Compliance Carbon Markets

The Government of Canada on Saturday published an extra edition of Canada Gazette, Part II to eliminate the “consumer-facing” carbon price (i.e., the federal fuel charge), effective April 1, 2025. The change was originally announced by new Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday as his first official act. The new regulations amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA) and related regulations. This bulletin briefly summarizes the amendments and highlights key aspects of the associated Regulatory Impact Analysis Statements (RIASs). The amendments most consequentially set the rate of charge applicable after March 31, 2025 set out in Table 5 of Schedule 2 to the GGPPA to “zero” dollars for all 22 types of fuel. The rates previously set out in that table represented a carbon price of $80 per tonne in 2024-25. The Governor in Council (i.e., the Governor General acting on the advice of Cabinet) has the authority to set the fuel charge rates to zero under section 166(4) of the GGPPA. The government has also made related amendments to the Fuel Charge Regulations (particularly around removal of registration requirements after March 31, 2025) and coordinating amendments to the Output-Based Pricing System (OBPS) Regulations. The RIASs note that: The government estimates that the elimination of the fuel charge will lead to a loss of 12.57 Mt cumulative GHG emissions reductions from 2025 to 2030 (p. 12). The monetized cost of foregone emissions reductions over the 2025-2030 period of the elimination of the fuel charge is estimated to be about $3.83B (in 2024 dollars, discounted at 2% to 2025-26), using social cost of carbon figures for 2025 to 2030 (p. 13). The elimination of the fuel charge increases Canada’s GDP by 0.5% in 2030 (p. 14). The total welfare gains, not accounting for the social cost of carbon, for households would be equivalent to a 0.3% increase in household consumption in…

The Ecosystem Marketplace, an initiative of Forest Trends, in collaboration with the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility of the World Bank, yesterday released its report on the state of forest carbon finance in 2021 titled “A Green Growth Spurt: State of Forest Carbon Finance 2021” (the Report). The Report indicates that forest carbon financing remains inadequate to support increased climate ambition and counter global deforestation, noting that 23% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions are a result of the inefficient and destructive use of forests, farms, and fields. This bulletin summarizes the Report’s key findings: Funding for forests. Funding for forests through carbon markets and results-based payments for REDD+ has more than doubled since 2017, including $5.9 billion to forest carbon offset projects and an additional $1.3 billion for “REDD+ readiness” in developing countries. Compliance-driven forest carbon markets. Compliance carbon markets have provided over $3.9 billion to forests and sustainable land use. This is expected to further increase as a result of new compliance mechanisms such as CORSIA and the still-to-be-finalized markets provisions under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Natural climate solutions. From 2017-2019, approximately $400 million was generated in transactions through global voluntary carbon markets (VCM), representing 105 MtCO2e of carbon credits from forest and land use natural climate solutions (NCS), as well as generating an overall transaction value of over $1 billion in demand for NCS offsets. Voluntary carbon markets. The Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM) estimates that VCMs must grow 15-fold by 2030 and 100-fold by 2050 to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (read our earlier bulletins on the TSVCM here and here). The Report notes that most forest carbon offset buyers in VCMs are concentrated in Europe and the US, with companies in France and the UK accounting for almost a third of all offsets purchased in 2019. …

Carney Government Eliminates Consumer Carbon Price

Report Indicates Forest Carbon Finance Has More Than Doubled in Last 4 Years