Cap and Trade in Schools

Go to www.communitycarbonoffsetting.org for more information

Introduction

Cap and Trade is increasingly hitting the headlines as a good policy option for tackling climate change.  Recently the US House of Representatives passed a Cap and Trade bill for greenhouse gas emissions with a slim majority.  (news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8142935.stm)  The question is why was there such a slim majority when there is a large consensus that climate change is a significant threat for all of us?  We believe it is partly because there is profound public ignorance of Cap and Trade and that the benefits of it have not been brought into the community.

 

The G8 countries have just committed themselves to steep cuts of carbon by 2050 but have failed to produce meaningful targets for 2020.  The focus of emission reduction efforts has been on the production side of the equation (those entities such as power generators), whilst little other than simple appeals have been made to the consumer side of the equation.  We believe Cap and Trade can bring very meaningful benefits to consumers, and thus reduce demand and therefore emissions.

 

Background

Teng Hoi Conservation Organization focuses on practical, participative environmental programmes with clear educational benefits.  We also work hard to quantify benefits, so that all parties can better understand their contributions.  Our Community Carbon Offsetting programme has been under development for nearly 2 years, and was published on our website (www.communitycarbonoffsetting.org) on March 5th 2009.  Very rapid progress has been made over the last few months.  Cap and Trade in schools was launched at the ESF environmental conference on 3rd June 2009.  The response from schools has been overwhelmingly positive and has attracted media attention.

 

Outline

Participating schools need to sign a straightforward MoU with us that specifies a process for agreeing a Cap drawing on the results of a baseline energy audit.  At the end of the year, should a school have beaten its emissions Cap then Teng Hoi will take the carbon offsets generated and sell them on for the financial benefit of the school.  The monies paid to schools will be set aside in a specific fund for environmental activities only and we encourage schools to allow significant student involvement in decisions about how the fund is spent.  We also ask the school itself to match (1:1) the funds that we pay them from savings made from their electricity bill.  If a school exceeds its Cap then the school is bound to buy carbon offsets from us to offset their overshoot (as stipulated in the Cap and Trade system).  The experience of King George V school (KGV) in their own 10% programme was that 10-15% savings could be achieved by changing student habits alone, and roughly speaking this amounted to carbon savings of 200-300 tonnes (i.e. carbon offsets) worth HK$40,000 to HK$60,000.  In future years this fund can then provide some means to install energy saving equipment, renewable energy systems and other initiatives.  It also greatly increases their chances of funding from outside to improve efficiency for the future.  A video produced by KGV’s 10% Group can be seen in www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupHomepage.asp?GroupID=597126)