Carbon traders and regulated entities have urged California to boost the supply of offset projects available under its greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program to avoid skyrocketing compliance costs during the second phase of the program.
Their plea came April 11 at the Climate Action Registry’s 10th annual conference, which focused largely on California’s economywide emissions trading program and efforts to link it with the cap-and-trade program adopted by the Canadian province of Quebec (see related story; 69 WCCR, 4/10/12).
Brokerage firms and other watchers of the carbon markets speaking at the event mostly praised the structure and design of California’s program, but said their analyses indicated there would be a shortage of carbon offsets beginning in 2015, pushing the cost of compliance instruments up.
Officials from Chevron Corp. and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. also expressed concern about compliance costs and suggested the California Air Resources Board increase the time period in which covered entities are allowed to retain carbon offsets.
At the opening plenary, CARB Chairwoman Mary D. Nichols acknowledged the potential shortage of offsets.
It’s hard to believe that this idiotic program got by the “are you kidding” stage of development.
This scam is actually quite brilliant. The expense of carbon credits prompts industry to ask for anti-carbon projects. These projects cannot exist without the subsidies provided by the purchase of carbon credits. The costlier the credits become, the more ‘green’ anti-carbon projects proliferate.
However, this dynamic leads to a collapse of the system. The anti-carbon projects take up an increasing share of the economy. In the end, the costs of the system drive legitimate businesses out of the state, or even overseas. (It’s already happening.) This crashes the value of carbon credits that anti-carbon projects rely upon for their existence. California is rendered all-green, and all-bankrupt.
No wonder why the warmists clamor for world governance of carbon. When the business climate is bad everywhere, there’ll be no place to run.