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Environmentalists hopeful cap-and-trade talks set effective example |
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Written by Scott Sutherland, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Tuesday, 13 May 2008 |
VICTORIA - Two western Canada-based environmental groups say the regional effort to develop a system to slap a price on harmful industrial greenhouse gas emissions could ultimately form the basis for North America's best response to climate change.
Vancouver's David Suzuki Foundation and the Calgary-based Pembina Institute said Tuesday the potential to reduce emissions is "huge" using the so-called cap-and-trade system being developed by the Western Climate Initiative.
"The significance of this cap-and-trade system goes beyond B.C.," said Ian Bruce, of the Suzuki Foundation.
Bruce was briefing reporters Tuesday about the importance of next week's meeting of the 10 members of the cross-border partnership in Salt Lake City where five working groups are to report.
B.C., Manitoba and most recently Quebec, as well as seven U.S. states including California, Oregon and Washington are partners in the initiative, while several more provinces and states have signed on as observers.
"There are over 63 million people now involved in this market-based economy that's going to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions," said Bruce.
He said he's confident that because the groundwork is being done by initiative members, it will make it easier for other jurisdictions continent-wide to make the inevitable choice to join in.
But Bruce, accompanied by Matt Horne of the Pembina Institute, stressed that the design of the system is at a critical stage if it is to live up to its potential as one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal to combat global warming.
The pair hope the initiative will learn from early mistakes made by the European Union, which is now introducing Phase Two of its cap-and-trade system.
In its simplest terms, governments will determine which sources will be covered by the system - for example manufacturing, oil and gas production, cement production, etc.
Annual emissions will be carefully measured, limits will be set and emission permits issued to individual companies. Each company will then be required to have permits covering its annual emissions.
Companies that can reduce emissions then have surplus permits to sell.
Bruce said his organization believes that in B.C., the cap-and-trade system has the potential to complement the province's escalating carbon tax, which will be applied to the burning of all fossil fuels beginning July 1.
The starting rate will be based on $10 per tonne of carbon emissions and rise to $30 per tonne by 2012.
But he said based on the EU's initial experience with its cap-and-trade regime, it will be crucial for the province to stick to its hard number on the industrial cap - at least 33 per cent below 2007 emission levels by 2020.
The plan should include the province's large industries and aviation, which account for about 40 per cent of B.C.'s emissions, Bruce said.
And all emission permits should be put up for auction, rather than handed out for free, as was initially done in Europe.
In April, the B.C. Liberal government introduced enabling legislation for its cap-and-trade system.
Environment Minister Barry Penner said Tuesday the legislation will give the provincial cabinet the authority, through regulation, to set some of those rules, depending on the outcome of the initiative's negotiations.
However, he would not be specific about how closely B.C. intends to follow the initiative's lead.
"We're committed to working in a good-faith fashion with our WCI partners to construct a robust trading regime and get the basic framework hammered out by sometime in August," he said.
"But we are also looking out for B.C.'s interest and will continue to do that."
He said the fact B.C. had gone ahead to become the first jurisdiction to introduce framework legislation for a cap-and-trade system had been welcomed by other initiative partners as a sign of commitment and progress.
"It hopefully helps build some momentum," he noted.
But Penner will not attend the Utah meeting, leaving that to members of the government's climate action secretariat, an arm of Premier Gordon Campbell's office.
"I don't expect anything monumental to come out of next week's meeting," he said.
The David Suzuki Foundation would like to see B.C.'s cap-and-trade system in place by early 2009.
"One of the key things is to put in place a strong enough economic signal that encourages companies to reduce their own emissions here in British Columbia, become more innovative, and develop technologies we can sell to the world (to help) address this problem," said Bruce, adding there is a huge opportunity for B.C. to become a "build it" province rather than a "buy it" province.
Penner said depending on how long it takes to draft the regulations, a functioning cap-and-trade system in B.C. by 2009 "is entirely possible."
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 13 May 2008 )
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