Comment Log Display

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Subject: Stand with Indigenous allies, say no to tropical forest
offsets -- Notice of Availability and Public Comment Period For the
California Tropical Forest Standard and Draft Environmental
Analysis

Dear California Air Resources Board Officials,

As a California resident, I am writing to urge you to reject and
withdraw the deeply flawed California Tropical Forest Standard and
to ensure that these offsets never are accepted into California's
carbon trading system. In the name of our climate, health and
wildlife, we must act as quickly as possible to keep fossil fuels
in the ground right here in California. That means requiring
industrial polluters to make deeper greenhouse gas cuts at their
own facilities rather than certifying carbon-offset schemes in
jurisdictions thousands of miles away.

Specifically, I urge you to abandon this plan for the following
reasons:

1) Carbon offsets allow big emitters in California to keep
polluting, often in low-income communities of color, instead of
reducing their carbon footprint. They perpetuate pollution hotspots
and prevent California from taking real action on climate change.
To prevent the worst effects of climate change, we can't afford to
make way for carbon offsets that enable fossil fuel companies to
continue polluting in California. Our carbon budget for preventing
devastating climate change harms is nearly spent. And with offsets,
some industrial polluters in California will emit more greenhouse
gas pollution--and for longer--than they would otherwise be allowed
in the absence of those offsets.

2) We know that the greenhouse gas pollution from industry is very
often accompanied by other pollutants that worsen air quality. We
must cut carbon pollution at its source here in California to
ensure the health and safety of our communities.

3) Tropical forest carbon offsets lack integrity and are impossible
to police across national borders. Similar schemes resembling the
draft California Tropical Forest Standard have failed to prove
reliable with their carbon accounting and guaranteed permanence. To
make matters worse, these offset programs have a poor track record
of actually reducing deforestation. For these reasons, no
compliance market in the world accepts tropical forest carbon
credits, and California should not be the first. We can do better.

4) Tropical forest offset programs threaten the rights of
indigenous peoples in the Amazon and beyond, placing forest peoples
at risk of displacement and losing control of their territories,
their cultures, and their ways of life. In places like Brazil and
Indonesia, they have a disturbing track record of disrupting
indigenous communities and the surrounding forest ecosystems. 

For all these reasons, I urge you to reject the draft California
Tropical Forest Standard and to commit to ending new permits for
oil and gas projects in California. If California wants to be a
real climate leader, it must do better than "offsetting" pollution.
We must address the primary cause of climate change: fossil fuel
extraction and combustion. Our climate, health, and wildlife can't
afford the grave threat of continued fossil fuel development.

Thank you for your consideration of my comments. Please do NOT add
my name to your mailing list. I will learn about future
developments on this issue from other sources.

Sincerely,
Christopher Lish
San Rafael, CA