Carbon Funds are increasingly being established by municipalities across the country, and are recognized as an important lever to help push municipal sustainability agendas forward, including addressing climate change. The City of Dawson Creek established a Carbon Fund in an effort to support the City’s Climate Action Charter commitments, including the City's goal to achieve corporate carbon neutrality by 2012. Council approved the initiative in June 2011 and the Fund was established through the Dawson Creek Carbon Fund Policy, allowing the City to put a price on their corporate carbon emissions and then reinvest those funds back into projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Corporate emissions that are remaining at the end of each year are counterbalanced through the purchase of offsets - which are financed separately from the Fund.
The City is committed to implementing emission reduction projects before relying on offset purchases to achieve corporate carbon neutrality and has initially established a charge of $100 per tonne of corporate GHGs produced annually. The investment is scheduled to increase (by whichever is the greater) of either $5 per year, or in accordance with increases in the BC Carbon Tax. The Fund is also partially financed by grants received through the Climate Action Revenue Incentive Program (CARIP) and from the City’s general funds. The Fund currently holds an estimated $360,000.
Three key lessons learned from the establishment of the Carbon Fund include:
- political support is critical to ensure the Fund is seen as demonstrating the City’s commitment to climate action,
- clear and consistent communication with Council on the opportunities derived from Fund is critical in building support momentum, and
- it is fundamental to implement a process to select projects to ensure consistency and transparency in the use of the Fund.