Three western provinces have signed an agreement with Ottawa to organize an experiment allowing a polluting company to meet pollution-reduction targets by purchasing credits from another, less-polluting company.
The federal government calls it a “flexible” way to meet greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
Essentially, the Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Pilot allows companies that can reduce pollution emissions cheaply to make money by selling the credit to a company that does not want to pay the pollution-reduction price.
The federal government hailed the four-province pilot project, saying it “may help Canada meet its climate change commitments in an economically sound way.”
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British Columbia led the way in organizing the project. Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nova Scotia and the federal government signed on.
Late last year at an international climate change conference, Canada agreed to reduce emissions of such climate-changing pollutants as carbon dioxide.
One of the concessions won by polluting countries is that companies or countries that exceed the reduction goal could convert it into money or credits by selling the success to others unable or unwilling to reduce pollution emissions.
Critics of the “pollution credit” system argued it is a way for polluters to buy their way out of reducing the damage they do to the environment.
