Offset Scorecard: Over 1 million ARBOCs issued to ten Clean Harbors projects
November 26, 2014 by CaliforniaCarbon.info
CaliforniaCarbon.info, November 26, 2014: Since the conclusion last week of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) investigation into the validity of some 4.4 million offset credits (ARBOCs) which involved destruction acts at the Clean Harbors facility – resulting in the formal invalidation of some 88,955 credits generated by an EOS Climate project – it appears the floodgates have once again been reopened, with 1,067,290 credits issued yesterday to Clean Harbors projects.
Along with the ARBOCs shared between 10 early action and compliance Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) projects, a further 14,203 ARBOCs were awarded to two livestock projects, listed respectively by Origin Climate and Camco International Group. In total, 1,081,493 ARBOCs were issued on this occasion, bringing the total in the program to 13,568,146, after accounting for last week’s invalidation.
During the invalidation review, all 4.4 million credits were frozen, while more issuances to Clean Harbors projects in the desk review queue were embargoed pending the final determination. This greatly reduced the size of the offset market in the run-up to the first surrender date for California cap and trade.
This week’s Clean Harbors offset credits were shared between three listing entities, with EOS Climate (803,733 ARBOCs; 10 reporting periods from 6 projects) taking the vast majority. Diversified Pure Chem (153,904 ARBOCs; 3 reporting periods from 3 projects) and Environmental Credit Corp (109,653 ARBOCs; single reporting period). EOS’ large haul of credits makes them now the most prolific project developer in the program, with 3,412,062 ARBOCs to Blue Source’s 2,734,000. The large number of credits issued to ODS also takes it above forestry as the most productive project type in the program, with 6,750,244 to 6,227,370.
Eight of this week’s ten credited projects were credited under the early action mechanism. A similar number were registered under the Climate Action Reserve (CAR), with the remaining two coming through the American Carbon Registry (ACR).
The release of this volume has significantly reduced the backlog of unconverted early action credits from all listed reporting periods, which presently stands at 8.85 million. 1.33 million of these are Clean Harbors credits. In other words, this week’s issuance (874,720) wiped out some forty percent of what had been the Clean Harbors early action backlog. At the same time, 189,570 Clean Harbors ROCs saw issuance of ARBOCs to EOS Climate. A further 294,718 ODS ROCs have yet to issue ARBOCs, most of which in fact have involved destruction acts at the RemTec facility in Ohio.
This issuance may do little to ease fears about future ODS supply, with Clean Harbors having announced this month that they intend to stop doing California offset projects regardless of the outcome of the investigation and any ensuing litigation, citing the exposure to the invalidation risk as something they were unwilling to face in the long term. It remains to be seen if the other certified destruction facilities in the country can step up. Clean Harbors has helped generate 5,338,930 ARBOCs, excluding what was invalidated.
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