Why Dion's election campaign carbon offset makes Canada richer, fairer, and greener

There has been some criticism coming from Conservatives about the Liberal Party's purchasing of credits to offset the greenhouse gas emissions of Stephane Dion's election travel. Basically the criticism is that the purpose of this purchase is simply to appear environmentally friendly, while the jet that the Liberal Party procured for this election is older and less efficient than the jets obtained by the NDP and the Conservatives (it's the only jet the Liberals could get).

The criticism is invalid and here are the reasons:

First of all, Dion committed the cash-strapped Liberal Party to offsetting his campaign travel as far back as February-March 2007. The point is that this commitment was made before decisions were made about campaign travel. Therefore, it gave an extra incentive for the cost-conscious Liberal Party to make his campaign travel as efficient as possible.

Second, the projects that generate voluntary offsets should satisfy a property called "additionality". This means that the money from the sale of offsets (or the anticipated sale of offsets during project planning) should make a difference in whether the project goes ahead or not. The offset vendor used by the Liberal Party, Carbonzero, says that all of its projects are additional. (By the way if you are interested in their voluntary offset methodology document, which contains a very good definition of additionality, look here.)

So the money from the Liberal Party's offsets really made greenhouse gas emissions go down somewhere else. That is how voluntary offsets are supposed to work. According to a Carbon Zero news release, "The offsets purchased by the Liberal Party of Canada will be directed by Carbonzero to a Quebec project which replaces inefficient gas boilers in heating systems with new units employing heating controls and new energy efficient piping systems...the project includes new solar heating collectors and retrofits the buildings to allow heat recovery from domestic wastewater, and switches heat generation systems from natural gas to electricity."
I'm also told that the offset project involves retrofitting non-profit housing - these are people who would have a hard time putting money upfront to make energy retrofits. Money spent on retrofits would otherwise be taken out of money spent on providing non-profit housing. So we can see why this project satisfies "additionality".

Look at what is happening with the money from Stephane Dion's campaign travel offsets:

• Stephane Dion is reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption. Good for the environment, making Canada greener.
  
• Stephane Dion is making it cheaper for low-income people to live in non-profit housing. Good for social justice, making Canada fairer.
• Stephane Dion is supporting businesses and workers that do energy retrofits, and supporting Canadian manufacturers that build green technology (e.g. see Enerworks, Renewability Energy, ECO GFX, Quantum Renewable, Ecoalternative Energy) Good for the economy, making Canada richer.

Making Canada greener, fairer, and richer: these are the promises that Stephane Dion has been making for a long time, and I think that he has kept his promise in deciding to purchase voluntary greenhouse gas offsets for his campaign travel.