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California Doubles Offset Use in Cap-And-Trade Plan (Update1)
2010-10-29 13:33:07.515 GMT
(Updates with offset volumes and projects starting in the
third paragraph.)
By Simon Lomax
Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- California environmental regulators
plan to let power plants, oil refineries and factories use more
carbon offsets to meet pollution targets in the state's cap-and-
trade program for greenhouse gases.
Companies in the cap-and-trade program could use the
offsets, which are pollution cuts from unregulated sources such
as farms and forests, to meet up to 8 percent of their
"compliance obligation," the California Air Resources Board
said in a report on its website. The air quality agency had
earlier proposed a 4 percent offset limit.
Between 2012, the first year of the proposed cap-and-trade
program, and 2020, "a maximum of 232 million offset credits may
be used," the agency said in the report. Each offset credit
represents one metric ton of carbon dioxide. Only U.S. offsets
are likely to be accepted at first, although the agency says it
may later accept carbon cuts from developing countries.
The carbon trading proposal is authorized under
California's Global Warming Solutions Act, which requires the
state to cut its greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. The
agency's 11-member board will meet Dec. 16 to vote on the plan.
Details of the state's cap-and-trade program are being
released four days before California voters decide whether the
global-warming law should be delayed until the economy improves.
Proposition 23 on the Nov. 2 ballot would suspend the carbon-
cutting law until California's unemployment rate falls from its
current level of 12.4 percent to 5.5 percent for at least a
year.
Offset Sources
U.S. forests, farms that capture methane from livestock
manure and projects that destroy ozone-depleting industrial
gases, such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons, would be the approved
sources of carbon offsets at the beginning of the cap-and-trade
program, according to the agency. The offsets must be approved
by the Los Angeles-based Climate Action Reserve, the agency
said.
California may later accept carbon offsets from developing
countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, after "intensive
review," the agency's report said. Carbon offsets from
preventing the destruction and degradation of tropical rain
forests are "likely to be the first type of sector-based
crediting program brought to the Board for consideration," the
agency said in the report.
For Related News and Information:
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
Stories about U.S. and climate: TNI US CLIMATE <GO>
Global emissions data: EMIS <GO>
Northeast U.S. trading: RGGI <GO>
--Editors: David Marino, Joe Link
To contact the reporter on this story:
Simon Lomax in Washington at +1-202-654-4305 or
slomax@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Stets at +1-212-617-4403 or
dstets@bloomberg.net
