Daily Digest for

The Government of Canada decided not to list American eel under the Species at Risk Act and will instead manage the species under the Fisheries Act using an adaptive management approach. DFO will implement measures to reduce habitat impacts, improve migration passages, enhance elver fishery sustainability and science, and will post decision documents on Canada Gazette on December 17, 2025.

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $400 million grant to the Tennessee Valley Authority to accelerate deployment of GE Vernova Hitachi’s BWRX-300 small modular reactor. TVA submitted a construction permit application to the NRC in May 2025 and targets commercial operation of the first BWRX-300 at the Clinch River site in the early 2030s.

BMW Group announced a new 2035 climate milestone to cut at least 60 million metric tons of CO2e versus 2019 — approximately 20 million tons more than its 2030 target. The plan relies on lifecycle decarbonization measures including renewable energy in production, secondary raw materials for batteries and metals, efficiency improvements (e.g., iX3 ~20% lower WLTP), and Gen6 battery development.

TAE Technologies and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) launched a joint venture, TAE Beam UK, to commercialise TAE’s neutral-beam particle accelerator technology for fusion and other applications, with UKAEA committing £5.6 million and TAE providing a nine-figure backing. The venture will be based at Culham (Oxfordshire) and aims to deliver initial short-pulse beams within 18–24 months, subject to regulatory approvals.

De Nederlandsche Bank and the ECB report euro area bank-financed emissions fell from 165 million tonnes in 2018 to 116 million tonnes in 2023 (a 29% decline). In 2023 euro area corporate loans totaled €4,035 billion, of which €226 billion came from Dutch banks, and Dutch bank‑financed emissions declined from 5.6 to 3.0 million tonnes over the same period.

The AI Energy Council, co-chaired by Kanishka Narayan, Lord Vallance and Michael Shanks, met in London on 1 December to push reforms and accelerate grid connections for AI data centres and AI Growth Zones across the UK. The council discussed discounts on electricity bills for Growth Zone data centres that can use excess capacity, plans to speed grid access, and will reconvene in early 2026 to advance work on AI energy capacity and sustainable power solutions.

SGU has designated the Lappvattnet-Mjövattnet nickel occurrence (~288 ha) near Skellefteå as a national interest on 1 December 2025, citing its strategic value for electrification and noting nickel is not currently mined in Sweden. The deposit, discovered in the 1970s and showing elevated copper, partly overlaps with riksintressen for reindeer herding and aviation.

The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee published its December 2025 Financial Stability Report, lowering its system-wide Tier 1 capital benchmark to around 13% of RWAs (CET1 ≈11%) and keeping the UK countercyclical capital buffer at 2%. The FSR flags elevated global risks — notably stretched AI valuations and rising AI infrastructure debt (industry estimates >$5tn over five years), private markets exposures (~£173bn) and hedge fund repo leverage (~£100bn) — while the 2025 stress test shows UK banks remain resilient (aggregate CET1 low point 11.0%).

Climate Impact X launched CIX CP1X-GM, a standardised physical spot contract aggregating all ICAO fully approved CORSIA Phase 1 EEUs to improve access, liquidity and price discovery; day-one trading narrowed the bid-offer spread to 10%. The CP1X-GM benchmark was assessed at US$19.50/mt on 1 Dec 2025, with combined Phase 1-eligible supply at over 17.3 million EEUs versus IATA’s forecasted demand of 146–236 million tonnes.