Carbon Insights
The Quantum Carbon Insights publication highlights the most important news and events in the global voluntary carbon market.
- The Quantum Editorial
- Feature articles
- Industry Opinion, with guest contributors
- Key benchmark offset prices
- Market commentary
- People Moves, Industry Events Planner and more
Issue no. 22, Thursday 10 Oct 2024, Download Issue
10 Oct 2024
Insurance for carbon credits is still an emerging concept, but there are now several options available to cover the diverse risks associated...
10 Oct 2024
Jon Light is head of OTC platform at Devexperts, a company that provides financial software and services for brokerages, exchanges and wealth management firms in equity, options, futures and Forex markets...
10 Oct 2024
Public acceptance of the need for carbon dioxide removals (CDR) technologies to meet climate goals is critical to the success of the sector, according to an...
10 Oct 2024
The news that the FBI and the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York have brough criminal changes against Ken Newcombe, the...
Issue no. 21, Thursday 26 Sep 2024, Download Issue
26 Sep 2024
New buying by tech giant Microsoft catapulted advanced commitments for carbon dioxide removals credits to almost...
26 Sep 2024
The carbon dioxide removals (CDR) sector is still too risky for many investors due to inconsistent policy support by governments around the world, limiting widespread...
26 Sep 2024
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has approved its final guidance regarding the listing for trading of voluntary...
26 Sep 2024
Quantum's analysis of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) deals between May and August paints a picture that the majority of participants in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) are...
Issue no. 20, Thursday 12 Sep 2024, Download Issue
12 Sep 2024
China's domestic voluntary carbon market registry currently has a pipeline of 38 projects. Nine new developments have been added in...
12 Sep 2024
The carbon dioxide removals (CDR) sector once again dominated funds raised by companies in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) between May 1 and the end of August, according to...
12 Sep 2024
Michael Greene is chief executive of Agfor, a carbon credit developer with projects in Brazil...
12 Sep 2024
The summer in in the northern hemisphere is almost over, although some like myself in UK could argue it never properly arrived this year, and we enter the latter part...
Issue no. 19, Thursday 1 Aug 2024, Download Issue
1 Aug 2024
Chris McKinney is chief commercial officer at Kenya-based cleaner cookstoves manufacturer and project developer Burn...
1 Aug 2024
Steve Zwick is an independent journalist with previous experience at Time Magazine, Ecosystem Marketplace and other outlets. Steve also spent nearly two years in US-based carbon registry Verra's communications teams.
1 Aug 2024
India's government is unlikely to allow domestic voluntary carbon market credits in its Carbon Credit Trading Scheme...
1 Aug 2024
The Science Based Targets initiative published 'long-awaited' updates on its plans for its revised Corporate Net-Zero Standard, although realistically, apart from a...
Issue no. 18, Thursday 18 Jul 2024, Download Issue
18 Jul 2024
The use of carbon credits as a tool to help meet corporate greenhouse gas emissions goals has become increasingly controversial in recent years as...
18 Jul 2024
Clément Georget is chief product officer at France-based carbon standard Riverse...
18 Jul 2024
Singapore has published methodologies that will be eligible to offset liabilities in its carbon tax under a deal with Ghana, including some soil...
18 Jul 2024
An auction of carbon credits deemed eligible under the Paris Agreement's Article 6.2 market started this week, after a...
Issue no. 17, Thursday 4 Jul 2024, Download Issue
4 Jul 2024
Maine-based Running Tide became the second company in the marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) space this year to exit the market, when it announced last month that it was...
4 Jul 2024
Pablo Fernandez is chief executive officer of project developer Ecosecurities.
4 Jul 2024
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that the need for carbon dioxide removals (CDR) technologies is...
4 Jul 2024
The last thing that I really wanted to do with this page is to concentrate on another carbon market scandal, but it is difficult to ignore what...
Issue no. 16, Thursday 20 Jun 2024, Download Issue
20 Jun 2024
Sokun Hort is Wildlife Alliance's community engagement manager
20 Jun 2024
The agriculture sector is becoming an increasing focus for voluntary carbon market projects, with ways to sequester carbon...
ANALYSIS: UN 'inter-sessional' climate talks in Bonn back 'tidier' texts on Article 6 carbon markets
20 Jun 2024
The annual UN 'inter-sessional' climate talks in Bonn, which concluded last week, backed draft negotiation texts on the Paris Agreement's carbon trading mechanisms, an outcome...
20 Jun 2024
The spotlight has fallen on the marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) sector in the last week, with another prominent player in the...
Issue no. 15, Thursday 30 May 2024, Download Issue
30 May 2024
A raft of new commitments to buy carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits have been announced in the last few weeks, with tech giant...
30 May 2024
Bangladesh has some work to do before it can reap rewards from international carbon trading under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, a seminar in the country's capital Dhaka heard in mid-May...
30 May 2024
Deals for almost 1.7 million carbon dioxide removals (CDRs) credits were struck in the first four months of 2024, buoyed by a...
30 May 2024
Peter Scott is chief executive of cleaner cookstoves manufacturer and project developer Burn.
Issue no. 14, Thursday 16 May 2024, Download Issue
16 May 2024
More than $566 million was raised by companies in the voluntary carbon market in the first four months of the year, according to data compiled by Quantum based...
16 May 2024
David Hone is chief climate change advisor at Shell International
16 May 2024
Luciana Tellez-Chavez is a senior environment researcher at Human Rights Watch and lead author of the 'Carbon Offsetting's Casualties: Violations of Chong Indigenous Peoples' Rights in Cambodia's Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project' report.
16 May 2024
REDD+ projects have been back in the news again in the past couple of weeks with Rimba Raya in Indonesia making most...
Issue no. 13, Thursday 25 Apr 2024, Download Issue
25 Apr 2024
Jess Roberts is vice president of ratings at carbon data provider Sylvera
25 Apr 2024
The announcement earlier this month by the board of trustees of the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi) regarding the possible use...
25 Apr 2024
Japan is to allow carbon dioxide removals
credits from four project types, including overseas developments, in its GX League emissions trading...
25 Apr 2024
The row over the Science Based Targets initiative's announcement earlier this month about the possible use of some carbon credits to meet companies' scope 3, value-chain...
Issue no. 12, Thursday 11 Apr 2024, Download Issue
11 Apr 2024
One of the stumbling blocks in the failed negotiations late last year over operationalisation of the Paris Agreement's Article 6 carbon trading mechanism now seems to...
11 Apr 2024
Lynn Riley is senior manager of climate science at the American Forest Foundation
11 Apr 2024
Ellery Sutanto is head of exchange at Singapore-based exchange Climate Impact X
11 Apr 2024
The debate over what to do about companies' Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions has continued in recent weeks, culminating with...
Issue no. 11, Thursday 21 Mar 2024, Download Issue
21 Mar 2024
A US appeals court may have temporarily paused new rules issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission requiring...
21 Mar 2024
Earnings for a Canada-based project developer are expected to move into the black in 2027, after several years...
21 Mar 2024
The US Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month approved proposals for more extensive disclosure...
21 Mar 2024
Without wanting to repeat some of the coverage in this issue of Carbon Insights, there is little...
Issue no. 10, Thursday 7 Mar 2024, Download Issue
7 Mar 2024
The next generation of rice methane credits is likely to transact at double the prices seen previously in the sector, reflecting...
7 Mar 2024
Rich Gilmore is chief executive of carbon credits investment fund Carbon Growth Partners...
7 Mar 2024
US-based carbon registry Verra is aiming to complete a new methodology to cut rice methane emissions under the Verified Carbon Standard by...
7 Mar 2024
Without wanting to put a jinx on things, I think it is fair to say that the start of 2024 has been promising for the...
Issue no. 09, Thursday 22 Feb 2024, Download Issue
22 Feb 2024
The biochar industry has enough capacity in the pipeline to see a six-fold increase in output between...
22 Feb 2024
The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is a risky business to be in, particularly if last year's raft of mainstream media criticisms of the sector are to be believed, yet tackling industry risks is the main focus of an increasing number of companies that are offering or planning to offer insurance products to VCM participants...
22 Feb 2024
Christa Roth works for Food and Fuel Consultants, Omar Masera is professor at the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Priyadarshini Karve is director of Samuchit Enviro Tech, and Conor Fox is a director at Hestian.
22 Feb 2024
One of the carbon market headline makers of 2023 made a reappearance this week, although not with a...
Issue no. 08, Thursday 1 Feb 2024, Download Issue
1 Feb 2024
Coal-fired power generation is a major contributor to global warming, with International Energy Agency data saying coal combustion still accounts for...
1 Feb 2024
One of the 'successes' of the recent UN climate talks in Dubai (COP28) in December was a commitment to triple installed renewable energy generation capacity...
1 Feb 2024
Richard Munang is UN Environment Programme regional climate change programme coordinator based in Nairobi, Kenya....
1 Feb 2024
COP28 in Dubai agreed a goal to triple installed renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade, as well as the...
Issue no. 07, Thursday 18 Jan 2024, Download Issue
18 Jan 2024
Greg Lydka Morris is policy and portfolio associate and Pauline Blanc is policy and advocacy lead at Abatable, a market intelligence and carbon credit sourcing platform...
18 Jan 2024
A clear sign that the Article 6 talks in Dubai at the end of last year were unlikely to reach a positive conclusion was...
18 Jan 2024
Avoided deforestation projects, more commonly referred to as REDD or REDD+ depending on the...
18 Jan 2024
Almost a year has passed since the voluntary carbon market was hit by the media...
Issue no. 06, Thursday 21 Dec 2023, Download Issue
21 Dec 2023
A much-anticipated expansion of international trading of carbon credits under the Paris Agreement will next year have...
21 Dec 2023
Agriculture, which contributes to approximately 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, for a long...
21 Dec 2023
Collaboration agreements among industry standards and integrity initiatives, along with signs that...
21 Dec 2023
The last Carbon Insights Editorial was titled "Can Article 6 lift the VCM out of the doldrums?", but perhaps...
Issue no. 05, Thursday 23 Nov 2023, Download Issue
23 Nov 2023
David Antonioli is an independent advisor on climate change and was previously founding CEO of US-based carbon standard Verra
23 Nov 2023
Ahead of COP28 in Dubai Quantum spoke to Kevin Conrad, executive director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations and veteran climate talk negotiator
23 Nov 2023
COP28 will kick off next week in Dubai, UAE, with a record 70,000 participants set to descend on...
23 Nov 2023
The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body (SB), UN-appointed committee tasked with setting the rules on the Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, finalised...
Issue no. 04, Thursday 9 Nov 2023, Download Issue
9 Nov 2023
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (IC-VCM), one of the global meta-standards aimed at improving the...
9 Nov 2023
Olivier Lejeune finds Article 6 projects are emerging, despite the lack of final rules and regulations.
9 Nov 2023
Japan has long seen carbon credits as a necessity for it to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals, having signed its first deals...
9 Nov 2023
It is an understatement to say that the last two weeks have not been great for the REDD+ carbon credit market, in a year that...
Issue no. 03, Thursday 26 Oct 2023, Download Issue
26 Oct 2023
Carbon offsets have become integral to global climate change mitigation efforts, and the...
26 Oct 2023
Quantum looks at the prospects for carbon trading to take off in the South-east Asian country in the coming years...
26 Oct 2023
Terrestrial enhanced rock weathering, the process of spreading basalt and other types of crushed rocks on farming land to...
EDITORIAL: We know the VCM is in need of reform, but what about processes that feed into the market?
26 Oct 2023
The cleaner cookstoves sector is once again a focus of market attention, following the release last week by the...
Issue no. 02 , Thursday 12 Oct 2023, Download Issue
12 Oct 2023
A number of oil and gas industry veterans are using carbon finance to help cut methane emissions from...
12 Oct 2023
The price of long-term biochar carbon credit deliveries is already well below $100 a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) based on...
12 Oct 2023
Every year about 10 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Portugal, are destroyed...
12 Oct 2023
The world's second largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, unveiled a domestic carbon crediting mechanism...
Issue no. 01, Thursday 28 Sep 2023, Download Issue
28 Sep 2023
Record attendance at this year's Climate Week in New York is a testament to the continued interest in carbon markets...
28 Sep 2023
In the past few weeks the voluntary carbon markets have seen a seemingly conflicting media cycle, from Barclays releasing predictions that it will reach $1.5 trillion...
28 Sep 2023
The voluntary carbon market has been the focus of a number of critical reports in recent months, questioning whether credits generated are...
28 Sep 2023
The launch of Carbon Insights comes in the wake of yet another high-profile media "broadside" – as one prominent carbon standard called it – attacking the VCM.....