable energy is set to overtake fossil fuel sources for the first time in 2019, according to calculations by the research institute Fraunhofer ISE. “In the first eleven months of this year, renewable energies in Germany already generated 24 TWh more electricity than fossil energies,” Fraunhofer ISE professor Bruno Burger wrote on Twitter. According to energy charts on Fraunhofer ISE’s website, renewables have so far accounted for nearly 46% of Germany’s electricity production this year. The website does not include data on the amount of power the generating facilities consume themselves to operate, or the power German industry produces and consumes without it being fed into the public grid. Fraunhofer ISE says their data represents the power mix that actually supplies German homes. (Clean Energy Wire)

For(d)lorn? – Ontario’s Auditor General will release a report that questions if the Progressive Conservative government of Premier Doug Ford can meet the province’s 2030 GHG reduction goal, sources tell CBC. Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk has the authority to review the government’s progress toward hitting its climate change targets, partially replacing the role played by Ontario’s environmental commissioner – a position the Ford government scrapped this year. A recent report from green group Environmental Defence found that the Ford government has made almost no progress in implementing weaker proposed industry carbon pricing standards and rolling out other measures under its ‘Made-in-Ontario’ climate plan, which lessened the GHG ambition set out by the previous Liberal government.

And finally… What she lost in the fire – A woman who lost her home in the New South Wales bushfires has brought the charred remains to Australia’s Parliament House to send a message to both major parties on climate change. Melinda Plesman and her partner Dean Kennedy lost their family home of 35 years after bushfires tore through Nymboida, south of Grafton in NSW, last month. Plesman said she wanted to show PM Scott Morrison the direct result of climate change. “It’s happening now and this is what climate change looks like,” Plesman said. “I’m losing my home, whole communities are losing their homes … and the prime minister said we’re not allowed to talk about it. “He said he was going to pray for us. And that was the last straw.” But she also criticised the opposition Labor party for not wanting to discuss the link between climate change and bushfires. “That is what is absolutely terrible. We’ve got no leadership, we’ve got no discussion, we’ve got no debate, we’ve got nothing,” she said. (Guardian)

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