EMISSIONS ESTIMATES: Alberta's oil-sands companies are required to reduce the intensity of their greenhouse-gas emissions under the province's emissions trading scheme.
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Alberta’s $57 million carbon-cutting program is failing, according to the latest report from the Canadian province’s auditor-general, Merwan Saher. Like many such programs around the world, it includes an emissions trading scheme, which allows polluters to meet their emissions reductions targets by buying carbon offsets from a selection of approved projects. The offsets are supposed to be real, measurable and provable. But the report claims that the province, despite earlier warnings, has not improved its regulatory structure—and calls the emissions estimates and the offsets themselves into question.
Nature looks at the hurdles faced by Alberta and other jurisdictions over their emissions trading schemes.
What carbon trading schemes exist around the world?
In addition to Alberta's scheme and the expiring Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) run by the United Nations, emissions trading schemes are operated in the European Union (EU), New Zealand, the city of Tokyo and by a group of northeastern US states. Several other countries and regions, including California, India and Australia, are also planning to start their own schemes.
The EU emissions trading scheme includes 11,000 power stations and industrial plants that produce half of Europe’s total carbon emissions—but it is struggling in the economic downturn (see "European carbon market plummets").
Alberta’s scheme, called the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, was passed by the Alberta legislature in 2007. It sets limits on the intensity levels of greenhouse gases emitted by Alberta facilities—oil sands operations and coal-fired power plants, for example—if they emit more than the equivalent of 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. These facilities must reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions intensity—emissions per unit of production—by 12 percent each year, but they are not required to reduce their overall emissions.
How are emissions measured?
Not all greenhouse-gas emissions are measured in the same way—or with the same level of accuracy. In industrial settings, continuous emissions-monitoring systems can directly monitor flue gases for CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Less-accurate emissions estimates are calculated based on surrogate measurements, such as the number of kilowatt hours of energy produced or miles driven. Alberta, unlike other jurisdictions, has opted to link reduction targets to a facility’s production output.
Who checks the emission estimates?
In Alberta, the Department of Environment and Water requires facilities to have their emission estimates (and offset projects) independently verified. The department also uses another set of verifiers to confirm reports for a sample of those facilities that are signed up to the scheme. The UN’s CDM keeps track of all eligible projects in an online registry.
What can you get credits for?
Alberta facilities can receive carbon credits by investing in a variety of Alberta-based projects. These range from paying farmers to adopt low-till or no-till agricultural practices—thereby turning fields into carbon sinks—to the collection and combustion of landfill gas.
Examples from the CDM include siphoning off the methane produced by pig farms and feeding it to a power plant that would otherwise have used fossil fuels; investing in the development and operation of an energy-efficient rapid transit system in Delhi, India; and dissemination of efficient wood stoves in Nigeria to reduce wood demand and deforestation.
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22 Comments
Add CommentIt sure didn't take them long to turn carbon credits into a nightmare, did it? Everyone knew that wasn't going to work, that's why they came out with it...companies that pollute can continue to pollute. There is only one way to stop industries from polluting, and that is to stop the industries and automobiles from burning fossil fuel all together.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA ridiculous 'tax' that, like most taxes, accomplishes nothing but add hurdles to innovation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarbon off sets and credits is part of a big con job anyway, it's a way to shift cash from rich countries to poor ones, it also made some of the elite like A.Gore very rich. If global warming is happening now, please explain how Otiz the ice age mummy walked on land that latter was covered by a glacier (5300 years ago). Here is an idea mankind caused global cooling, and now as mankind is cleaning up their act, the climate is going back were it should be. Even if global warming is happening, is it a bad thing? During the age of Dinos it was warmer and the earth bios mass was in a form of run away, about 50 million years ago it was warmer then, then it is now and again the bio mass was in run away (trees from shore to shore in most places in the world). The world just pasted 7 billion population, soon will be 8 billion, if we are going to feed them we are going to need a hot house. Think about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah. And stop transportation and electric power. What good are they anyway?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain, you obnviously haven't heard of snow and how it compacts to form glacial ice. Obviously, you haven't heard that the ability to use our atmosphere as an open sewer has made those elite Koch brothers very rich. The need to cover up that dirty, little secret has made "think" tanks like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, API, etc. very rich peddling lies that are universally friendly to their paymasters' bottom line. Your blind acceptance of these lies, whether knowingly or unknowingly, makes you sound like an ignoramus on these message boards.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe offsets are failing because they are ramping up tar sands production, which is a dangerous carbon bomb that will go off if we tap it. Blocking Keystone was a good first step in keeping this carbon where it belongs, in the ground. If we just increase our vehicle fuel efficiency, provide more transportation options and reduce sprawl, there's no need to build the Keystone fuse to the tar sands carbon bomb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe offsets will only reduce carbon use if they actually cost more than the benefits from using the carbon in the first place. There also needs to be a real alternative. If the only alternative to carbon use with a tax (offset) is some magical non-carbon-using energy that doesn't actually exist then I guess everyone is going to pay the tax and use the carbon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou just proved what I said, inorder for the glacier to form and stay it had to get and stay cooler.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother Major website discover had an thing about Otiz and how the rock indent were he died stoped the glacier from getting at him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarbon capture tax is hard to verify. The better system should be based on value added tax (vat). Consumers should decide how much carbon they want to consume. The bigger spenders should pay more of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you actually read anything about the Canadian tar sands? The US is already receiving oil from there, through another pipeline. The Keystone will allow us to purchase more and ship it more efficiently. The Chinese are already financing a new pipeline to the west Canadian coast, so that they can purchase the oil that we don't. Stopping the Keystone would Not halt, nor even slow production, it would only add to American dependence on middle eastern oil, and at higher costs. There is no upside.Please, sault, take time to read up on the subject, Before you comment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt truly is better to remain silent and be thought an idi0t, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
If you had made proper use of a dictionary or spell check program -- 'inorder' is not a word -- your post would almost make sense. Almost. You clearly do not grasp the concept of a body being revealed by retreating ice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Another Major website discover had an thing about Otiz and how the rock indent were he died stoped the glacier from getting at him."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the reminder of the fascinating Ötzi story.
You made six spelling, capitalization and punctuation errors in a mere 24 words. I don't mean to be mean, but that sort of thing does affect one's credibility.
Ditto.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfacts are still facts, even if the sheeple try to cut it down. But thanks for the infomation. Don't touch what people have in their hearts. To the one that talked about desert, only during 1st age of Dinos.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe pipeline to China is being blocked too and hopefully, this will slow production growth of the tar sands carbon bomb. If we took all the money set aside to clean up oil spills from Keystone & offshore drilling as well as taxed imported oil at $1 per barrel, we could finance a complete EV charging infrastructure AND get high speed rail for passengers and freight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we stopped making gas guzzlers and instead required vehicles that are appropriate for the 21st Century, we wouldn't need to import as much oil and we could even convert a lot of cars over to natural gas or advanced biofuel.
Just because you're not intelligent enough to see different ways around a problem, that doesn't mean you need to throw around quotes just to cover up that fact.
OH, BTW, that $1 per barrel tax is just the BEGENNING in cancelling out the HUGE subsidy towards the oil markets that our misadventures in the Middle East have provided.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSault, you should read up:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.therepublic.com/view/story/26aa89522f7b4c7e85dceadf69d1db1f/CN--Canada-US-Oil-Pipeline/
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he made it clear in a weekend meeting with Obama that the nation will step up its efforts to sell oil to Asia since the decision was delayed, and would keep pushing the U.S. to approve the project
or this: http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2011/11/28/following-delay-of-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-to-u-s-china-is-anxious-to-tap-into-canadas-tar-sands-oil/
Great, we don't need to make it easier to import oil into this country anyway. If China wants this stuff, let them pay to clean up after their mess up there once tar sands aren't viable anymore. I give it 10 - 15 years. If we just stopped making gas guzzlers so the average family wasn't saddled with a huge fuel bill, then we wouldn't need this stuff anyway. If we provided more transportation options besides requiring cars to get anywhere, then we wouldn't need to import any oil at all. If we placed jobs, housing, shopping, schools, etc. in closer proximity and took traffic jams for what they are (a burden on society that can be fixed with proper planning), then we could start saving our domestic oil reserves for when we REALLY need them. You know, if there's ever another big war or protracted crisis, we'll sure be regretting the "Drill, Baby, Drill!" mantra of the early 21st Century. Finally, if we use the money we would spend importing oil to build an electric car infrastructure and high-speed rail, we could say "bye-bye" to the toxic dino-juice our society has been beholden to for generations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissault,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) What could possibly make you think China would pay to clean up the Canadian tar sands?
2) To make mass transit possible, suburbia itself would have to be changed. Think of the cost of that.
3) Electric cars are, at best, energy neutral after their full use cycle is taken into account. There's no gain to be had here without huge expansion of nuclear generation (which has its own problems).
4) Rail doesn't work in the U.S. Plain and simple. No amount of boondoggle mega rail projects will change that. They're main effect is regressive wealth redistribution.
Sault - I was just going to complement you for commenting without shouting and insulting, and then you had to add this: "Just because you're not intelligent enough to see different ways around a problem,"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSame old, same old.
"Price on Carbon Failing to Reduce Greenhouse-Gas Emissions"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSURPRISE!!!
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