ClimateCare has claimed a milestone with the largest ever issuance of Gold Standard carbon credits for cookstoves, but the project developer feels “held back” by the lack of demand in the voluntary carbon market.

Project developer Camco has sold its UK advisory arm for £4.5 million ($6.9 million), it announced on Monday, leading analysts to raise questions over the financial health of the company.

The value of the global carbon market climbed 4% in 2011, despite dramatically lower prices in the largest market in Europe, according to analysis by Thomson Reuters Point Carbon.

South Korea has set caps for the 458 companies participating in the country’s 'cap without trade' scheme, revealing the top 10 emitters unsurprisingly are from the power and industrial sectors.

Troubles at Trading Emissions plc (TEP), a London-listed developer of clean energy and emissions reduction projects, have led to four members of the board departing and a suspension of dividend payments.

The UN is undertaking a wide-ranging review of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), with a view to retooling it to become the key instrument for financing low-carbon development in developing countries after 2012.

The virtual currency Ven, traded among a closed online community of individuals and businesses, hopes to have 80 million in circulation by this time next year, up from about 8 million today. It is backed by a basket of commodities, currencies – and carbon futures.

The leading auditor of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects is still looking to hire staff, despite doubts about the future of the carbon finance programme after 2012.

An NGO is developing an emissions reduction project in Belarus that will restore peatland contaminated by fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF), designed to channel $100 billion a year in climate-related investment to the developing world by 2020, is destined for failure, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

There are growing concerns that the European Commission is either unwilling or unable to support a robust carbon market – risking low and volatile carbon prices, or at worse the complete collapse of the market.

Governments have agreed the members of a committee which will design the UN’s planned Green Climate Fund – and observers are looking to its first meeting, at the end of April, for clues as to priorities of and faultlines among the members.

The US and China can lead the way in revitalising carbon taxes as a viable mechanism for reducing emissions, finance researchers say.

BlueNext, a Paris-based carbon exchange owned by NYSE Euronext, is to link with US energy market infrastructure provider APX and build global markets for environmental commodities under a joint venture named NYSE Blue.

A proposed new carbon fund to invest in projects that reduce emissions after 2012 along the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean sea is expected to be launched next year and could reach €200 million ($246 million), says CDC Climat.

Christiana Figueres, a veteran of the international climate talks, has been named as the new executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, in a move welcomed by market participants and observers.

Increasing the EU’s 2020 emissions reduction target to 30% below 1990 levels would add an extra €33 billion ($42.5 billion), or 0.2% of GDP, to the final bill, according to draft European Commission proposals.

The Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board (CDM EB) is preparing proposals for an improved project registration process, said chairman Clifford Mahlung.

Marc Stuart, one of the co-founders of leading project developer EcoSecurities, has left the company.

Around $40 billion could be mobilised for low-carbon growth in developing countries via the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), according to Katherine Sierra, vice-president for sustainable development at the World Bank.