B.C. unveils cap and trade plan today
British Columbia's largest industries today will get their first look at proposed new regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions.
The province's climate action secretariat will release two papers, one proposing details of a B.C. emissions trading regulation and one a B.C. carbon dioxide offsets regulation. The release will launch a 45-day consultation period that will be limited to written comments.
The secretariat says it hopes the regulations will be finalized by year's end.
B.C. was a key participant in an announcement earlier this week by the Western Climate Initiative, a group of 11 North American provinces and states, that some members by 2012 will impose cap and trade regulations upon large industrial emitters of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases.
In B.C., those regulations will lead to the imposition of limits or 'caps' upon 40 large industrial operations. Emitters above those limits will have to buy or 'trade' carbon credits at a projected $33 a tonne by 2020.
The climate initiative regulation requires industry to cut emissions 15 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The initiative also announced that other emission sources, including transportation, residential and commercial, will be included in its program by 2015. However, B.C. Minister of State for Climate Action John Yap said that won't happen in B.C., where a carbon tax has already been applied to all fossil fuel purchases.
Some industrial emitters acknowledged on Wednesday that they are anxious to see details of the new program B.C. is planning. For example, Vancouver's Teck Mining, which operates a series of open pit coal mines in southeast B.C., paid $16 million in carbon taxes last year and expects this will increase to $35-$40 million by 2012 in line with scheduled increases in that tax. Cap and trade will come on top of that.
"We recognize the significance of climate change and are committed to more efficient use of energy and to reducing our carbon footprint," Teck corporate affairs vice-president Marcia Smith said in an e-mail to The Vancouver Sun.
"We have completed a $1.5-billion upgrade of the Trail refinery where we reduced our greenhouse gas emission intensity by over 30 per cent. We are also focused on improving energy efficiency at all of our operations and we are looking at the increased use of renewable energy." Randy Gue, resource recovery director for Lafarge Canada's Richmond plant, said the company is "already taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint through a number of carbon reduction initiatives.
"Our hope is that our B.C. facilities are not put in an uncompetitive situation due to localized greenhouse gas regulations," Gue said in an e-mail.
Michael McSweeney, president of the Cement Association of Canada, said in an interview that B.C. cement producers export 40 per cent of their product to the Pacific Northwest, where there is no tax comparable to the B.C. carbon tax.
The tax is now $15 a tonne and "really puts us at a competitive disadvantage," he said.
He said that once the Western Climate Initiative kicks in, there will be an equivalent price on carbon in the WCI jurisdictions "and so we will have a level playing field as far as the United States is concerned."
Author/Source: Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun
URL:http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/unveils+trade+plan+today/3337612/story.html