Lawsuit filed against California cap-and-trade offsets
Washington, 28 March (Argus) — Two environmental groups have asked a California state court to block the state's plans to allow offsets to be used for compliance in its greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program.
The Citizens Climate Lobby and Our Children's Earth Foundation filed the suit in the California Superior Court for the County of San Francisco. The groups say that offsets cannot meet the statutory requirements set under the state's climate change law, AB 32. The law adopted in 2006 calls for the state to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and requires the emissions reductions to be “real, permanent, quantifiable, verifiable and enforceable by the state board.”
The lawsuit is limited in scope compared to many of the challenges to the program that have been anticipated. The plaintiffs are seeking a repeal only of the California Air Resources Board's (ARB) offset protocols that allow offsets as compliance instruments, rather than targeting the entire cap-and-trade program.
A spokesman for the board said it was aware of the lawsuit, but was not yet prepared to comment. ARB staff have said in the past that offsets are a critical part of keeping compliance costs low. The board says the four offset protocols it has adopted under the program are stringent, and that offset projects will receive strict scrutiny before credits are issued to them.
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