City accounts for emissions

City of Powell River is now eligible to receive a grant for measuring and reporting its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

At the Thursday, August 20, council meeting, a report from Thomas Knight, director of planning services, was brought to the table outlining the steps the city had taken to comply with the Climate Action Revenue Incentive Program (CARIP). This is a condition of the BC Climate Action Charter, of which Powell River is a signatory.

At the August 4 committee of the whole meeting, Knight explained how GHG emissions attributed to the city are now a known commodity.

“As a result of that we now know where we are at corporately in terms of our GHG emissions,” said Knight. “That’s really good because going forward anything that we do, when we go to report on this next year, we’ll see if we are getting worse as a community, or better, because we now have numbers that we never had before.”

As a signatory to the charter, the city is eligible for a conditional grant from the province that annually refunds 100 per cent of the carbon tax paid on the purchase of carbon fuels used in the delivery of local government services. To be eligible to receive the CARIP grant, the city must commit to measure corporate GHG emissions, develop strategies and take action, and publicly report on the city’s ability to achieve carbon neutrality.

The calculation for GHG emissions in Powell River for 2014 is 1,212 tonnes. At the previous committee of the whole meeting, Knight said the city will be eligible to receive a refund of about $15,000 for completing the documentation.

In the most recent survey, the different types of fuels that the city used were logged, with consideration of the types of vehicles and the mileage driven. These numbers were converted to the equivalency for carbon-dioxide emissions.

At the committee of the whole meeting, Councillor Russell Brewer asked at what point legislatively was the city required to be carbon neutral.

Knight said everyone who initially signed on to the carbon-action charter said they would be carbon neutral by 2012. He said that carbon neutrality was built into Powell River’s sustainability official community plan, but the city is not yet carbon neutral, similar to a number of BC communities.

Knight added there was a requirement of the climate-action charter that once the GHG number was known, the community then had to become carbon neutral. This could be done by reducing the number to zero or buying carbon credits.

There are a number of carbon-neutral communities in BC, such as Comox. But, he said, in order to declare themselves carbon neutral, they rely on the purchase of international carbon offsets.

Knight said the province would like carbon offsets to be purchased in BC so the money remains in the province. He said the bulk of carbon credits are from outside of BC, so there is examination of establishing a protocol where credits can only be BC oriented.

Brewer said that when Powell River receives the $15,000 he would like to see it go into a tariff-refund reserve that the city has considered establishing, rather than general revenue, which has been the practice previously. He would like the grant money earmarked for a potential reserve fund.

Brewer also asked if the trees purchased in Millennium Park could be used as a carbon offset for the city’s emissions. He said it may cost money for an audit, but it may be a matter to consider at a future committee of the whole meeting.

Knight said the province does recognize local forests. He said he has information on the matter and will be providing a report.

During the city council meeting, August 20, Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman said she appreciated Knight’s report for his explanation of the CARIP initiative.

“It’s a bit complicated but it’s something that we have to do,” said Leishman. “It’s good to know where we stand.”

Councillor Maggie Hathaway said she is still bothered by how communities “can buy [their] way out of bad behaviour.”

The comment was in reference to discussions at the committee of the whole meeting regarding municipalities purchasing carbon credits to offset emissions rather than reducing them.

The recommendation before council was that the final CARIP public report for 2014 be received. Council carried the recommendation unanimously.