Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Carbon Offsets...Nevermind The Misdirection Attempts Of The Vested Interests...



...Just Pay Attention To The 'Free Riders'


Because the latter are the key to Auditor General's findings as Norm Farrell points out and as Ben Parfitt pointed out earlier today.

Specifically:

"...Encana’s project was projected to be more financially beneficial to the company than its previous practices, regardless of offset revenue, while the Darkwoods property was acquired without offsets being a critical factor in the decision. In industry terms, they would be known as ‘free riders’ – receiving revenue ($6 million between the two) for something that would have happened anyway..."



So.

Everytime you hear a party with a vested interest and/or a BC Liberal Party government member (and/or a surrogate) blather on about how the Auditor General doesn't have the expertise to make the call on this thing, just ask yourself the following....

Have the blatherers convinced me that the major beneficiaries of the offsets did not get a 'free ride'?


If not, ignore them.

The vested interests, the BCL gov't members and/or their surrogates I mean.

And ignore any 'he said/she said' proMedia reports that do not address this central issue as well.

OK?

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8 comments:

cfvua said...

At the time company E arranged this gas was selling for a healthy number and their excuse was they would flare less of it. Something they would have reduced anyway. Why flare when you can sell. Unless some unsuspecting group of taxpayers will pay you to sell of course. The much trumpeted entrepreneurial spirit of these companies is very suspect when they have to rely on programs like this.
No wonder these companies have positions called inter governmental relations. Pathetic!!

Hugh said...

Do we, like, get our money back?

Anonymous said...

I'm looking for the specific law (or regulation) stating that the carbon offset money recipient would not have gone forward with the business were it not for the offset monies - can't find it.

Not saying it doesn't exist - just saying I can't see it.

North Van's Grumps said...

Conservative Thoughts "Any smart business person would have made those changes anyways. Why? Because doing them increases profits, and saves them money!" May 29, 2012 - Alan Forseth in Kamloops

PCT:
"Pacific Carbon Trust has invested in an Improved Forest Management project that will result in the conservation of select old growth stands on TimberWest's private land. This is the first forest project to use BC’s Forest Carbon Offset Protocol (FCOP). The project is located on a 26,000 ha of Timberwest’s old growth forest free-hold property on Vancouver Island."

Anonymous said...

Yes "our" money...another form of corporate deception and ultimately profit..and of course the socialist aspect the neo-libs always revert too when they screw up...the taxpayer pays when things go wrong...
Get the thrives out of office and bill the corpratist's for a) being stupid enough to align themselves with the current bunch of thieves and two...for ripping the taxpayers off period...

RossK said...

Anon-Above--

In this case, instead of socializing the risk they just made it non-existent.

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Anonymous said...

David Suzuki = John Doyle

"......Another important issue to consider when purchasing offsets is "additionality". An offset project is considered additional if it isn't business as usual. Typically, this means that the project wouldn't have happened without the extra funding from the sale of offsets. Additionality is extremely important, as the entire concept of offsetting—i.e., purchasing greenhouse gas reduction credits from a project elsewhere—is based on the premise that those reductions wouldn't have happened otherwise. Only by buying offsets that have met additionality criteria can you be assured that your purchase is resulting in a net benefit for the climate.

RossK said...

Thanks very much Anon--

I wonder if the vested interests consider Suzuki smart enough to opine about such things?

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