Global Climate News

UN CBD COP 16 to reconvene in Rome in February 2025 to address unfinished agenda items including resource mobilization, financial mechanism, and biodiversity framework monitoring. Established Cali Fund for benefit sharing from genetic resources.

Proveye has secured a $950,000 contract with ESA to develop its remote sensing platform for monitoring land use, carbon sequestration and biodiversity in grasslands.

Singapore Management University and DBS have launched 'Sustainable Finance in Action', a four-day executive program focusing on green finance, running from November 25-28, 2024.

Natural England leaders visited Greater Manchester to showcase the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) and Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) initiatives, including projects at Green Earth's Allwood Farm and Peel Group's Northstone development. The Allwood Farm project involves 30ha of habitat restoration while the Northstone development has achieved 15.4% biodiversity uplift through creation of 1.5 hectares of woodland, 1.2 hectares of lowland meadow, and 710m of hedgerow.

The UK has launched Principles for Voluntary Carbon and Nature Market Integrity at COP29 to enhance voluntary carbon markets and strengthen private-sector climate action. The principles focus on transparent reporting, high-quality carbon credits, and biodiversity integration, with the UK aiming to channel up to $50 billion into VCMs by 2030.

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has approved three REDD+ methodologies for issuing high-integrity carbon credits: ART REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES) v2.0, VCS VM0048, and VCS Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ Framework v4.1. The approval includes a significant pipeline of REDD+ credits, with 123 million potential credits from nine ART TREES jurisdictions and approximately 300 million credits from 21 VM0048 projects.

Trafigura Group and GenZero have announced a $100 million expansion of the Brújula Verde carbon removal project in Colombia's Orinoco River Basin. The project involves planting 24 million mixed-species trees across 20,000 hectares for producing high-integrity nature-based carbon removal credits, with the first credits expected in late 2025.

The UK has implemented mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements for developments, with a system to calculate biodiversity value and an emerging private market for biodiversity units. Natural England's BNG register now includes 19 gain sites covering over 500 hectares, and 17 responsible bodies have been designated to oversee off-site BNG units.

Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, reports on his attendance at COP16 in Colombia where he highlighted England's Nature recovery tools including Biodiversity Net Gain policy and Environmental Land Management scheme. The UK has secured a breakthrough on genetic information sharing and launched England's first Local Nature Recovery Strategy in Bristol through the West of England Nature Partnership.