WHEREAS as per the provincial governments Becoming Carbon Neutral guidebook, local governments will be offered three options to balance their carbon footprint in order to achieve carbon neutrality, commencing in 2013; AND WHEREAS the two options which do not involve purchasing carbon credits are restricted to funding community emission reduction projects that are outside the scope of the local governments corporate emissions boundary, which would seem contrary to the intent of the program, which is to reduce governments carbon footprint: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that UBCM lobby the provincial government to allow balancing or offsetting local government emissions through local community emission reduction projects within the scope of the local governments corporate emissions boundary in order to retain taxpayer dollars in the communities from which they have originated, while encouraging the reduction of governments carbon footprint.
Ministry of Community, Sport Cultural Development The joint Provincial-UBCM Green Communities Committee GCC has responsibility for developing a common approach to carbon neutrality under the Climate Action Charter. The Carbon Neutral Framework the Framework was developed by the GCC to support local governments in reducing their corporate greenhouse gas GHG emissions and meeting their commitment to work to achieve their goal of being carbon neutral for 2012. Under the Framework, GHG reduction projects that a local government undertakes to balance andor offset their corporate emissions must be derived from projects that occur outside of their corporate boundary. Being carbon neutral means that a local government has measured, reduced and offset any remaining corporate emissions to zero on an annual basis. Based on current technologies, and because local governments deliver services to their communities on an ongoing basis, reducing corporate emissions to zero through reduction activities alone is unlikely. As a result, local governments that wish to be carbon neutral will need to invest in emission reductions that occurred outside of their operations i.e. offsets that are equal to their remaining carbon footprint thereby achieving net zero carbon emissions. Carbon neutrality puts a boundary around a defined set of corporate emissions that must be measured and reduced to zero on an annual basis. This creates an incentive to reduce emissions within that boundary as much as possible so as to reduce the need to purchase offsets. Under the Framework local governments are encouraged to invest in projects within their corporate boundaries so that their emissions are decreased and they receive the associated benefits of cost savings and a reduced overall carbon liability e.g. they will need to purchase fewer offsets to account for the remaining emissions. Accounting for and reducing emissions within corporate boundaries is the most important aspect of carbon neutrality. The purchase of offsets only occurs after a local government has done all that it can to reduce emissions.