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Hospitals and schools must pay the Pacific Carbon Trust, but what are they really buying?
Foundation responds to Tyee story, gives view on forests and carbon offsets.
Under the province's new forest-carbon rules, developers must identify where the market will turn to replace the timber supply they intend to remove from the market, and estimate how much carbon will "leak" that way.
Tim Lesiuk, executive director of business development at the Climate Action Secretariat, says the new B.C. rules accounting for leakage err on the side of caution. "FCOP is seen as overly conservative or not producing enough offsets," he concedes, "but [this ensures] it is doing at least as much good for the atmosphere as it says, and probably more."
Private sector to the rescue?
First Nations in the Great Bear aren't the only ones getting into forest-carbon offsets in B.C. In January 2012, the province invited proposals from private interests willing to reforest Crown land damaged by mountain pine beetle and wildfire in exchange for carbon offset revenues from the newly-planted forests.
For the 2012 planting season, the ministry had hoped to target between 500 and 2,000 hectares of Crown land, with plans to increase that to as much as 10,000 hectares annually by 2015. A Pacific Carbon Trust press release says "banks, carbon finance companies, silviculture firms and First Nations can generate significant carbon credits, which they will be able to sell on the open market as the carbon storage value of these replanted areas increases over time."
In April, Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MFLNRO) spokesperson Vivian Thomas confirmed that four proposals had been received to date, with one under active negotiation. None of the proposed terms were being made public. "This program is a creative way of encouraging the replanting of these areas that generates carbon credits for program partners and reduce the burden of taxpayers," Thomas said. Briony Penn doesn't see it this way at all. If the public subsidizes the planting of trees for future generations, then that money needs to flow back in some way to communities and taxpayers, she argues (see sidebar "Whose Carbon? Whose Cash?").
"These decisions are being made now, and there has been absolutely no public discussion about carbon in British Columbia," Penn says.
In June, just as this story was going to print, ministry spokesperson Thomas told Tyee Solutions that the one deal under negotiation had fallen through. "Given the tight timelines, the proponent wasn't able to get the necessary financing together to meet timelines for this year's planting season," she said of the aborted deal. She added that the ministry will be posting another request for proposals in the late summer for the 2013 planting season.
First Nations not racing to get involved
Despite the lure of new revenue, Gary Wouters remains skeptical that many First Nations outside the Great Bear Rainforest will follow its path in the short term.
The upfront costs of defining and qualifying a project, and ongoing management work, are too onerous for most smaller First Nations, he says. "Unless you come together as a collective group and take advantage of the economies of scale, some small First Nations couldn't afford to do it."
The GBR carbon project was also the result of unique circumstances difficult to replicate: there was acceptance of the "ecosystem-based" forest management system by government, and funding specifically dedicated to developing a lower-carbon forest economy.
For other First Nations to seize the same opportunity, Wouters says the province would need to reopen existing land-use agreements and entertain new protected areas and reduced timber harvests on Crown land.
Importance of Great Bear carbon
None of this diminishes the precedent set in the Great Bear. Carbon being drawn from the atmosphere is being captured in forests on land the Crown and First Nations contest -- then packaged into offsets and sold with the profits shared by both. The parties have agreed to set aside their treaty impasse and manage the land for carbon over the next 100 years.
If nothing else, it has bought some time in which to do more.
"The Great Bear is that first little baby step on carbon," says Briony Penn. She says its success could lead to a day when the cost of carbon emissions are factored routinely into every decision government and citizens make. "Once Great Bear is completely figured out, we will all know exactly how much carbon is released into the atmosphere every time a hectare of coastal rainforest is cut down," predicts Penn.
The win-win of generating revenue from keeping more forests standing is already apparent in Hartley Bay, where five nights a week Cameron Hill's family eats deer, moose or seafood they have harvested together during the year. The forests also provide medicine, and the raw materials supplying a renaissance in Gitga'at wood carving, weaving and blanket making.
More than a revenue stream, the carbon deal means the Gitga'at have a new level of food, resource and even cultural security. Clear-cutting has been replaced by gentler forays into the woods: later this month, Hill will take his class out to harvest cedar bark for Hartley Bay's weavers.
"I can't stress it enough," he says, "we can go and take from a tree and give it thanks, look after it, and it will heal and never be gone." ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Great Bear Forest to Be Massive Carbon Offset Project: Page 2 of 2
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CurtisYYC
1 year ago
Pipelines
Perhaps this agreement will somehow prevent the HarperCons from ramming the Northern Gateway Pipeline through this area. Baby steps perhaps but every bit helps.
Fingers crossed in Calgary.
raging senior
1 year ago
PACIFIC CARBON TRUST
Buying carbon credits and selling carbon offsets is, in my opinion, a hoax akin to the subprime mortage scam in US that caused the world banking crisis. How can you sell a concept of buying or selling carbon? If you cannot touch it, it is not there. Corporations are buying up farmland and planting trees so they can continue to pollute and destroy the air quality in their area. However, by buying carbon credits polluting is OK with the enviornmentalists. Once again the wealthy scamers will make millions and the BC taxpayer is the goat. Carbon taxing schools, hospitals and other organizations that are funded by tax dollars is simply double taxing the people of BC, and then giving that money to Companies makes what kind of sense? You cannot recieve carbon credit money unless you are a registered company. Also, did you know students looking for grants have recieved money from the Carbon Tax Slush fund. How much bull shit will we have to eat before this scam is uncovered, similar to WATER GATE, the down fall of Richard Nixon.
cariboocooper
1 year ago
carbon offset
What a huge pile of b,,shi. the natives are talking. The true end all is MONEY nothing else. They sell out regularly.
What you don't get in this extended propaganda article is that the carbon filtering of these trees will be sold to a company so they can use the pollution filtering. Eventually all the trees that were formerly ours and doing a great biological service are now being tapped to sell pollution. We are going backwards at a phenomenal pace and the natives are leading the charge. Total BS
motorcycleguy
1 year ago
financial transaction tax
I'm with raging senior. A question...is the trade in carbon credits being done on a tax-free basis because of Carole Taylor's repeal of a minimum tax on financial institutions operating in BC?
snert
1 year ago
Smoke
& mirrors.
JosephPallant
1 year ago
Great Project. Progressive tool.
It is very heartening to see the Great Bear Rainforest project moving ahead, and making its diligent path through the standards and regulations that govern a carbon offset. Though there is much storm and bluster, and deeply held feelings, I find that when people are walked through the process of understanding what a carbon offset is, they appreciate it's utility & role.
From my reading of this article, and summary knowledge of the project, there are two key actions at play.
1) Planned and allowable logging of this forest will be reduced from 70% (30% protected) to between 20% and 50% (50-80% protected). This is a huge amount of forest and intact ecosystem that is being protected from liquidation. Given the fact that massive amounts of BC lumber are shipped overseas as raw log exports due to the economics of today, I imagine that a wide swath of British Columbians can appreciate this.
2) Mention of offsets to be generated through reforestation would suggest that areas of Non-sufficiently restocked (NSR) land will be reforested with native species. Whereas BC now mandates that all land that gets logged is reforested, there are areas logged long ago that didn't regrow properly. Restoring these areas, as well as areas degraded by natural disturbances are potentially eligible to generate offsets, as they would not have grown on their own. A point of carbon geekery - offsets would only be calculated for the incremental forest growth above and beyond what would have occurred without forestry treatment.
For those that can't comprehend how one would figure such a thing out, BC has multitudes of highly trained foresters and world class scientific forestry expertise. Society actually can make sound measurements and legitimate scientific projections about tree growth and ecosystem dynamics. Such decisions are made every day on our behalf by governments, forest companies and the academic realm. The pairing of this expertise with the tools and practice of the carbon market are leading to outcomes that many British Columbians wish to see - the protection of majestic lands like the Great Bear Rainforest.
I tip my hat to the dedicated First Nations, the insightful levels of government that encouraged this protection (Including John Baird and the Federal Conservatives in 2006),Tides Canada that spearheaded the initiative, and all the hard-working people innovating in the carbon market, labouring against long odds to protect this forest and further develop the carbon offset as a tool for doing good in the world.
Joseph Pallant
CPS Carbon Project Solutions Inc.
Van Isle
1 year ago
Didn't our PM, when he was
Didn't our PM, when he was the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, make a comment that Carbon Trading was a Socialist idea? I think not; it's just another corporate ponsi scam.
Mia
1 year ago
Mia
Tyee article on JUly 22, 2011: "Strange Business of Carbon Offsets".
Has the Tyee changed ownership? Or just policy?
Carbon offsets are like an arrangement to pay a recipient a regular sum for them to NOT to cheat on their spouse so that the donor is free to cheat on their own spouse.
For a truly hilarious video on just this?
www. cheatneutral.com
Canada (& in particular BC's "leaders" Chrispy Crunch & her mentor Gordo) tithed $400 mil in 2010 & 2011 to the UNCCCC (United Nations Church of Carbon Currency Collection) plate. Carbon is meant to become the new currency, poised to replace all others. Canada is the 7th biggest contributor to the UN Carbon game. Canadian contributions are really a trade off for the Federal budget & are shaved off EI & pensions & Search & Rescue & far more essential services.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/05/25/united-nations-climate-talks-nothing-but-hot-air
As for hard science?
There is always
www.stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/uncorrupted-us-temperature-data-showed-cooling-from-1930-to-1999/
But why rain on a Grimm fairy tale about how the good fairy UN uses its magic wand global taxation fund powers to oversee the deployment of the non sustainable smart grid on the pretext that a mesh blanket of ecosystem destroying radiation is necessary to offset the same demonized carbon pumped into organic greenhouses to accelerate healthy growth & deter insect infestations, the same carbon without which the entire planet & everything on it cannot survive?
ArnoS
1 year ago
Important to save old growth
In the traditional economic model, a standing tree was worthless. With Carbon Credits, at least the standing tree has some value. An old growth forest has value way in excess of the ability to store carbon in that it is a preserver of incredible biodiversity. This has incalculable value, but is not yet counted in our economic models.
Currently the Amazon rain forest is being burned so that subsistence farmers can make a bit of money for a few years until the soil washes away. This is a tragedy and Canada might have helped to stop this if we had been serious about our Kyoto committments.
I.m so glad that some of the Great Bear rainforest is being saved.
the real ODB
1 year ago
raging senior
I'm an environmentalist, and I agree with you 100%. There's 50 billion dollars traded in carbon every year. For what? So speculators can cash in. It does nothing positive for the environment in any stretch of the imagination. Another Ponzi scheme to suck money out of tax payers (ie: working people).
Dahlia
1 year ago
carbon offsets and protecting the Boreal
Canada should act now to protect all of our
Boreal forest and what is left of coastal old growth forests. The carbon trade, as much as I think it has serous flaws, could make this possible.
Hope the Great Bear stays safe, as much as from logging as from the spills of the proposed dirty oil tankers.
Sask Resident
1 year ago
Carbon offsets? You're kidding?
Carbon offsets is just a scam with a smoke screen. What happens if they have a forest fire? Would they have to pay back all the carbon credits? and to whom? What if a tree falls and rots, again do they pay back the carbon credits and to whom? Will the carbon credits make any difference to the world? Just another government subsidy called by another name.
Francis
1 year ago
Howe Street
I'm going to get my kids jobs on the Vancouver exchange so they can learn the ropes on trading.
ilumin8
1 year ago
Perhaps those who don't
Perhaps those who don't understand this, can make sense of this explanation:
Current economic models don't place value on a lot of things that not only have great value, but are essential for survival. Such as a healthy ecosystem. For example, a live wolf has no economic value, but, ironically, activities and equipment used to kill wolves do have economic value. Same as for trees. But how do you add into the economic conventions, values for clean air, bountiful oceans etc.? Well, the carbon offsets are a way of doing this. It's about time.
Fantastic work by the people who put this together.
pwlg
1 year ago
but...
...does the trading in carbon credits actually reduce GHG emissions globally?
Sequestering GHG in the Central Coast forest through the trading of carbon credits may save trees from resource extraction practices there but wouldn't there be a cost elsewhere?
Someone buys the credits in order to increase or maintain their emissions or they purchase credits to offset cutting a forest elsewhere or purchase credits to increase flaring operations in the oil and gas patch. One carbon sink saved another or maybe more sacrificed.
Or, lets have public institutions, through legislation, purchase carbon credits for "failing" to lower their GHG emissions, like our school boards and health authorities in BC.
These publicly funded institutions have no extra funding to actually reduce their GHG emissions but who cares. We make education-students and healthcare-patients pay for this carbon credit market folly.
Will our students and patients be indirectly purchasing GBF carbon credits through the so called Pacific Carbon Trust?
The author of this article could have done better by looking at opposing opinions and examples of carbon trading failures, which there are many, than just a sentence or two in a two page article.
One has to wonder where we are going when we begin trading natural systems like they were a human manufactured commodity.
Perhaps the author and the carbon trading industry proponent who has commented here could provide commentary to the following article published in Ephemera, May 2012:
THE ATMOSPHERE BUSINESS
Steffen Böhm, Anna-Maria Murtola and Sverre Spoelstra
Kyoto is dead, long live carbon markets
http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/12-1/12-1ephemera-may12.pdf
Another good source for carbon trading analysis and examples of failure:
http://www.carbontradewatch.org/
PS Francis, the Vancouver Stock Exchange ceased operations in 1999 and was merged with the other lesser exchanges in Canada and is now called the Canadian Venture Exchange. The old VSE was characterized as an exchange where a majority of the stocks were failures or frauds and full of "shams, swindles and market manipulations".
It is unfortunate that the VSE closed its doors as it was a good venue for keeping the unscrupulous off the streets and out of our pockets.
pwlg
1 year ago
JP
By your definition in your comment 2) how would you explain forests regenerating themselves 7500 years ago in BC? Isn't your thinking short term? Aren't all commodity markets based on short term prospects? Is this the pitfall of carbon markets also? Will they be subject to the short term whims of the market? Isn't there sufficient evidence already to show this is the case? Haven't other carbon markets failed?
Okanagan Orchardist
1 year ago
Back in 2006, George Monbiot wrote an article entitled
"Selling Indulgences" in reference to the old Catholic tradition of paying for your sins either before or after you committed them by offering money to the Church.
In it he said:
"Rejoice! We have a way out. Our guilty consciences appeased, we can continue to fill up our SUVs and fly round the world without the least concern about our impact on the planet.... You buy yourself a clean conscience by paying someone else to undo the harm you are causing."
"The trade in carbon offsets is an excuse for business as usual."
It is admirable of the First Nations to handle such a project, and it is certainly better than nothing. But in the long run all you are doing by accepting money from big business polluters is "appeasing their consciences."
pwlg
1 year ago
sorry to rain on the parade...but...
...the climate market zombies keep stumbling on...
"The climate justice movement’s answer – drawing upon April 2010 Cochabamba, Bolivia conference declarations – includes not only the dramatic emissions cuts required to reverse the damage but also the decommissioning of carbon markets."
"The common denominator of all of the carbon market measures announced at Durban was the continued expansion of trading mechanisms – an apparently surprising move in the context of a collapsing market."
"...it is frequently claimed that the Kyoto Protocol’s flexible mechanisms, most notably the CDM, are unable to achieve the levels of emissions reductions needed to stop runaway climate change."
"In the current context of collapsing carbon prices, however, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that expanding the market – including through the creation of new market mechanisms – would simply exacerbate the problem of an overproduction of emissions allowances."
"Current estimates show that the supply of credits through scaled-up market mechanisms could be significantly larger than demand. Some observers point to the risk of market flooding, resulting in lower carbon prices and slower mitigation efforts in Annex I countries." (Aasrud et al., 2010:118)
"Without additional restrictions on the use of carbon credits, it is likely that the creation of new market mechanisms would create a surplus of credits that could reinforce the collapse in the price of carbon – further undermining the purported rationale of the scheme."
"New market-based mechanisms and an expanded CDM are presented as a means to ‘scale up’ mitigation actions in the global South. However, increasing the size of carbon markets is not the same as reducing emissions. The evidence of the CDM to date suggests that offsetting increases rather than reduces greenhouse gas emissions."
"The ideological commitment to carbon markets also retains a strong grip. Against a growing body of evidence, the proponents of trading continue to present it as the theoretically optimum means to put a price on carbon and to suggest that such pricing should be central to action on climate change."
"The less rosy-eyed among them may realise that such a system would entail a patchwork of rules, triggering a race to the bottom in terms of environmental safeguards – although if they do, they are not yet saying so."
Ephemera May 2012
freebear
1 year ago
Carbon Offsets a cruel joke
It will never work; similar to getting cash for air.
Getting paid to do nothing-welfare according to some!
Besides local residents/environment being impacted by carbon emitting industries will still be impacted; carbo offset or not!
judycross
1 year ago
Facts about CO2
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.
At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.
CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.
CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.
If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate!
http://theglobalwarmingtruth.com/Carbon_Dioxide.html
So, when do we get out from under this lunacy?
pwlg
1 year ago
when does it end
Please find other sources for your material judycross.
Your CO2 misinformation has been debunked several times.
It is not true that the earth is CO2 starved.
Life exists on this planet based on our atmosphere and CO2 at less than 1% an essential part of the mix of gases (ie nitrogen and oxygen). To pretend that CO2 at less than 1% is inconsequential is pure disinformation.
CO2 has increased by 25%. Prior to industrialization and modern human development the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, even during volcanoes and other major natural events, the level of CO2 was never above 300 ppm.
But why worry about facts?
Our planet can withstand a degree of atmospheric gas fluctuation without significant alteration of life on this planet. But to suggest that a 25% increase in CO2 from human activities is not significant or cause for some thought and concern is pure denial at its best.
A 25% increase or decrease in nitrogen or oxygen in our atmosphere would be fatal most life. When our oceans can no longer absorb the excess CO2 then what? When our oceans pH continues to become more acidic then what?
judycross
1 year ago
Are you kidding me? You are still in denial?
CO2 hit 4000 ppm during an Ice Age and it responds to temperature changes, it does not cause them.
"On the basis of atmospheric CO2 data obtained from the Antarctic Taylor Dome ice core and temperature data obtained from the Vostok ice core, Indermuhle et al. (2000) studied the relationship between these two parameters over the period 60,000-20,000 years BP (Before Present). One statistical test performed on the data suggested that shifts in the air's CO2 content lagged shifts in air temperature by approximately 900 years, while a second statistical test yielded a mean lag-time of 1200 years. Similarly, in a study of air temperature and CO2 data obtained from Dome Concordia, Antarctica for the period 22,000-9,000 BP -- which time interval includes the most recent glacial-to-interglacial transition -- Monnin et al. (2001) found that the start of the CO2 increase lagged the start of the temperature increase by 800 years. Then, in another study of the 420,000-year Vostok ice-core record, Mudelsee (2001) concluded that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years."
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N26/EDIT.php
CO2 IS STILL ONLY 4/100 of 1% of the atmosphere, and humans make ONLY 3-5% of it.
CO2 could double and all that would happen is that crops would yield more and the Earth would be greener. The oceans are carbon sinks,pwlg. Talk about "debunked"!
What I love about Greenbots is how immune they are to reality.I guess that what comes from working for PR Agencies disguised as NGOs.
But speaking of Carbon Trading...this one is totally grotesque:
Iran, North Korea, Sudan rack up millions by trading U.N. carbon credits
http://freebeacon.com/carbon-corruption/
judycross
1 year ago
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot,
Despite Recent Warm Weather, U.S. Cooling Trend Persists Over Last 15 Years - A Minus 1.9°F Per Century Rate
The latest NOAA/NCDC temperature dataset indicates that a long-term cooling trend for the continental U.S. persists. The last 15 years are shown in the chart below (180 months ending 5/31/2012)
www.c3headlines.com/2012/06/despite-recent-warm-weather-us-cooling-trend-persists-over-last-15-years-a-minus-19f-per-century-.html
CO2 UP...Temperatures DOWN
How can that be?
Isn't CO2 supposed to cause WARMING?
OMG! You don't suppose........?
Luck
1 year ago
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