Compliance carbon prices broke higher across three major schemes this month while timber demand kept softening. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) cleared its September 9, 2026 auction at a record $37.65 a ton, up from $35.00 in June. California and Québec’s joint cap-and-trade program settled its August 19, 2026 auction at $32.48, up 12.7 percent from May, the strongest print since November 2024. The European Union Allowance (EUA) traded near €85.61 a tonne on September 15, 2026, close to a six-month high. CME lumber futures, meanwhile, slipped to $562.50 per 1,000 board feet, extending a decline from June’s highs, and Canadian softwood exports to the United States fell 22.8 percent year over year in July. Last month’s divergence held, and in some places widened.
Compliance carbon
The EUA, the tradable unit underlying the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), settled at €85.61 a tonne on September 15, 2026, up 4.94 percent over the trailing month despite a 2.70 percent single-day pullback, and up 10.45 percent year over year, trading near its highest level in six months. The European Commission’s Phase 5 reform proposal, published July 17, 2026, has not moved since an August 12, 2026 legal analysis confirmed it remains at the proposal stage awaiting Council and Parliament negotiation, with no votes or scheduling news reported this month.
On August 24, 2026, the European Commission published guidance for verifiers and national accreditation bodies under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), setting out registry access procedures effective September 1, 2026. Verifiers must register within two months of accreditation, and verification reports begin flowing into the CBAM Registry from January 2027, ahead of the first certificate purchases due that February.
RGGI Inc.’s Auction 73, held September 9, 2026, cleared at $37.65 an allowance, a record for the program and up from $35.00 at the June auction. The auction sold all 28,537,847 allowances offered, including 1,148,000 drawn from the Cost Containment Reserve, with bids covering the base supply 2.6 times over and proceeds totaling roughly $1.074 billion.
In California, the 48th joint California-Québec auction, held August 19, 2026, settled current-vintage allowances at $32.48, up $3.67 from May’s $28.81 and the strongest clearing price since November 2024. All 49,016,180 current-vintage allowances sold, at a cover ratio of 1.31 times, while future-vintage allowances settled at $32.75. The jump follows cap-and-invest program amendments the California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted on a 9 to 4 vote in late May, effective September 1, 2026, which cut roughly 1 billion allowances from the 2027 through 2045 budgets and are projected to push prices toward $68 over time. A Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive that CARB adopted in the same package, which would grant industrial facilities extra allowance allocation tied to decarbonization investment, is not yet operational and faces a legal challenge from Communities for a Better Environment over its inclusion of oil refineries.
Voluntary carbon
Voluntary carbon had a quieter month than compliance carbon, with one notable exception. Verra announced on September 2, 2026 that Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Version 5, the registry’s core methodology framework released in December 2025, earned Core Carbon Principles (CCP) eligible status from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), the first program-standard-level recognition since the council added three smaller crediting programs as CCP-eligible on August 4, 2026. The designation now covers 13 ICVCM-approved methodologies spanning agriculture, forestry, energy and industrial project categories under VCS Version 5. Beyond that decision, this cycle did not produce a fresh benchmark price reading. Sylvera’s Q2 2026 Carbon Data Snapshot, published July 13, 2026, which found the average voluntary credit price at $6.41 and a widening premium for investment-grade improved forest management credits, remains the most recent published pricing data at deadline, and no new registry issuance or retirement volumes were available for August.
A record RGGI clearing price is a data point, not a trend line
Compliance carbon just posted its biggest one-month move in over a year across three separate schemes. CearioTrader streams compliance and voluntary carbon pricing across major registries and exchanges in one place, so you see the next auction result the moment it clears, not four weeks later in this newsletter.
Timber
CME lumber futures settled at $562.50 per 1,000 board feet on September 15, 2026, down 1.32 percent on the day and down roughly 1.8 percent over the trailing month, extending a slide from the mid-June high above $630. Trade coverage attributes the softness to tariff friction on the supply side and mortgage rates near 7 percent curbing demand on the other. The most recent confirmed Census Bureau reading, for July 2026 and released August 18, 2026, put housing starts at 1.239 million units, down 13.5 percent year over year, with single-family starts down 15.7 percent. The Census Bureau’s August 2026 report is scheduled for release today, September 17, 2026, and had not posted at the time of writing.
Mill activity showed no major closures this cycle. Forisk’s August 2026 Forest Market Bulletin recorded a run of smaller Southeast startups, including Olla Hardwoods, Pine Plantation Products and Doman Estill, layered on top of the capacity additions already underway at Harrigan Lumber, Rex Lumber and J.D. Irving. British Columbia’s forestry outlook moved the other direction. The province’s First Quarterly Report, released September 16, 2026, cut its 2026-27 average stumpage forecast to C$13.55 a cubic meter from the February budget’s C$15.24, an 11 percent reduction the ministry attributed to softwood duty rates, the separate 10 percent tariff under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and rising operating costs, with total forecast forest revenue falling to C$472 million.
The underlying trade dispute remains unresolved. The seventh administrative review of antidumping and countervailing duties on Canadian softwood lumber, with preliminary combined rates of 20.70 to 31.02 percent, has not reached final determination; a final decision is now anticipated in October 2026 following a post-preliminary countervailing adjustment in late June that left cash deposit rates unchanged. The 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods imposed under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which took effect August 19, 2026, continues to exclude raw softwood lumber while covering panel products, and Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc has flagged softwood as a priority item in the July 2026 joint review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Canadian softwood exports to the United States fell 22.8 percent year over year in July 2026 to 1.9 million cubic meters, with export value down 30.1 percent to C$369.6 million and the average price down 9.4 percent to C$194.20 a cubic meter.
Cross-market read
Two of this year’s defining trends accelerated at the same time this month rather than offsetting each other. Compliance carbon costs rose across Europe and North America, with California’s 12.7 percent auction jump the sharpest single move any of these schemes has posted in over a year, driven by a supply cut regulators made on purpose. Timber costs and volumes moved down together, with lumber futures easing, Canadian export volumes falling by nearly a quarter year over year, and British Columbia’s own forestry ministry now forecasting lower stumpage revenue than it budgeted seven months ago. For a specifier or builder, that is a cost structure getting squeezed from a direction that briefly looked like it might ease last month and instead firmed further.
The voluntary carbon market’s comparatively quiet month is itself informative. A single program-level integrity decision, Verra’s VCS Version 5 earning CCP eligibility, moved the needle more than any price signal this cycle, reinforcing the pattern from earlier this year in which documentation and verification status, not raw volume, are what the market is pricing. Expect that pattern to keep showing up as compliance markets tighten supply on purpose and voluntary markets keep sorting credits by how well they can prove what they claim.
What to watch in October
The Census Bureau’s August 2026 housing starts report, due the same day this article publishes, is the first real test of whether the tariff and rate pressure already visible in July deepened further. The US Department of Commerce’s final determination in the seventh administrative review of Canadian softwood duties is now expected in October, which will replace the preliminary 20.70 to 31.02 percent range with binding rates. CARB’s Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive remains unimplemented and under legal challenge, worth tracking for whether the litigation delays its rollout. And with the EU ETS Phase 5 reform proposal still sitting untouched at the Commission stage, any sign of Council or Parliament scheduling would be the first real movement since July.
We’ll be back with the October Barometer in the third week of the month.