By MARGARET WENTE, Globe and Mail,
March 12th 2013.
Do any of these shenanigans actually reduce
emissions? Probably not
Here's a
neat idea. Declare that you'll help solve the climate crisis by making all your
public institutions carbon-neutral. Schools, hospitals, the works. Now that's
leadership.
There'll
be some challenges, of course. Unfortunately, no matter how hard they try, your
schools and hospitals can't possibly eliminate all their greenhouse-gas
emissions – they're too old and drafty, the ambulances and buses still run on
fossil fuel, and solar panels are still too darned expensive.
But you
can fix that. Just force them to buy carbon offsets. In other words, make them
pay for all the greenhouse gasses they emit by forking over millions of dollars
to folks who have reduced their greenhouse emissions. Presto! If you
can't achieve carbon neutrality, you can buy it.
That's
what B.C. is doing. Every public institution is now required to pay $25 a tonne
for the carbon dioxide it emits. That's money that's no longer available for
textbooks, teachers and nursing care. Last year, Vancouver's regional health
system coughed up $3-million to buy carbon credits. The University of British
Columbia forked over $1.5-million, and B.C.'s public schools paid $4.4-million.
But never mind. B.C. is now the greenest government on Earth.
Does all
this strike you as a bit loony? Wait – there's more. Most of this money winds
up in the pockets of large private companies, which are paid for not emitting
greenhouse gasses they almost certainly wouldn't have emitted anyway, according
to investigations by The Vancouver Sun.
Corporate recipients have included
Encana, Interfor, Kruger and other companies that already had carbon-reduction
projects under way or completed. Millions more have gone to the Nature
Conservancy of Canada and aboriginal groups connected to the Great Bear
Rainforest; they were paid for not cutting down trees they wouldn't have been
allowed to cut down anyway. The prices are all negotiated by Pacific Carbon Trust,
a Crown agency that specializes in voodoo carbon accounting.
"It's
outrageous what's going on in the name of carbon offsets," says Frank
Lento, chair of the tiny, cash-strapped Southeast Kootenay school district.
Last year, his district was dunned $80,000. "That money is going from our
classrooms to corporate boardrooms," he told me.
The B.C.
government has agreed to compensate the school boards because people got so
mad. But the extra money still comes from taxpayers. Although schools and other
public institutions pay $25 a tonne for their carbon credits, Pacific Carbon
Trust, which buys the offsets on their behalf, pays only $9 to $19 a tonne to
the sellers.
Do any of
these shenanigans actually reduce emissions? Probably not. As Cornelis van
Kooten, an economics professor at the University of Victoria, told me,
"The problem is that you cannot keep track of what exactly is being taken
out of the atmosphere or going into the atmosphere." Nonetheless, these
schemes are popular with environmentalists and business. Why? "Money.
There's tonnes of money in this."
Carbon-offset
schemes have created a lucrative niche for consultants, bureaucrats,
accountants and entrepreneurs who, for tidy fees, will help you market credits,
set the price, determine how much carbon dioxide you're subtracting from the
planet, and write reports certifying that your program is a brilliant success,
even if it's built on the backs of schoolchildren and sick people.
B.C.'s
carbon-neutral green dream is a multimillion-dollar boondoggle. But that
doesn't mean it will be shut down any time soon. As Environment Minister Terry
Lake told The Globe and Mail's Mark Hume last month, "it's important to
show ... leadership through example."
