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California utility Pacific Gas & Electric recently implemented a program that allows customers to buy carbon offsets for the energy they use. The money is then allocated to restoration and conservation projects in California. During today's OnPoint, Laurie Wayburn, co-founder and president of the Pacific Forest Trust, explains how her group is involved in the project and discusses how forests around the country can benefit from carbon offset programs like PG&E's. Wayburn also discusses the questions surrounding the Forest Service's plans to sell carbon credits and explains why she believes forests should be addressed in a post-Kyoto climate agreement.
Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today is Laurie Wayburn, cofounder and president of the Pacific Forest Trust. Laurie, thanks for coming on the show.
Laurie Wayburn: Thank you for the opportunity.
Monica Trauzzi: Laurie, in California Pacific Gas & Electric has begun a program that allows customers to buy carbon offsets for the energy they use. And the Pacific Forest Trust is involved in that project, in the allocation of funds that are collected from customers. Explain your organization's role and the benefits that you're hoping the forest will see.
Laurie Wayburn: What Pacific Gas & Electric is doing is working through the California Climate Action Registry, which was the first registry to set real accounting standards across all sectors of the economy that contribute to global warming. Forests are a key part of that and what our organization has done is work with the registry in terms of establishing their forest program within the multi-sector registry. PG&E is investing in projects to create net emissions reductions that are registered in the state's registry. California, as you know, is the first state in the country to establish mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. And the accounting for that is built upon what the registry has done. So, what PG&E is doing is building on the state's program to create real, third-party verified carbon emissions reductions that have been achieved through a standardized accounting system. What my organization is seeking to do is show how that can be beneficial in forests. Forests are the second-largest cause of CO2 emissions, the loss and depletion of forests. And between 40 and 50 percent of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere today comes from forest loss and depletion. California's program, through the registry, for using forests in helping mitigate climate change, requires that projects be permanent, additional to what's required by law, and provide co-benefits through working with the sustainability of native forests. For my organization that creates a real win-win-win; a win for climate, a win for the environment, and a win for landowners.
Monica Trauzzi: So are there plans are ready to try to benefit forests with the money that's collected from this program?
Laurie Wayburn: Money collected from the program will be awarded to projects that PG&E selects. They have not yet selected any. Those projects will be in two areas at the moment, forests and methane recapture. So my organization doesn't have a project as yet. Nobody does, because PG&E is just doing their project selection now.
Monica Trauzzi: As you mentioned, PG&E is using the California Climate Action Registry to certify the projects. Critics of the program say that it lacks standards and oversight. Do you believe that the program is being sufficiently monitored by PG&E?
Laurie Wayburn: I think critics are concerned about voluntary carbon market. We support a very strong regulatory framework under which market forces are used to help implement the goals of that. PG&E is working with what exists today, which is a voluntary market still. The California program has very clear standards and is very rigorous, so I think that California's program actually doesn't fit within those criticisms.
Monica Trauzzi: Does a program like this give consumers a false sense of security? Do carbon offsets actually make that much of an impact that the steps that the consumers are taking are actually working?
Laurie Wayburn: When you have programs that are permanent, additional, and have co-benefits required within them, absolutely they make a difference. What people get concerned about is when you do those in a vacuum and it's one person's opinion versus another person's opinion. But that is not the case in California.
Monica Trauzzi: Because the thought is that forest carbon banking might not have the benefits that we once thought it did. So how do you convince people that the focus needs to be on reforestation?
Laurie Wayburn: Reforestation is but one component of what you can do with forests, remembering that the drivers for its CO2 emissions from forests are forest loss and forest depletion. That is what has led to perhaps, well, between 40 and 50 percent of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere today. So forests are a real source of CO2 emissions. It's not as if you were just dealing with an upside that had nothing to do with being the real problem. California's program directly addresses the problems of forest loss and forest depletion. So working with these programs today makes a big difference today.
Monica Trauzzi: As part of a separate program, recently members of Congress begin to question the forest service's plan to sell carbon credits to find reforestation projects in national forests. What's the biggest issue you see with this program?
Laurie Wayburn: I think the real concern there is that management goals for the forest service are set through public policy, standing public policy, and if you introduce something like the sales of, quote unquote, carbon credits in the national forests, you create a real mix-and-match of policy objectives. The question of what is being done its additional to being what's required, so the additionality is a question of debatable clarity in that program. And the question of the durability, one of the real issues in these voluntary markets is how do I know is this real and what is the certainty that this will be here over time? And I think that the forest service just hasn't had the time to think through some of these questions as carefully as they will in the future.
Monica Trauzzi: This is something that was essentially left on the table when the Kyoto Protocol was being written up. If it's such a key factor, why was it left out of Kyoto?
Laurie Wayburn: You're absolutely right. When you read the Kyoto Protocol, on the first page, the first clause of the Kyoto protocols says, "Whereas, all the nations in the world agree this is such a significant issue." All these nations agree that we must protect, restore, and maintain forests sinks. Everybody knew it was a huge issue on the table. And I think that in the last-minute negotiations that pulled Kyoto together it was recognized that there were different political agendas with different interests. And fossil fuels was the most critical issue for people to come to agreement on and they did come to agreement on general goals there. With forests, there was a concern that this was really a problem in more tropical countries than in the more industrialized countries. And, therefore, it wasn't going to get addressed right away. It is now clearly and centrally on the table for the next phase of Kyoto.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, so as we head into that, there are international discussions happening as early as next week. What would your recommendation be for how forests should be included in a post-Kyoto policy?
Laurie Wayburn: Well, because forests are nearly half the problem, they're going to be nearly half the solution. The only way we're going to pull excess CO2 out of the atmosphere to create a more livable climate is through working positively with forests to conserve them, to restore them, and to restore the forest carbon banks that create climate stability.
Monica Trauzzi: Do all the questions surrounding carbon offsets somehow detract from the work that you're trying to do?
Laurie Wayburn: I think that forests need to be directly incorporated in the over-arching regulatory system. That deals with the question of is it somehow off the table as opposed to central to the discussion?
Monica Trauzzi: OK. We're going to end it right there on that note. Thanks for coming on the show.
Laurie Wayburn: Thank you very much.
Monica Trauzzi: This is OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Thanks for watching.
[End of Audio]
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