Carbon Pulse

Swiss researchers have developed a net zero emission concrete process that relies on producing uniform carbon-rich pellets that can be easily incorporated into concrete aggregate, with potential to generate carbon removal credits in future.

A Saudi Arabian climate technology company that has developed carbon-negative concrete has struck a deal with one of the country’s house builders to explore building a construction plant that could generate 1.3 million carbon credits a year.

European carbon moved in line with natural gas prices for much of Thursday morning, dropping early on with gas before breaking loose from the correlation later to set a new three-week low in a busier-than-normal session as energy markets were weaker across the board.

Support amongst the world’s largest asset managers for shareholder resolutions involving environmental and social (ES) issues has “catastrophically crashed”, according to a campaign group that promotes responsible investing.

The coming Saturday's presidential and parliamentary elections could reshape the direction of Taiwan's energy policy, given the lack of consensus among presidential candidates on whether to build more nuclear plants.

The world's biggest blue carbon project, based in Pakistan, is likely to have been slightly overcredited, and it is difficult to determine the actual amount of carbon involved in the project, according to a rating agency.

An environmental group has urged the government of South Korea to make substantial changes to a basic plan underpinning the next phase (2026-30) of the domestic carbon market, as the current calculation method for allocated carbon permits is considered too generous for emitters.

The same day the International Energy Agency said the world isn’t on track to meet its commitment to increase renewable energy capacity threefold by the end of the decade, Australia’s richest man announced plans for 14 gigawatts of new wind capacity.

If the world is to meet the Paris target and the more recent Global Stocktake commitment, more work, largely policy-driven, will be needed to push up renewable energy generation, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed on Wednesday funding cuts to climate programmes by 7% to make up for the state’s $37.1 billion projected budget shortfall, following last year’s 3% climate spending cutbacks.

The US can better mobilise the global funding response to the impacts of climate change, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) experts said in an opinion piece published Tuesday.

Allowance budget cuts could bring down WCI market surplus bank by over 200 million, a conference heard Wednesday, but California Carbon Allowance (CCA) values will likely remain below the price ceiling.

The UK government is set to bolster its long-term ambition to quadruple nuclear energy output by 2050 with a new roadmap to ease the regulatory process and include next steps for exploring a large-scale plant that could be capable of powering six million homes, in addition to a push to build Small Modular Reactors (SMR).

Preliminary analysis estimates that US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fell by almost 2% year-on-year (YoY) in 2023 driven largely by a cleaner power sector and lower energy use in buildings, breaking two consecutive years of rising national emissions, despite increases in emissions from the transport and industrial sectors, research published Wednesday showed.

California did not issue any compliance-grade offsets for the first bi-weekly distribution of the year, marking the first instance of zero issuance in years as a number of credits were voluntarily retired and taken out of circulation, according to data published by the state regulator ARB on Wednesday.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced Wednesday an investment of $17 million in GHG emissions reduction research projects, with funding directed toward underserved communities at historically black colleges and universities and other minority serving institutions.

The Science-based Targets initiative (SBTi), considered the gold standard of voluntary emissions target-setting, is provoking divided reactions from industry, NGOs, and academia as actors across the board contest the future of Paris-aligned corporate emissions targets.

A US infrastructure technology company announced Tuesday the first commercial deployment of its proprietary hydrogen technology in the production of low carbon ammonia that captures over a million tonnes of CO2 in the process.

Oil major Shell has continued to retire high numbers of carbon credits this week, maintaining the market-leading pace it set in December that was enough to see the year's total on major registries top the levels of the previous year.