The Carbon Challenge
Western Climate Initiative
Draft Design of the Regional Cap-and-Trade Program
The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) is a coalition of seven western US States and Canadian Provinces. This coalition of governments has been diligently working on creating a regional carbon and equivalent green house gas emissions cap-and-trade system. This system would put a "cap" (emissions limit) on the six major green house gasses within participating jurisdictions. This cap will allow entities (industries, businesses, governments, etc) that are able to bring their emissions below the capped level to trade their excess emissions allowances with entities that are not able to bring emissions below the cap and would otherwise face regulatory sanctions that exceed the cost of the available credits in the cap-and-trade market. The goal is to promote a transition into a carbon sensitive economy and an ultimate reduction in green house gas emissions of 15% below 2005 levels by 2020.
The latest draft of the regional cap-and-trade program was released on July 23, 2008. While the draft document lays out the basics of the program, many key issues and decision are yet to be made. Even though the final details of the WCI cap-and-trade program are still uncertain, EcoLogistics is positioning its services and carbon reduction strategies to help all WCI jurisdictions and capped entities achieve carbon and green house gas emission reductions.
EcoLogistics and the EcoMethod are focused on reducing carbon created during the construction process while taking advantage of any opportunities to strengthen the local economy, support community values, and respect our integrated environments. EcoLogistics is uniquely positioned to help WCI regulators and regulated entities transition the individual and regional economies to new level of efficiency and a resulting carbon sensitive "business as usual".
Electricity generation, industrial facilities, commercial processes, and transportation all require an infrastructure or grid to produce, move, and deploy their energies. This infrastructure requires construction. Industries and entities that are constantly constructing, renovating, upgrading, and deconstructing their facilities or infrastructure and are consequently constantly producing carbon and related green house gases. As population grows in the United States and specifically in WCI jurisdictions, all of the WCI regulated jurisdictions and regulated industries will have to construct new or upgrade existing facilities to meet this new demand. (Oregon alone is projected to add over 1,000,000 people by 2030). By using the EcoMethod, regulated jurisdictions and industry can reduce their carbon emissions and overall environmental impacts of their construction activities which should factor into their overall cap limits. Reducing emissions on construction activities can have the effect of increasing emissions capacity for activities in core business functions - effectively raising their cap. The process of controlling carbon emissions related to construction activities will identify opportunities and technologies that may be helpful in other industry activities as well. Whatever "cap" is established, the nature of the system is to prepare industry for additional reduction mandates. Investing in carbon reduction technology is investing in your business efficiency and future regulatory compliance.
Section 8.3 of the WCI Draft Design of the Regional Cap-and-Trade Program specifically talks about the distribution of carbon allowance budgets and the distribution of revenues resulting from the auctioning of CO2E allowances, with the specific objectives of:
- Reducing consumer impact (higher prices), especially for low-income consumers
- Providing for worker transition and green jobs
- Providing transition assistance to industries
- Adaptation to climate change impacts
- Recognizing early actions to reduce emissions
- Promoting economic efficiency
To promote these objectives WCI needs to support development and access to managed systems that can cost-effectively measure carbon and promote efficiencies throughout our industrial and business systems. These types of systems can effectively transition economies and behaviors from our current carbon-insensitive "business as usual" to a new efficient and carbon sensitive standard. This list of objectives fits precisely within EcoLogistics' core technologies. The EcoMethod is the system that can provide specific information that will motivate better business decisions which will move markets and economies toward more sustainable business strategies.
When regulated entities use the EcoMethod to grow, upgrade and renovate their facilities they are promoting all of the WCI objectives. Further, when the EcoMethod is used on a wider scale, the resulting business decisions can change the way all business gets done. Emissions information, options and related benefits give entities the power to make decisions that not only create efficiencies for their bottom line but create the demand for change in the markets themselves.
When regulating jurisdictions use, promote, or require the EcoMethod they are planting and feeding the seed for a ground-up change in the way we use fuels, energy, and emit carbon. An integrated set of economic, community based, and environmentally friendly objectives can all be directly linked to a reduction and more efficient use of fuels, energy, and carbon. EcoLogistics and the EcoMethod specifically identify strategic opportunities for the most cost-effective reductions in carbon and the greatest economic, community and environmental benefits available.
The EcoMethod is the system that can help regulating jurisdictions and regulated entities to transition into the new carbon-constrained future and help promote the WCI's core goal of carbon reduction with economic and community based sensitivities.