Carbon neutrality is a dangerous smokescreen

Check out this opinion-editorial from Bob on why he believes carbon neutrality for the public sector is not only a sham, but also a dangerous smokescreen for 99% of other greenhouse gas emissions in B.C.

Carbon Neutral Government is a Dangerous Smokescreen

The Province, October 20, 2011

Bob Simpson, MLA Cariboo North

This past spring $18.2 million was clawed back from the public sector to buy carbon offsets from the Pacific Carbon Trust (PCT). This tax money should have been spent in classrooms, hospitals, universities, senior’s care facilities and other public services.  Instead, it was funneled through the PCT to private companies for projects that supposedly reduced GHG emissions over and above “business as usual” and, therefore, “offset” the greenhouse gases the public sector emitted in 2010.

This convoluted scheme – which saw PCT, a Crown corporation, pay undisclosed millions of taxpayer’s dollars to private corporations – allowed the government to declare itself to be “carbon neutral” earlier this year.

Instead of praise for this achievement, however, the government came under fire for stealing money from cash-strapped public agencies to fund private sector projects, especially since some of the companies receiving the public money are among the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the province. In response to the backlash, the government claims it’s exploring ways to return carbon offset money to the public sector, a proposition that’s supported by the Official Opposition.

But such a move fails to address two fundamental problems. First, the carbon neutral government claim is a sham. Second, the public sector’s offset money cannot be returned to that sector for public projects until BC’s carbon neutral legislation is repealed.

Why is the government’s claim to be the first ‘carbon neutral’ jurisdiction a sham? Because, in order to pronounce itself carbon neutral without bankrupting the public sector, the government exempted a host of its emissions by declaring them “out of scope” and therefore not part of their “carbon neutral” calculation.

The exempted list includes BC Ferries (the biggest single source of government emissions), emissions from school buses, emissions generated by public-private partnerships, the Port Mann Bridge and BC Place contractors’ emissions, and emissions from not-for-profit organizations that deliver the government programs and services. Even the emissions associated with the BC Legislature itself and all its associated Independent Officers are exempt from the “carbon neutral government” calculation.

These exemptions make a mockery out of any notion that the BC government has achieved “carbon neutrality.” But this sham provides the government with a dangerous smokescreen to hide behind. It’s a way to make people believe their government is making progress on GHG emission reductions while, in fact, the exact opposite is true.  The sad reality is that the government’s industrial strategies will dramatically increase BC’s total emissions, negating any possibility that BC will achieve its much touted legal targets of reducing GHG emissions 33% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 over 2007 levels.

Therefore the government should abandon its carbon neutral claim because it’s not true and it distracts from the real work that needs to be done to actually reduce BC’s GHGs. But, there’s another critically important reason this claim should be abandoned as soon as possible: the government cannot return public offset money back to the public sector until it repeals its carbon neutral legislation.

It’s the carbon neutral legislation that requires the public sector’s money to be used to “leverage” private sector money for GHG-reduction projects. It’s only through this transfer of funds from the public to the private sector that carbon neutrality is supposedly achieved. So, if the government truly wants to return public offset money to the public sector as some Ministers have suggested, the legislation that requires it to achieve carbon neutrality must be repealed.

BC’s public sector contributes less than one percent to the province’s total emissions. To truly get at BC’s total GHG emissions the government should remove the current cap and tax from the public sector and simply provide that sector with annual program funds to chip away at improving their energy efficiency — we’ll get both cost savings and real GHG reductions that way.

If the government wants to keep the PCT offset program alive, then it should tax the 30-40% of industrial emissions that are not captured under the current carbon tax and put the money from that tax into the PCT for both public and private sector GHG emission reduction projects. That way BC’s big emitters will have both a carrot and a stick to push them to get their emissions under control and we can start to deal with the real problem: the 99% of greenhouse emissions in BC that are not associated with the public sector, and that must be steadily lowered if the province is to effectively deal with climate change.