A story in today's Vancouver Sun is disturbing, arguing that B.C. could make $1 billion from selling carbon offsets once the Western Climate Initiative gets underway. The projects are mostly in forest management and conservation, meaning less cutting and more sequestration of carbon in the forests themselves. The conservation part is undoubtedly a good thing -- we need to manage our forests better because they are the only technology we know of to suck carbon dioxide out of the air.
The problem arises in the idea that we can sell these good deeds to companies in other parts of Canada or the U.S. who are not reducing their emissions, so that they can claim that they are. That is, B.C. should engage in conservation to reduce emissions AND those companies should also be reducing their emissions. Furthermore, it is a huge mistake to exchange emissions reductions over a thirty-year period, embodied in forests (which could burn down, be devastated by pine beetles or be clear-cut a few decades hence), for current emissions from burning fossil fuels.
The widely-accepted target of 350 parts per million encompasses this debate. We are currently at 390 ppm, and need to get back down to 350. To get there we need to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, AND we need to engage in tree planting, forest conservation and better management practices to suck up that excess atmospheric carbon. Offsets are basically a sham if we accept this framework because we need to do that stuff anyway. The only true offset would be a new technology that literally did suck carbon dioxide out of the air and bury it underground, forever. Such a technology does not yet exist.
The other projects mentioned include a cement company switching to biomass instead of fossil fuels, and energy efficiency retrofits in trucks. Again, these are projects that should be happening anyway if we are to have a habitable planet a few decades hence. One other project is just plain dubious, an energy company with improved "conservation" of natural gas at drilling sites. In this case, a company that is engaged in putting carbon in the atmosphere could get paid for a change in operational practices that somehow puts slightly less carbon in the atmosphere.
Perhaps more disturbing is that the protagonist of the story is UBC's James Tansey, Executive Director of the ISIS Research Centre of the Sauder School of Business. That makes it sound like just some interesting academic research being reported. But Tansey is also the ED of Offsetters, a company engaged in developing offset projects of the very type mentioned in the article. It is not necessarily the case that there is a conflict of interest here, but a probing journalist ought to ask what role Offsetters has in these projects, and whether Tansey stands to personally profit from the $1 billion in offsets being "researched."
This article was first posted on The Progressive Economics Forum.
Actually, the natural physical processes of the Earth have already proven capable of sucking CO2 out of the air and burying it underground. It's called fossil fuel, and it took nature hundreds of millions of years to complete the process.
Instead of trying to put the genie back in the bottle with some future techno-fix, we should be leaving the carbon in the ground, where it's safe.
Thanks for asking about the disclosure issues. Fortunately we are very proactive on these issues and we a strong policy at UBC for disclosure. I’m sure you’ll have made similar disclosure as part of the Climate Justice project, which I understand supports some of CCPA’s work too using grant funding. Also, the fact that my biography at ISIS Research Centre at UBC makes my role in the founding of the company very much explicit should also satisfy any requirements for disclosure.
Perhaps its better to focus on matters of substance in your article. To suggest that offsets are a ’sham’ because in your words ‘we need to do that stuff anyway’ rather misses the point. It also shows why universities need to be involved in this debate. Basic economics suggests that any actions we need to take to reduce emissions now have costs: there is very little ’stuff’ we can do ‘anyway’ without investment capital. The case for acting now, described in the Stern report and elsewhere is that the the costs of early action are much lower than the future costs of climate change impacts. If we put a price on carbon through cap and trade and offsets, and allow for those funds to be used to support investment in clean technology, improved forest management, fuel switching and a wide range of other initiatives that we’ve already seen in BC we can accelerate the pace at which emissions reductions are achieved within the WCI. I would have assumed that was an approach the CCPA would endorse.
As an academic, I’m proud of having help create a company that has led the way in North America, has created over 20 jobs and has attracted investment and interest around the world. That’s part of a new vision for what universities can achieve.