"Rather than setting a short timeline that would almost inevitably lead to high offset purchases, the NSW government in 2008 set a target of public sector carbon neutrality by 2020, giving public sector bodies time to implement real emissions reductions in their own operations," says the report, titled Catch $25. "Under the NSW framework, offset purchases will not even be considered until 2014 (Year 6 of the plan), and only then after 'all other means of reducing emissions have been put in place.' If offsets do become part of the NSW plan, they would not be required until 2020, Year 12 of the program."

Charley Beresford, executive director of the Columbia Institute and a co-author of the report, said in an interview that making real reductions before buying offsets should be the "primary principle" of a carbon neutral strategy.

James Tansey, a University of British Columbia business professor and president of Offsetters, counters that if the government had delayed offsetting it wouldn't have gotten the attention of decision-makers in the public sector.

Hadi Dowlatabadi, a physicist with UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, said that buying offsets doesn't preclude cutting emissions.

"If I can offset my emissions at a lower cost than the offset price, of course I'll be doing that," he said. And if it costs more than $25 a tonne to offset your emissions, then buying offsets from the Pacific Carbon Trust saves you money, he said.

What's important is whether the public sector is being given the right kind of financial help to cut its emissions, he said. Which leads us to the next suggested solution:

Bring back the grants

From 2008 to 2010, the Public Sector Energy Conservation Agreement (PSECA) gave out $75 million to help the public sector cut carbon. But that money has dried up. Almost everybody involved would like to see it come back.

"If there's a cost-effective project in a school we should make sure the funds are there to make sure that project's happening," said the Pembina Institute's Horne.

This is one solution that seems likely to be adopted by the government. Environment Minister Lake said in an interview that "We recognize that people have concerns with private money going to offset private companies. Ideally, what we would do is have a fund that public sector organizations could access to help them reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."

He mentioned PSECA as an example of such a fund.

In answer to the inevitable question of where the money would come from for such a fund, MLA Simpson makes this suggestion: take it from the surplus of the PCT.

Which is a step toward the next proposed solution:

Keep offset money in the public sector

This is a popular suggestion with public sector organizations and is endorsed by the BC New Democratic Party. The idea is that the money now going into offsets could be pooled into a fund that would pay for public sector emissions cuts.

"Those moneys should be remitted back to districts or to a common pot, as it were, to distribute to those districts that could make best use of the money," B.C. School Trustees Association president Michael McEvoy said in an interview.

The money, he said, "needs to remain in the public system. That's pretty simple. I don't think it takes a gathering of stakeholders to figure that out. Our view would be the minister and the government should just move to resolve the problem."

Lake seems less enthusiastic about this proposal, however.

"The problem is, if you take that money and don't reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere, you can't call yourself carbon neutral," he said.

The money currently being paid in offsets won't fund enough capital projects to eliminate all of the public sector's emissions, Lake said, although he added that he isn't ruling the proposal out.

Simpson replies that the cuts would at least be real -- no questions about whether offsets are genuine -- and they would save taxpayers money.

Simpson is among those who have put forward another proposal that's popular in the public sector, but unlikely to thrill Lake.

Give the whole public sector the deal local governments get

Municipalities get their carbon tax payments back if they agree to go carbon neutral. But they have a lot more leeway in how they achieve neutrality. They don't have to go through the PCT. Instead they can buy cheaper offsets on the open market, participate in approved GHG reduction projects or start their own projects.

"There's plenty of solutions available," said theDavid Suzuki Foundation's Bruce.

The last proposal on our list deals with the situation mentioned at the beginning of this series on carbon neutral government.

Deal with indirect emissions

UBC wants to build 8,000 new units of student housing. This would lower overall GHG emissions in the Lower Mainland by 7,700 tonnes a year; not only would the students be living in housing that would be more energy efficient than their current off-campus dwellings, but their commuting would be drastically cut.

But, because of a wrinkle in the way the B.C. government counts emissions, UBC would have to buy an extra $145,000 a year in offsets for cutting these GHGs.

In a study for the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, PhD student Kim Lau and Dowlatabadi argue that public sector organizations should assess and report indirect emissions such as those associated with commuting. However, they say, organizations shouldn't have to buy offsets for such indirect emissions. Instead, they should be encouraged to reduce them and be allowed to claim the reductions as offsets -- either to sell to the PCT or to balance their own emissions.

Dowlatabadi said the government is genuinely interested in this recommendation.

"I applaud what the Climate Action Secretariat have been doing," he said. "They've been pioneers and they should be applauded for what they've been going. Nothing is perfect the first time out.

"What we should be doing is getting feedback on how to improve it, rather than to bash it so that it goes away altogether."

It's unclear when the government's review of the carbon neutral strategy will be concluded. Lake said he's not going to put a timeline on it, other than to say that "Hopefully, into the new year we'll have a lot of these things wrapped up."

Like much of the B.C. Climate Action Plan, it's difficult to say exactly where carbon neutral government is headed or when it's likely to get there. But given the strategy's symbolic importance, a public debate around these proposed solutions can only be good for overall climate policy.

[Tags: Environment, Energy, Politics.]