Correction issued 2026-09-08 RGGI: a stale bank figure, and a fired reserve framed as an open question: five editions rested the RGGI deficit story on a bank figure dated July 2025 without judging it stale; the market monitor's 21 August report puts the surplus at 55M at mid-2026, projected 45M by the compliance deadline - and the 2026... (full statement below.) Citation note: Washington auction dates now cite the governing auction notices: earlier editions cited Ecology publication 25-14-100 - the 2026 Summary of Expected Dates, an annual schedule published in 2025 - for Washington's auction dates; from 4 September they cite the governing auction notices themselves... (full statement below.) · All corrections
AS OF 8 September 2026, 18:05, MDT (Calgary, UTC-6). Futures marks are today's close, marked off the most liquid futures contract by open interest, Dec26. Auction clearings and regulator prints carry their own dates, which are stated on each. Currency is named on every price.
Corrections riding this note. First, RGGI: five prior editions rested the deficit story on a bank figure dated July 2025 without judging it stale. The governing figure is the market monitor's special Supply and Demand report of 21 August 2026, which puts the surplus of allowances in circulation at 55M short tons at end Q2 2026 and projects 45M at the CP6 compliance deadline. Those editions also never said that the 2026 CCR was triggered at Auction 71 on 11 March 2026 and fully depleted; the CCR allowances available at that auction were all released. Second, a citation note: earlier editions cited Ecology publication 25-14-100, the 2026 Summary of Expected Dates, for Washington auction dates. From 4 September we cite the governing auction notices, Ecology publications 26-14-062, 26-14-068 and 26-14-072.
EU ETS (EUA). Mark EUR 85.42 (8 September 2026, most liquid futures settlement, Dec26, settlement observation), +0.8% versus prior same-basis mark; primary print EUR 84.40 (8 September 2026, latest EEX auction clearing).
What moved: a small gain, with the futures settling roughly a euro above the same day's clearing.
Why: under our one percent threshold, and we have no sourced driver for today. We will not name one.
Desk view: constructive with the rows, which run +113.7 in 2027 narrowing to -100.5 by 2030 and flip to deficit in 2029 under Directive (EU) 2023/959. COM(2026) 616 remains a proposal, not law.
UK ETS (UKA). Mark GBP 60.92 (8 September 2026, Dec26 settlement), +0.8%; primary print GBP 58.68 (31 July 2026, official monthly average UKA settlement, CCM table).
What moved: same direction and size as EUAs.
Why: not established from any source we hold today.
Desk view: rows are deficit throughout under SI 2020/1265 Table B as amended by SI 2026/392. No UKA-EUA differential call: our FX print is eight days old against a four-day cadence.
California-Quebec (CCA). Mark USD 33.04 (8 September 2026, Dec26 V26 settlement), -0.5%; primary print USD 32.48 (19 August 2026, Auction 48 current-vintage settlement).
What moved: a small give-back, still slightly above the August clearing.
Why: no verified same-day driver.
Desk view: rows deficit throughout and deepening, on amended 17 CCR 95841 Table 6-2, effective 1 September, removing 118.3 Mt across 2027-2030 from the budgets. Separately, the Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive account is created current-vintage; removal is not the same mechanism as MDI.
Washington (WCA). Mark USD 53.80 (8 September 2026, Dec26 V26 settlement), +1.1%.
What moved: the largest move on our tape today, and the December contract sits about 16.7% below the primary print of USD 64.56 (3 June 2026, Auction #14 current-vintage settlement).
Why: we searched and found no wire supporting a cause for today's move. We are not asserting one. The spread to the June clearing reads as repricing since that auction, with Auction #15 held 2 September and its settlement price not yet published.
Desk view: rows deficit throughout, but post-2026 rows are the desk's own extension, not statute, pending Ecology's WAC 173-446 rulemaking. Carry the linkage track: the draft agreement published March 2026 was signed by all three jurisdictions in June 2026.
RGGI (RGA). Mark USD 39.66 (8 September 2026, Dec26 V26 settlement), +0.4%; primary print USD 35.00 (3 June 2026, Auction 72 clearing).
What moved: little today, but futures hold roughly a 13% premium to the June clearing.
Why: the drawdown story above, plus tomorrow's supply. Auction 73 offers 27,389,847 allowances with results due September 11. Virginia rejoined on 1 July 2026; its 11.48M H2 budget allowances are spread across the 9 September and 2 December sales, and Virginia will also originate 1.148 million CCR allowances for the remainder of 2026, available at Auction 73.
Desk view: constructive, and we buy weakness rather than chase the premium.
NZ ETS (NZU). Last print NZD 54.77 (13 August 2026, NZU secondary spot, open-licensed broker scrape). Stale, 26 days against a 7-day cadence: a last print, not a mark, and no delta is quoted.
What moved: today's quarterly auction, the first under the new operator. The September 2026 auction produced no clearing price because no bids were submitted, so no units were allocated and all available units roll forward.
Why: the secondary market remains far below the NZD 71 floor. Carbon Pulse reports it as the seventh consecutive sale event with no participation.
Desk view: our rows are the zero-auction-supply stress case, labelled as such; the cleared-at-floor case would add auction volume, with base volumes declining from 5.2 million units in 2026 to 1.7 million in 2030 (ICAP).
Australia (ACCU). Primary print AUD 37.50 (15 May 2026, generic ACCU spot, CER QCMR March quarter 2026). A last print past its quarterly cadence, not a current mark; no citable secondary.
What moved: nothing on our tape.
Why: no fresh mark and no verified development today.
Desk view: rows deficit throughout on the legislated 4.9%/yr baseline decline; the FY25-26 base is still the desk's own figure.
Alberta TIER. Primary print CAD 95.00 (15 May 2026, headline 2026 TIER price, stated verbatim at s.1.2.1.1 of the Canada-Alberta Implementation Agreement). Administered price, not a traded mark. No citable credit mark.
What moved: nothing.
Why: administered prices move when the instrument speaks.
Desk view: the live variable is Alberta enacting the credit floor regulation by 31 December 2026, since clause 1.2.3.4 grandfathers credits generated before enactment.
BC LCFS. Primary print CAD 135.80 (July 2026 monthly average credit transfer price).
What moved: nothing today; monthly cadence.
Why: no fresh print due.
Desk view: neutral pending the next monthly average.
Fuels. CA LCFS credit USD 79.02, CARB weekly volume-weighted average for the week of 24 August 2026, report posted 2 September, range USD 67.00 to 84.00. D4 RIN USD 2.0639 and D6 RIN USD 2.2615, both 20 July 2026, EPA EMTS weekly VWA [confirm: nesting inversion, cross-check against a commercial assessment], 50 days old and historic prints, not marks. Energy legs, EIA spot, 1 September 2026: WTI USD 91.48/bbl, Brent USD 96.02/bbl, Gulf Coast ULSD USD 4.734/gal, Henry Hub USD 2.90/MMBtu.
What moved: today's scheduled CARB weekly report has not reached our tape. We do not assert it failed to publish; our fetch lane is not authoritative on that question.
Why: the credit-supply channel runs through the renewable-diesel margin, diesel less feedstock. We hold no current licensed RIN price, so this stays direction-only.
Desk view: neutral. The 2026Q1 balance, credits 6.93M MT against deficits 9.77M MT with a cumulative bank of 36.86M MT, is a quarter that ended 31 March and was published 31 July.
Balance caveats. Except for RGGI, the forward rows above are budget minus emissions and carry no bank, reserve or ceiling, so they describe a supply path rather than scarcity. Washington's APCR and ECR are contingent supply that has not released. Observed data lags the marks by one year in RGGI, two in UK ETS and TIER, three in CCA and WCA.
Tomorrow, 9 September. RGGI Auction 73, Virginia's first allowance offering since rejoining, results due 11 September. Washington's Auction #15 is certified and its summary report released with the settlement price (Ecology publication 26-14-062), which is the read on that 16.7% futures discount. Then CFTC Commitments of Traders on 11 September, CARB's weekly on 15 September, and Washington's first-ever ECR sale on 16 September (Ecology publication 26-14-068).
Open items. One detected regulatory change is uncovered: MISO Business Practice Manuals, 26 August 2026. We have established no carbon-market read on it and flag it as an open miss rather than leave it silent. RECs: not covered this edition. VCM: not covered this edition.
What we correct, and where. Five editions - the 1 September morning and evening notes, the 2 September morning and evening notes, and the 3 September evening note - rested the desk's new RGGI deficit story on a private allowance bank of roughly 67 million short tons, and two of them (2 September evening, 3 September evening) called that bank 'load-bearing'. Every one of the five printed 'July 2025' beside the figure, and four of the five named its source alongside. The date was disclosed each time; what was never made was the judgment. This desk labels a price past its cadence a last print, not a mark - and applied no such standard to a stock, so a fourteen-month-old balance-sheet figure rode as current evidence in five editions with its age in plain sight. Disclosure without judgment was the failure: printing a date beside a number does not make the number current.
Why nothing caught it. The current figure existed before any of the five editions ran. Potomac Economics published its special Report on the Supply and Demand for RGGI CO2 Allowances on 21 August 2026; the desk first read it on 4 September, fourteen days later, because the market monitor's publication page was not watched at all - the report is a special publication, the first of its kind, so no scheduled cadence existed to miss, and the publisher our RGGI evidence leans on was simply not on the watch list. The failure also sat upstream of the staleness: the desk never held the document the 67 million figure came from - Potomac's 2025 annual report was cited, not fetched - where the current figures come from a report the desk has fetched and keeps, with every figure in this correction checked against that document's own text.
The current figures. The 21 August report states that the surplus of allowances in circulation fell from 71 million short tons at the end of the fifth control period to 55 million at the end of the second quarter of 2026, and projects 45 million at the sixth-control-period compliance deadline (1 March 2027). Of that surplus, 18 million - 32 percent - is held for compliance purposes; holdings for investment fell from 60 million to 37 million over the year.
The Cost Containment Reserve, corrected with it - same market, same window. The 2 September morning note described Virginia's Auction 73 tranche as '1.148 million Cost Containment Reserve allowances, which are released only if the CCR trigger price is reached'. The mechanism is stated correctly; the framing presented as an open question a trigger that had already fired. At Auction 71 on 11 March 2026, bids above the 2026 CCR trigger price of $18.22 exceeded the initial offering, over 7.8 million CCR allowances were sold, the 2026 reserve was fully depleted, and the auction cleared at $24.99 (Potomac's Auction 71 market monitor report). No edition of this note had said so, and the 21 August report treats the remaining CCR allowances as sold at Auction 73 given recent price levels. The reason nothing contradicted the conditional framing is structural, and it is the same failure as the bank: the desk held the CCR's trigger condition but no record of whether it had fired - trigger state existed for no mechanism the desk tracks - so a sentence implying the trigger had not yet been reached had nothing to collide with.
What it changes. The cushion under the deficit rows is smaller than the figure we printed and it is falling: 55 million at mid-2026, projected 45 million by the 1 March 2027 compliance deadline - and the reserve that would have added supply above the trigger this year is already spent. That strengthens, not weakens, the tightening read the rows carry; this is a correction of the evidence we showed, not a reversal of the view.
What changed at the desk. The market monitor's publication page is now watched for any new report. Stock figures carry their dates and cadences as data, and a stock past its cadence is labelled exactly as a stale mark is. Trigger state is now held per mechanism where a primary states it, with its source and as-of date, and recorded as absent where none does - so whether a mechanism has fired is a fact the desk stores rather than a tone a sentence implies.
What changed. Washington auction and reserve-sale dates were cited to Ecology publication 25-14-100 - the 2026 Cap-and-Invest Summary of Expected Dates, an annual schedule published in 2025, which is why its number begins 25. From the 4 September edition the citations are the governing auction notices themselves: Ecology publication 26-14-062 (Auction #15), 26-14-068 (ECR Auction #1) and 26-14-072 (APCR Auction #8). A schedule states a plan; the auction notice governs the event - the desk cites the governing document and keeps the summary as corroboration.
Why it is logged. The citation moved between editions without a log entry, and the same publication was described two different ways in three days. One description is now settled - 25-14-100 is the 2026 Summary of Expected Dates (published 2025) - and citation changes are logged like any other change a reader might notice.
Corrections & notes
Open IOUs (from this edition's own confirm flags): - confirm: nesting inversion, cross-check against a commercial assessment