Crown corporation draws taxpayer group’s ire as carbon credit sales plummet

By Gordon Hoekstra, Vancouver Sun August 1, 2012
Private companies bought fewer carbon credits to offset their greenhouse gas emissions in 2011-12 than in the previous year from the Pacific Carbon Trust, showing the province’s carbon corporation is a failure, according to a taxpayers’ group. In 2010-11, the carbon trust sold 7,385 tonnes to private clients such as Helijet International, Coast Hotels and the Vancouver Aquarium. But that figure dropped to 2,167 tonnes in 2011-12 after the trust lost West Coast Air as a client. At $25 per tonne of carbon, the sales to private clients netted the Crown corporation only a little more than $54,000. The cash from private clients is dwarfed by money the Pacific Carbon Trust collects from the B.C. public sector of $18.2 million for nearly 730,000 tonnes of carbon credits. Private companies are not obligated to buy carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, provincial public institutions — including hospitals, universities and schools — have to pay the trust for carbon credits under B.C. law in order to hypothetically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to zero. (more)