Bullish momentum continued to dominate the European carbon market, with EUA prices tracking sharp gains across the energy complex, particularly natural gas, amid what Carbon Pulse described as “aggressive buying.”
Despite a bearish opening on Monday, European carbon prices recovered steadily over the following sessions, with the EUA Dec’26 contract closing Friday at €86.94, just €0.06 above Thursday’s close, but securing a 3% weekly gain.
The European carbon market climbed to an intraday high of €87.03/tCO₂ on Thursday before closing at €86.88/tCO₂, posting a daily gain of nearly 2%, its largest increase in three weeks. This marked the third consecutive session of gains, reinforcing the market’s recent bullish momentum.
The European carbon market staged a modest rebound during Tuesday’s trading session, with EUA Dec’26 briefly dipping to €84.01 before recovering in the evening session to close 0.6% higher than the previous day.
As previously announced, the European Commission released its surrender and compliance dataset this week, providing the latest overview of compliance outcomes for the 2025 reporting period via its Climate Action Portal.
European carbon prices had a weak start to the week, extending the downward trend that began just ahead of the compliance deadline, likely reflecting broader bearish sentiment across energy-related markets.
A senior European Commission official has pushed back against proposals for stronger measures to curb EU ETS price volatility put forward earlier this month by the European Parliament’s lead lawmaker on the bloc’s carbon market reform, Peter Liese.
The latest Commitment of Traders (CoT) report from ICE, released on Wednesday, shows that investment funds increased their net long positions—the difference between long and short positions—indicating that speculative traders have become more bullish on carbon prices.
Italy and the Czech Republic are joining forces on a package of measures aimed at easing pressure from high energy costs, with plans to bring the proposals before EU leaders at the European Council summit on October 15–16.
The European Commission last week published its second 2026 status table on free allocation to industry and heat production, showing that 77.5% of the allowances listed in the latest National Allocation Tables (NATs) had been transferred as of 24 September, marking only limited progress from 72.5% two weeks earlier.