Oct 23 2009

A Superior Brand of Reductions

Posted by: Katie Romans

PG&E's ClimateSmart program, which helps enrolled customers offset the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions associated with their energy use, this week is announcing two new GHG emission reduction projects -- each of which tests a new kind of protocol under the Climate Action Reserve.

The first is a landfill methane capture project located in Vacaville. In its contract with Recology, a recycling company, the ClimateSmart program purchased more than 90,000 metric tons of verifiable GHG emission reductions on behalf of the program's more than 30,000 enrolled customers.

The second is an urban forestry project with the City of Arcata in which the ClimateSmart program purchased 40,000 metric tons of verifiable GHG emission reductions. 

This week's purchases brings the program's portfolio to more than one million metric tons of verifiable GHG emission reductions. The reductions all yield from projects that not only help customers offset their carbon footprint, they also roadtest protocols established by the Climate Action Reserve. 

"The ClimateSmart program has helped develop four protocols, making the program a testing ground for how to measure projects and reductions," said Robert Parkhurst, manager of climate protection and analysis for PG&E.

Those protocols include livestock and landfill methane capture, as well as urban forestry and organic waste projects.

Such protocols differentiate ClimateSmart program projects from similar projects that may be measured and credited on an individual basis outside of the watchful scope of organizations such as the Climate Action Reserve. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have questioned the extent to which these individual projects can reliably reduce carbon emissions.

Another way that GHG emission reductions from the ClimateSmart program stand superior to others is that the reductions cannot be traded. Instead, the reductions are retired with the Climate Action Reserve on behalf of the customers enrolled in the program -- not to be traded on the carbon market.

The issue of GHG emission reduction standards came to a head this week. The non-partisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests proposed that Congress establish a sort of Climate Action Reserve at the federal level. The proposed body would focus on the structure and operations of the carbon market as it develops around the protection of tropical forests.

While the debate will no doubt rage on at the federal level, the ClimateSmart program will continue to diversify its portfolio with new projects, counterparties and locations -- all with an eye toward quality and quantity of reductions.

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