Daily Chronicle: Sell carbon-eating value of Vermont trees? Proceed carefully, state study says

By Guy Page

Fight global warming by growing more trees and selling their “carbon sequestration” value to climate-conscious carbon emitters? Vermont should move forward — carefully.

That’s the gist of the final report of a legislative study committee published Jan. 4. It, and its seven recommendations, were presented yesterday to the House Energy & Technology Committee.

“Keeping forests as forests and promoting forestry practices that best sequester and store carbon are crucial to Vermont’s efforts to mitigate climate change and protect important state natural resources,” the Vermont Forest Carbon Sequestration Working Group report declared.

Guy Page

Trees consume the CO2 produced by people, animals and fossil-fuel combustion and emit oxygen. Vermont is 75% forest (4.46 million acres.) In fact, trees consume half of Vermont’s total CO2 emissions, the report said.

Therein lies an opportunity to offset CO2 emissions and make money.

Some climate change activists, landowners and foresters would set a monetary value — a “carbon credit” — for every ton of CO2 consumed by trees. At auctions, states, carbon “polluters” buy carbon credits to offset their own carbon emissions. So they can say, “for every ton of CO2 we emit, we sequester a ton of CO2 in a forest up in Vermont.”

But Vermont’s not quite ready to jump into the big carbon markets.

For example, the state of California operates a complex, expensive auction geared more to huge forest lots found in bigger states. Questions remain about how a carbon credit system would affect taxation and forest management. Winter trees don’t eat as much carbon as warm-weather forests. The working group recommends the state of Vermont:

  1. Educate Vermonters by preparing and providing information about forest carbon sequestration.
  2. Develop a plan by 2022 for a pilot carbon offset project on one parcel of state land.
  3. Help towns and cities develop pilot carbon offset projects for their own land.
  4. Explore public-private partnerships with groups experienced with carbon offsets.
  5. Prevent “double counting” of carbon sequestration. Carbon credits shouldn’t be sold to more than one entity.
  6. Protect landowners by not hindering taxation of forest land at its current use value.
  7. Allocate more money for staff and other resources to do the work listed above.

Landowners should not be compelled to participate, the study also recommended. The working group of lawmakers, environmentalists, and forest industry experts was led by Forest & Parks Commissioner Mike Snyder.

Read more of Guy Page’s reports at the Vermont Daily Chronicle.

11 thoughts on “Daily Chronicle: Sell carbon-eating value of Vermont trees? Proceed carefully, state study says

  1. Mother Nature will take care of her own, it’s a Liberals mindset that will ruin it,
    look what they have done to Vermont already…

    Wake up people, send them packing back to where they came from !!

  2. Climate change, climate change. There’s a huge broken record in Montpelier. Why this tiny state is so preoccupied with an issues over which it has NO control is typical of the myopic thinking most of our legislator bring to Montpelier year after year. As Governor Scott implored is his recent state of the state address “focus on what we MUST do and not on what we would LIKE to do.” Unfortunately, that common sense appeal fell on deaf ears.

  3. Technology keeps moving on. Recent news about converting C02 to a fuel.

    Taking a cue from plants, new chemical approach converts carbon dioxide to valuable fuel
    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/taking-cue-plants-new-chemical-approach-converts-carbon-dioxide-valuable-fuel?utm_campaign=news_daily_2020-01-08&et_rid=281402515&et_cid=3155861

    Montpelier won’t be able to fathom this as it’s against their mind set and the money boys behind the scene pushing climate change onto them.

    Science Magazine. You may have to log in to view the article. I have it if desired.

  4. No Carbon Taxes/Grow More Trees
    a Positive approach to a perplexing problem…So simple a caveman or
    women can do it…maybe a clueless leftist not so much…it’s easier for them to just steal money from you to accomplish nothing..and say they did something.

  5. The government of Vermont should not be able to sell our carbon credits. The CO2 consumed by trees in our state is a natural benefit that has nothing to do with the government. If anything we should just use the mathematical figures to justify that we in Vermont are carbon neutral. Many n VERMONT burn would for winter heat. If we sell our trees CO2 consumption to out of staters all it does is give the government more money to tell us what we cannot do.

  6. If you are really paying attention, the “Climate Crisis Emergency” is the largest hoax ever perpetrated on the world. We all want clean air, water, and soil, but wasting your hard earned money for no advantage whatsoever is just wrong. The politicians have become “scientists” and the scientists have become “politicians” at your expense. The fiasco at the State House yesterday is just graphic evidence of the media induced hysteria that has no place with reasonable, intelligent, and discerning grownups!

  7. What happens in the event of a forest fire? The carbon sequestered in the trees recombines with oxygen and is returned to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. That represents carbon sequestered over the life of the tree. Will the money paid to Vermont for the purchase of carbon credits have to be refunded to the buyers and they, in turn, taxed for the carbon dioxide they produced over that period? Will regulators adjust the repayment for the amount of unconverted carbon remaining on the ground as ash and charred wood? How are charcoal burners who make charcoal by burning wood in a low oxygen environment taxed or compensated? Is it taken into account that end users of the charcoal will convert it to carbon dioxide? How did we get a government that’s this (bloody inefficiently) insane?

  8. Pretty soon they will be telling us we can’t cut trees for firewood or lumber, because they are there to eat CO2 from other states. — these climate warming commies need to be sent packing.

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