BC Environment Minister Terry Lake said he will review a policy that has forced school boards and health authorities to subsidize industry to shrink its carbon footprint.
Last week, Lake admitted his government’s carbon-neutral initiative for the public sector might need some retooling.
“We recognize that there’s a public perception problem in terms of money going from schools, hospitals to Pacific Carbon Trust and seeing those monies flow out to companies like Encana,” Lake said.
As detailed in Business in Vancouver (“Smoke and Mirrors,” issue 1139; August 23-29), the “perception” problem arises from the fact that school districts last year were forced to pay $4.4 million to the PCT, which then handed the money to companies like Encana, Interfor, Canfor and Lafarge. Health districts were likewise fined $5.4 million last year for not meeting the province’s carbon-neutral targets.
At an August 29 conference, Lake said he would be reviewing the policy. That’s the same day the BC School Trustees Association (BCSTA) sent Education Minister George Abbott a letter asking his government to return the offsets being paid by school districts to the education system to help boards make schools more energy-efficient.
“The notion that public investment in education is being diverted into the private sector, it’s fair to say that districts around the province are appalled by this,” BCSTA president Michael McEvoy told Business in Vancouver. “Boards want to make these investments in public infrastructure, and yet they’re losing the opportunity to do that by these funds being taken out of the public system. It makes absolutely no sense.”
Last year, the Surrey School District was fined $500,000 for missing its carbon-reduction targets and faces being forced to pay a similar amount in this school year.
Surrey School Board chairwoman Laurae McNally said reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is “a noble goal,” but points out that her district is caught in a dilemma. It’s growing rapidly, but receiving no capital funding to build newer, more energy-efficient schools, and then being fined for not reducing its energy consumption.
“We do everything that we can, but we’re hooped here, when we’re growing so rapidly,” McNally said. “We need a made-in-Surrey solution for the carbon offset situation.”
To date, public institutions have paid $18 million into the PCT, which has been doling the money out to large emitters for carbon-reduction initiatives that independent MLA Bob Simpson (Caribou North) said would have taken place without the PCT incentives.
Simpson calculates the PCT will have retained earnings of $30 million by 2013. He believes the province’s carbon-neutral policy should be scrapped and the public-sector money it has collected be used to fund initiatives that might really help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“It doesn’t advance the cause of GHG reduction at all,” Simpson said.
Lake ruled out scrapping either the PCT or the government’s carbon-neutral policy.
“But we do recognize that there’s got to be some way that we can assist these public-sector organizations to achieve energy efficiencies and reduce their carbon footprint.”
As part of its climate action plan, the B.C. government provided $75 million over three years for public organizations under the public sector energy conservation agreement fund to invest in upgrades that would improve energy efficiency. That money has been spent, and Lake suggested some of the PCT offsets now going to the private sector might be returned to the public sector.
This year, the B.C. government claimed it had achieved carbon neutrality by reducing greenhouse gases by 730,000 tonnes in 2010 – a claim described as “bogus” by noted sustainable energy expert Mark Jaccard.
While some of the projects the PCT has funded might have resulted in a net reduction in GHGs, others haven’t. Switching from burning coal to burning demolition or wood waste, for example, is counted as a reduction of carbon emissions, even though the actual amount of carbon going into the atmosphere remains the same.
Simpson said that even if the province can achieve true carbon neutrality, it would account for only 1% of the greenhouse gas emissions produced in B.C. He therefore thinks it’s a sham for the government to be funnelling public money to the private sector, especially when he can find no evidence that the incentives are needed. “I’ve examined every project of the Pacific Carbon trust. I cannot find one project that would not have occurred, or had not already occurred, without the Pacific Carbon Trust money.” •
