Carbon Emissions

The European Commission has proposed that the EU will drop its effective ban on combustion engine cars by 2035, allowing some non-electric vehicle sales to continue. This is in response to intense pressure from Germany and Italy as well as Europe's auto sector. The EU executive has reportedly bowed down to carmakers who want to continue selling plug-ins and range extenders which burn fuel, as they are struggling to compete with Tesla and Chinese electric vehicles makers. All new cars and vans must have zero emissions by 2035, according to current EU regulations. In the proposal of Tuesday, instead, the...

A document from the U.S. Government, seen by, shows that the United States wants the European Union to exempt oil and gas imports from the methane emission law of the bloc until 2035. The EU will require importers of gas and oil to Europe, starting this year, to report and monitor the methane emission associated with these imports. This is in an effort to reduce the emissions of the powerful planet-warming gas. Chris Wright, the U.S. Energy secretary, has criticized this 'world-first' climate policy. He has said that it is impossible to implement and has warned it may disrupt U.S....

Constellium's CEO said that the European Union should abandon a carbon border tax, which could push its aluminium industry into a long-term decline. The tax would increase costs and favor more polluting foreign suppliers. Carbon Border Adjustment, a mechanism that will begin imposing a tax on imports for a few commodities in January, was designed to protect European producers from cheaper competitors in countries with laxer climate laws. Industry representatives, however, see the system as flawed and are hopeful that the final EU adjustments to the Mechanism, which will be announced this month, address their concerns. Jean-Marc Germain is the...

BHP, a global miner, announced on Friday it had taken delivery of two electrical haul trucks for a trial to begin at its Jimblebar Iron Ore Mine in Australia's Pilbara. The truck trials are intended to reduce diesel consumption and greenhouse gas emission. BHP stated that the battery-electric trial, in partnership with Rio Tinto, and Caterpillar industrial equipment manufacturer, aims to test whether the technology can be used as an alternative for diesel in large-scale mining operations of iron ore. BHP stated that after the trial, miners will independently determine the progress they have made towards scaling up trials in...

Wildfires caused the largest tropical forest losses in 2024 Global warming is expected to worsen destruction Communities put in the center of fire prevention at COP30 By Andre Cabette Fabio The government agencies responsible for the environment and forests in Ecuador, Peru Ghana and Kenya, along with more than 30 environmental and indigenous groups from around the world, signed an agreement that will secure $100 million by 2030. The pledge will initially focus on the Amazon Basin - the largest tropical forest in the world, which is located mostly in Brazil. Fires are raging in forests that were not likely...

German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil spoke about overcapacity on China during his Tuesday visit to Beijing. He also stressed that if no solution is found, the European Union will act. Klingbeil stated: "I made it very clear that, in the event of a need, decisions would be taken at the European level, to better protect our market." "I would like to avoid this, but at the end of the day, Europeans - and we Germans - must not be left behind." Klingbeil's second day in China saw him attend the Party Dialogue, where he discussed the war in Ukraine, German-Chinese...

Google's biggest deal to remove carbon emissions involves financing the restoration of Amazon rainforests with Brazilian startup Mombak. This comes as big tech searches for high-quality credits that can offset emissions from energy-hungry data centres. Companies said the deal would offset 200 metric tons carbon emissions. This is four times more than a pilot agreement signed in September 2024 between Google and Mombak, its sole supplier of forestry credits. Both companies declined comment on the deal's value. The agreement shows how big tech wants to mitigate the climate impact of its massive investment in data centers that use a lot...

The government revealed in its budget plan for the first budget of Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada may scrap the cap on oil-and-gas emissions and replace it with other measures, such as industrial carbon pricing or the deployment of technology to capture and store carbon. In the climate plan that was part of the first budget of Prime Minister Mark Carney, it said the cap would be no longer needed because its value would be marginal. The Canada's emission cap is not being enforced by legislation, and it will not take effect before 2030. Canadian oil and natural gas...

The government revealed in its budget plan for the first budget of Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada may scrap a cap on gas and oil emissions if other initiatives like carbon markets, stronger regulation, and carbon capture and storage technology prove successful. In the climate plan that was part of the first budget of Prime Minister Mark Carney, it said the cap would be no longer needed as its value would be marginal. The Canadian emissions cap is not legally enforced and will not take effect until 2030. However, Canadian oil and natural gas companies have condemned it because...

The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Friday that it will make $100 million available for refurbishing and modernizing existing coal-fired plants. This move is part the Trump administration’s efforts to reverse the decline in coal usage in the United States. Last month, the Energy Department announced that it would invest $625 million in expanding coal-fired power generation. In recent years, the number of coal-fired plants has decreased due to the concerns over the impact of fossil fuels on the environment and public health as well as the competition from natural gas. According to the administration of Donald Trump, coal...

A White House official confirmed that the U.S. would not be sending any high-level officials for the upcoming COP30 Climate Summit in Brazil. This will ease some concerns among world leaders who were worried Washington might send a team of negotiators to sabotage the talks. Brazil will host the high-level leaders summit in Belem, Amazonian City next week. The UN climate talks begin there two weeks later. Earlier this week, the U.S. warned that it would use visa restrictions and sanction to retaliate to nations who voted in favor of a UN shipping agency plan, the International Maritime Organization (IMO),...

A federal judge dismissed an attempted class action lawsuit that accused Mondelez International, of misleading consumers into paying more for Clif bars labeled as "climate-neutral certified." U.S. district judge Manish Shah found that the labels of Clif Kid Zbar products and Zbar Protein that showed a certification by Change Climate Project (a nonprofit that assists companies in reducing emissions) were not wrong. Shah dismissed the case with prejudice, which means it cannot be brought back. Cynthia Salguero, a plaintiff from Chicago, accused Mondelez, a Chicago-based company, of "greenwashing," or exaggerating a product's environmental impact, by labeling Zbars "climate neutral." She...

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an agreement from the Climate summit COP30 Some have called for clarification on the controversial subject of weaning off the world. fossil fuels The Belem summit, in Brazil's Amazonian city, missed the self-imposed deadline of Wednesday to reach agreement between the 200+ countries that were present. This included issues such as how to increase climate financing and move away from fossil fuels. Guterres said at a summit press conference: "I welcome the calls for a just and fair transition mechanism, as well as the growing coalition that is calling for clarity in...

Brazil's President was scheduled to meet with key negotiators on Wednesday at the COP30 Summit as part of a push to reach a deal before schedule on some the most controversial issues in the global talks on climate change, including fossil fuels. Nearly 200 countries have gathered in the Amazonian city of Belem for a two-week U.N. Summit to increase multilateral action on climate change. The United States was absent, but the United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Brazil, the host country, hopes to break the trend of recent climate summits that have run past their deadlines...

Five sources said that plans to launch a U.N. supported global market to trade carbon offset credits hit a snag during the COP30 Summit, as governments struggled to resolve a disagreement over funding in order to get the market running. The U.N. has been trying to create a global carbon market since the early 2000s. At last year's climate summit, rules were agreed on for a U.N. centralised trading system that allows countries and companies to buy CO2 emission credits which represent emissions reductions from poorer countries. It is intended to allow richer countries and companies to count these emission...

Brazil hopes to reach an early agreement at the COP30 Climate Summit on some of its most controversial issues after revealing a bold strategy of negotiation that kept delegates working until the wee hours of Tuesday morning. The two-week Belem summit, which took place in the Amazonian city, brought governments from around the world together to reinforce the U.N. framework for global action that aims to stop rising temperatures and deal with their damage. Brazil, the host nation, wants to reach a deal in two phases: one on Wednesday that includes items that were too difficult a week earlier to...

The demand from tech giants for high-quality credits to offset their AI emissions is fueling a shortage, which experts say is what's needed to stimulate investment in this nascent industry. Credits tied to forest preservation projects will be nearly four times as expensive in 2024 due to heavy purchases by companies such as Microsoft and Google over the past two years. Credit experts report that Big Tech collectively has spent hundreds of millions on carbon removals which capture and store CO2 for an extended time, a large portion of this in the past two years. According to CDR.fyi, the total...

The COP30 Climate talks begin in Brazil this Week Small island states are pushing for a new push to 1.5C. The discussion will also include how to pay climate damages Clar NiChonghaile UnaMay Gordon is a former director for climate change at the Jamaican Government and advisor to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center that coordinates climate action. We lost our cultural heritage. 300-year old churches are gone. It also took a part of our own identity with it. Gordon told reporters that "people are hurting". According to Jamaica's Prime Minister, the strongest storm ever to hit the island left...

It was not clear what the 190+ countries attending the COP30 would be discussing during the two week U.N. Summit in Brazil's Amazonian city of Belem. It's also unclear how they will handle controversial issues such as the 2023 pledge to stop using polluting sources of energy and their demand for funding to achieve this. The biggest question was whether or not countries would want to reach a final deal, which is difficult to do in an era of global politics that has been fractious and the U.S.'s efforts to block a move away from fossil-fuels. After years of COP...

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres ripped into nations for failing to limit warming to 1,5 degrees Celsius. Brazil hosted world leaders in Belem, a rainforest city for a summit before the COP30 Climate Conference. Scientists confirm that the world will cross the threshold of 1.5 C around 2030. This could lead to extreme warming and irreversible effects. Guterres stated in his speech that "too many corporations make record profits by destroying the climate, and billions are spent on lobbying, misleading the public, and obstructing advancement." "Too many politicians remain captive to entrenched interests." Subventions for fossil fuels amount to about...

HSBC released a new set of climate targets on Thursday that are softer and more flexible for near-term sectors like oil and gas. This is in response to the slow rate of change in real economy. The targets for the end of the decade follow a review that was announced by British bank earlier this year, when it dropped its goal to reach net-zero emissions in all of its operations by 2030. HSBC is still aiming for its operations, funded by the loan book, to produce zero emissions by 2050. It and other banks who have set similar climate goals...

A new U.N. study said that record wildfires in combination with rising temperatures could turn vital carbon sinks like forests into carbon emitters. According to a report released by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe ahead of the COP30 Climate Conference in Brazil, forests in Europe, North America and Central Asia have slowed their ability absorb carbon dioxide. It warned that if current trends continue these forests may reach a tipping-point where they start releasing more CO2 than they can absorb. The Paris Agreement targets a reduction of CO2 emissions in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius....

Brazil's President said that a U.N. Report warning that global carbon emissions are too high to stop global warming has prompted him to declare that the U.N. Climate Change Summit in the Amazon this month will be a COP of Truth and offer real solutions. Despite 30 years of global negotiations, the Paris Agreement of a decade back failed to prevent the world from warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius. The United Nations Environment Programme stated on Tuesday that the world is heading for a 2.3 to 2.5degC extreme warming. The forecast is based on the assumption that countries will meet...

On Monday, a group of mining investors called for the creation of a new independent agency to oversee the sector. This would be modeled after the International Energy Agency. A statement from the group of investors said that they manage or advise assets worth $18 trillion. The new International Minerals Agency will be able monitor global mineral demand and supply as well as illegal flow. It added that the agency would also provide information about how companies are progressing towards global performance standards in sustainability. The Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030 includes PIMCO as well as ING, L&G and...