Comment Log Display

I am the Clean Energy Lead with 350 Bay Area and we have been
involved in trying to set a cap on GHG emissions from refineries in
the Bay Area through our advocacy at the Bay Area Air Quality
Management District for many years and we work on energy issues as
a party in rule-makings at the CPUC.  We are active on legislation
that appears every year that refines the state's climate goals.So I
am familiar with the issue of offsets and how they are currently
being used in the state's cap and trade system which is not yet
coming close to achieving our part of getting us where the planet
needs to be by 2030.  Free allowances are a big part of the
problem. 
I am strongly opposed to having the Tropical Forest Standard added
into the mix of tools as it will only succeed in making fossil fuel
companies or other emitters hide their real pollution that is
affecting our communities here in California. They need to be
incentivized to not emit what they do in the location they do it.
It is an imaginary trade-off of possible carbon sequestration from
forests that someone believed would eventually be cut down when
there are no guarantees that either that was going to happen or
would be kept from happening as there are no real ways to enforce
it over time. Look at the ways the rainforest is burning now, how
these fires were started. And we know we need to decrease emissions
from the source. There have been no studies done that prove these
offsets could or have ever done anything to decrease emissions.  It
would be giving any emitter a way to continue doing what they are
emitting while not considering the rights of indigenous people who
live in balance with nature in these forests while providing no
incentive for them to stop their practices in our state.