NDP leader Adrian Dix chose Earth Day to announce his party's plan to "dissolve" the Pacific Carbon Trust, and put carbon offset payments from government operations back into energy efficiency projects.
Schools, hospitals and Crown corporations would still pay millions for emissions from their fossil fuel use, Dix announced Monday in Kamloops. The NDP would also redirect $120 million from the carbon tax on fuels "to fight climate change in both urban and rural areas," Dix said.
The carbon tax is currently at $30 a tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, which adds seven cents to the cost of a litre of gasoline and comparable amounts to other fuels. The legislation requires it to be "revenue neutral" to the government through reduced income tax rates, so the NDP redirection implies that those rates may increase.
The Pacific Carbon Trust was criticized in a March report from B.C. Auditor General John Doyle, who found the largest two recipients of carbon credits were not "credible" carbon offsets. A forest preserve in the Kootenays and an EnCana Corp. gas flaring reduction program had already been established without the $6 million in payments from the Pacific Carbon Trust.
B.C. universities paid $4.46 million into the Pacific Carbon Trust in 2011. B.C.'s 60 school districts paid a total of $5.36 million the same year, and the province's six health authorities paid $5.79 million.
The B.C. Liberals' "carbon neutral government" project has been controversial from the start in 2008. Facing criticism about taking money from cash-strapped schools and giving it to profitable corporations, the government agreed this year to put school district payments in a fund they can apply to for energy-saving upgrades.
The NDP would extend that approach to the entire program.