Originally, I thought the idea of carbon neutrality was reasonable and that positioning BC on the forefront of 'carbon offsetting' via the Pacific Carbon Trust was a proactive approach to this emerging economic opportunity.
Now, I'm wondering if "carbon neutral government" isn't really just a smoke screen for the government's failure to achieve any real reductions in BC's overall emissions. I also wonder if the carbon offset "industry" isn't simply another scheme to scam money from investors and taxpayers.
After questions were raised about Encana (one of BC's largest carbon emitters) getting taxpayer money from the Pacific Carbon Trust (PCT) for "reducing" their greenhouse gas emissions, the PCT did not issue separate press releases for their other industrial projects. Instead, they rolled them up into a single document that was posted on the PCT web page without fanfare.
Little wonder, as each one of the PCT's offset projects doesn't withstand even modest scrutiny.
In order to justify taking money away from classrooms and hospitals to give to the private sector, the PCT must prove that every project they funded would not have proceeded without our tax money subsidizing it. But, I don't believe any of the projects our tax money subsidized resulted in a decrease in carbon emissions that wasn't already happening or would have happened without the PCT's involvement.
For example, one of the projects subsidized in 2011 was started in 2006; well before Mr. Campbell got religion on climate change (the PCT came into existence in 2008). Other projects are being substantially subsidized by the federal government for emission reductions, raising questions about double dipping. And yet others are directly comparable to projects being undertaken in a given sector without "offset" money being used as a carrot; making it hard for the PCT to prove their projects aren't simply "business as usual."
This year's annual report for the PCT reveals one of the main reasons for these questionable carbon offset claims. At several points in the report, the authors acknowledge one of the most significant challenges for the Trust: that is, "the lack of verifiable carbon offset tonnes available for purchase at March 31, 2011". The offset market has not expanded much since the Trust was set up in 2008, and therefore three years later, the PCT had to scramble to meet the offset requirements of government.
This perhaps explains in part why companies such as Encana, Timberwest, and Interfor are the beneficiaries of a bizarre carbon equation which moves public dollars from school districts and health authorities to far bigger industrial polluters. Supposedly, all of the PCT's projects are independently "validated" and "verified." However, the verifiers and validators all make money from the offset business, just like those who verified and validated derivatives and other financial schemes that have had scandalous outcomes in the past.
Before another cheque is cut to the PCT from School Boards, Health Authorities and other public agencies, the BC Legislature must be allowed to thoroughly re-examine the government's "carbon neutral" objective and the structure of the Pacific Carbon Trust.
Money is too tight to be stealing it away from classrooms and hospitals to subsidize private sector projects that would have happened anyway.
Bob Simpson MLA Cariboo North
