EU ETS (EUA)
Mark: 82.08, 2026-08-18, basis EUA benchmark mirror (CFD tracking ICE Dec), up 0.61% day over day on the external series' own prior close of 81.58 (re-anchored to tonight's live print; the desk's previously staged 81.79 was the disputed Aug-14 close recycled under a new date - caught pre-publish, and per doctrine a flagged prior is not a valid delta anchor). Separate basis, never netted: primary print 81.25, 2026-08-11, latest EEX auction clearing price (a week old, with sessions since owed to the backfill). The Aug-14 83.40 futures reference is retired from this line: it has carried an unresolved ~2% source flag since Aug 16, and a flagged figure rides nowhere unflagged.
What moved: Effectively nothing that clears the threshold - the mirror rose 0.61% on the same basis, sub-one-percent.
Why: Below our one percent threshold we do not go looking for a story, and we will not manufacture one. Supply mechanics are unchanged: the common-platform clip cut from 2,817,500 to 2,246,500 runs Monday, Tuesday and Thursday through 31 August, and the RRF top-ups have already ended, with the MS-RRF EUR 8bn target hit 22 June and the IF-RRF EUR 12bn hit 13 July. German Friday and Polish Wednesday volumes are unchanged and are not part of that cut.
Desk view: Neutral, with the reduced common-platform clip the only structural support we are willing to name.
UK ETS (UKA)
Mark: 60.28, dated 2026-08-17, basis secondary market, Dec-2026 futures quote - unchanged on the desk's own tape across three sessions, and flagged roughly 3.8% above a same-day spot reference. No fresh primary auction print.
What moved: Nothing - the identical quote has sat on the desk's own tape since Monday; a stationary quote is reported as stationary, not as absent, because the archive is part of the tape.
Why: Supply is the known item, not a new one. Maritime entered scope 1 July, adding 983k UKAs spread across the remaining auctions beginning with the 12 August sale.
Desk view: Watchful. Fortnightly Wednesday cadence puts the next sale on 26 August, not tomorrow.
California-Quebec (CCA)
Mark: 28.81, Auction 47 joint clearing, held May 20, 2026, current-vintage settlement. Secondary context, attributed: Carbon Pulse printed CCAs rangebound above $33 into this sale (Aug 13-14) - roughly 15% over the May anchor, cited rather than silenced.
What moved: Nothing priced. Today was a process date, not a price date.
Why: CARB's 2026 expected-dates calendar puts the August Joint Auction's FX rate and reserve price approval on 18 August, with the auction conducted 19 August, and bid guarantees were due 7 August. CARB and MELCCFP have released the August 2026 Joint Auction #48 Notice.
Desk view: Flat into the sale; tomorrow's clearing level does not exist yet and we will not guess it.
Washington (WCA)
Mark: 64.56, 2026-06, current-vintage settlement (Auction #14, held 3 June). No fresh secondary mark.
What moved: Nothing on our tape today.
Why: Washington is between quarterly sales. The September 2026 Washington auction notice is posted on Ecology's site; we hold to early September and will print the exact date from the notice rather than from cadence.
Desk view: Sidelined until the September notice's supply figure is read directly.
RGGI (RGA)
Mark: 35.0, 2026-06-03, Auction 72 clearing price.
What moved: No fresh mark.
Why: Auction 73 is confirmed for 9 September, a Wednesday, from the 14 July notice already carried in this desk's published marks.
Desk view: Constructive, with the off-desk data named: Carbon Pulse printed RGA futures near $39 on Aug 17, a ~10% premium to the June clearing this desk anchors on. Per-auction supply comes from the notice, never from a half-year budget.
NZ ETS (NZU)
Mark: 55.6, 2026-08-03, secondary market, spot settlement, NZU (interim reference). Also on tape: 56.0, 2026-07-23, NZU secondary spot from an open-licensed scrape of broker marks, with no prior same-basis mark, so treat it as directional only.
What moved: No fresh mark today.
Why: Quiet cash market between quarterly events.
Desk view: The September quarterly sits on Tuesday 8 September per MfE INFO 1349 - and, correcting Monday's published note out loud: not September 3, which was wrong (a Thursday, failing the now-confirmed all-Tuesday 2026 cadence). Banked from the same primary: 1,300,000 units per auction, a 6.5M cost-containment reserve, 11.7M total for 2026, and an NZD 71 floor that remains well above both tape marks.
Australia (ACCU)
Mark: 38.95, 2026-08-17, generic ACCU spot last close, -0.9%. Primary print separately: 37.5, 2026-05-15, generic ACCU spot from the CER QCMR, March quarter 2026.
What moved: Down 0.9 percent on the same basis, inside the noise band.
Why: Sub-one-percent, so no cause asserted.
Desk view: Neutral; the spot-to-QCMR gap is a basis difference, not a signal.
Fuels and other compliance credits
Marks: CA LCFS credit 76.39, week ending 2026-08-16, CARB weekly snapshot, volume-weighted average of all non-zero transfers, published today and owner-browser verified (Type 1 subset 79.15; all-non-zero range 62.00-81.50 on 477,305 MT). Correcting this note's earlier accounting out loud: the due weekly DID land today - an earlier version asserted it had not, based on machine fetches that serve a stale cache, and asserting absence from a machine-blind vantage was itself the error. Prior mark 74.80 (week ending Aug 9) stands as the previous print; D4 RIN 2.41 and D6 RIN 2.37, both 2026-06-04, traded RIN prices; BC LCFS 135.8, 2026-07, monthly average credit transfer price; Alberta TIER 95.0, 2025-05, fund price, frozen since May 2025.
What moved: A fresh CARB weekly landed today - 76.39 all-non-zero VWAP for the Aug 10-16 week, up 2.1% on the prior week's 74.80. The RIN and BC marks remain long-dated.
Why: The RIN prints are June-dated and are not evidence about August; the CARB weekly is now current as of today's publication, and the BC series is monthly and stale by design.
Desk view: The CARB weekly is current as of today's print; the RIN and BC marks stay long-dated, and no fuels thesis leans on those until fresh prints land.
**Open items, carried explicitly: (1) UKA Aug 12 maritime-loaded result - day six owed, gates named previously. (2) Auction 48 notice volumes - the notice is released; volumes print with tomorrow's results coverage. (3) Washington's September notice - read for the exact date. (4) CARB weekly LCFS - landed today and printed above (76.39, week Aug 10-16); closed. (5) Standing backlog held from the dark days (Germany nEHS freeze, the MDI letter, CARB's ~1.4M offsets, CFTC positioning) - the offsets and positioning items bear directly on tomorrow's sale and get folded into the results note.
Tomorrow, 19 August**
WCI Joint Auction #48 is conducted; results follow on CARB's own schedule and carry the 19 August auction date, not the release date. No EU common-platform sale on Wednesday: the common platform runs Mon/Tue/Thu only. Poland's bi-weekly Wednesday auctions are separate and do not affect the common platform. No UK sale. The next CARB LCFS weekly snapshot and the Wednesday EIA petroleum report are the fuels-side items worth reading. The unsourced review-cycle item carried since last week is cut tonight per the resolve-or-cut rule: five search passes, no program, no primary.