simple + green

Top Bay Area greenhouse gas emitters, 2005.

As we gear up for Earth Day this coming week, alot of news sources are digging up more and more environmentally relevant information.

This weekend, SFgate.com has a number of great articles bringing environmental issues into focus. One of these articles covers the fact that many Bay Area businesses will soon pay fees tied to greenhouse gas emissions… with a catch.

Under a plan proposed by regional air pollution regulators, these will be some of the nation’s first such financial penalties.

Exactly how the proposal would work is this:

If the proposal is approved next month, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District would charge 4.2 cents for every metric ton of carbon dioxide released, amounting to as much as $200,000 annually on power plant smokestacks in Contra Costa County, or as little as a few pennies a year for a San Francisco apartment complex with a backup generator.

On a sliding scale, the biggest offenders should pay the most. And I certainly can’t see much wrong with a business or apartment building that uses a backup generator (for example) needing to pay either.

It’s the way a system like this has to work. They have to track and make the biggest offenders responsible. With the hope that they can reduce their emissions.

The downside of this is that they funds won’t really be going to offset the greenhouse gases. And this, I’m not sure I understand:

The fees on businesses in the nine-county region, which would start July 1, are not enough to deter greenhouse gas production in most cases, critics and supporters agree. Rather, the estimated annual $1.2 million would pay for the cost of monitoring greenhouse gases.

“It’s not a fee that would mitigate the effects of carbon - to do that we would be planting trees and buying wind power credits,” said agency spokeswoman Karen Schkolnick. “This recovers the cost of the agency integrating climate protection into all of our programs.”

Isn’t the point to find ways to reduce the impact of these polluters? How is an annual $1.2 million spent in monitoring?

As usual, it sounds like bureaucracy. Then again, maybe I’m missing something?

And as it turns out, California isn’t really the first state to try something along these lines. Beginning last year, Boulder, Colorado imposed greenhouse gas fees on consumers and businesses to fund global warming education, energy audits and weatherization.

All told, the polluter should pay. And this quote sums it up for me:

“Industrial polluters should face financial consequences for contributing to global warming,” said Linda Weiner, director of air quality advocacy and outreach at the American Lung Association of California. “As the planet warms, that means more smog, asthma, hospitalizations. This is a very modest fee, but the cost to the planet and health care system will be much higher.”