Climate 411

Importing international carbon credits to the EU: How to make it work?

By Pedro Martins Barata / Published: October 17, 2025

By István Bart and Pedro Martins Barata

EU flags waving

Join EDF on Monday, October 20 for the webinar “EU Pathways for International Carbon Credits” on Zoom. 

As the European Union sets a new climate goal for 2040, a key question is whether the EU should use carbon credits from outside Europe to help meet that goal. The European Commission’s July 2025 proposal intends to reopen the door to credits for the first time in over a decade. Still, it remains vague on exactly how importing should be done – that is, who should import, how much and where should the imported credits be used? Now is the time to get the design right. 

EDF’s latest publication, ‘International Credits in the EU: Strategic Choices & Practical Implementation’, explores these questions.  It argues that if done well, importing credits could be a practical way for Europe to keep target compliance costs manageable, protect its climate ambition, and increase its influence in international climate policy. But the details matter – doing it right means we’d need strong rules on quality, clear conditions for if/when credits would be used, and a coordinated EU system to manage purchases and credit use.  

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Advancing affordability through climate ambition: How states can cut costs while cutting pollution

By Peter Della-Rocca, Kate Courtin and Tom Brindle / Published: September 23, 2025

While the federal government rapidly undermines climate progress, new analysis from EDF shows that state leadership is more important than ever. Our analysis finds that if leadership states deliver on their climate commitments, they could make a significant impact on the overall U.S. emissions and collectively cut the gap to the nation’s Paris-aligned 2035 target by a third.  

What’s more, implementing the comprehensive and powerful policy tools state leaders have at their fingertips to meet these commitments would both slash planet-warming pollution and deliver household savings and economic benefits for communities. Now is the time for governors and state legislators to get the job done.

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Washington state’s cap-and-invest program continues to deliver for communities

By Caroline Jones / Published: September 10, 2025

Cap-and-invest continues to be Washington’s best tool for cutting pollution and delivering investments to communities. As linking with the California-Quebec program comes closer to being a reality, the continued success of Washington’s program demonstrates how a larger, linked market will benefit all involved.

The program just completed its third auction of the year. Here are the results and what they mean:

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Increasing consistency in the biochar carbon marketplace

By Anna Raffeld / Published: September 4, 2025

Photo by Sophia Wojkowski

Excitement around biochar is growing, as is interest in its role in the Voluntary Carbon Marketplace (VCM). Biochar is a carbon-rich form of charred biomass or other organic material. Its primary climate benefit is that it decomposes and releases carbon dioxide much more slowly than its parent material (also known as feedstock, the original biomass used to create the biochar).  

Importantly, this climate benefit hinges on the feedstock’s other potential uses. If the feedstock has an alternative use with a greater climate mitigation potential (e.g., bioenergy, in certain contexts), then biochar production may not be the best use from a mitigation perspective. However, where the feedstock would have been left to decompose or ended up in landfills, climate mitigation via biochar may be the best end use.  

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California lawmakers must act now to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program, as uncertainty reduces funding for investment in communities

By Caroline Jones and Katelyn Roedner Sutter / Published: August 27, 2025

Results were released today for the third auction of the year in the California-Quebec cap-and-trade market. This auction delivered slightly stronger results over the May auction, with all current allowances sold and settlement prices rising above the price floor. This bump in market demand potentially suggests renewed market confidence, though this confidence could be temporary if the Legislature doesn’t act urgently to reauthorize the program.

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When power bills go up in North Carolina, remember this vote

By Will Scott, Southeast Climate and Clean Energy Director / Published: July 31, 2025

The North Carolina General Assembly’s vote to override Governor Stein’s veto of Senate Bill 266 is a major setback for North Carolina households, clean energy progress and climate leadership. Despite warnings from economists, energy experts and everyday residents, the General Assembly chose to make law a bill that will raise customer energy costs and shift billions in risk and cost from utilities and larger commercial and industrial users onto families and small businesses — at a time when energy bills are already straining household budgets.

And there’s no mistaking where the blame for this new law and its damaging effects lies: squarely on the shoulders of the powerful utility, Duke Energy, that pushed it and the legislators who caved to Duke’s demands. As quoted in a WRAL story when the veto override vote passed both chambers, I summed it up by saying, “When your power bill goes up next year, remember this vote and the legislators who shifted risk and cost onto households.”

There’s no way around it. Senate Bill 266, which will now become law, has been a flawed approach from the start. It’s bad for customers and bad for the environment.

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